Ever since Christianity has been adopted by some nations, have we not seen that religion has almost entirely occupied the attention of sovereigns? Either the princes, blinded by superstition, were devoted to the priests, or the rulers of nations believed that prudence exacted a concession on their part to the clergy, the true masters of their people, who considered nothing more sacred or more great than the ministers of their God. In neither case was the body politic ever consulted; it was cowardly sacrificed to the interests of the court, or the vanity and luxury of the priests. It is by a continuation of superstition on the part of the princes that we behold the church so richly endowed in times of ignorance; when men believed they would enrich Deity by putting all their wealth into the hands of the priests of a good God the declared enemy of riches. Savage warriors, destitute of the manners of men, flattered themselves that they could expiate all their sins by founding monasteries and giving immense wealth to a set of men who had made vows of poverty. It was believed that they would merit from the All-powerful a great advantage by recompensing laziness, which, in the priests, was regarded as a great good, and that the blessings procured by their prayers would be in proportion to the continual and pressing demands their poverty made on the wealthy. It is thus that by the superstition of princes, by that of the powerful classes, and of the people themselves, the clergy have become opulent and powerful; that monachism was honored, and citizens the most useless, the least submissive, and the most dangerous, were the best recompensed, the most considered, and the best paid. They were loaded with benefits, privileges, and immunities; they enjoyed independence, and they had that great power which flowed from so great license. Thus were priests placed above sovereigns themselves by the imprudent devotion of the latter, and the former were enabled to give the law and trouble the state with impunity.