I know nothing more dangerous, than the inconsiderate censures of those religious ceremonies received and respected in the country we live in: some do not think that they are acting wrong when they speak slightingly of the various symbols of public worship; yet, if they attentively observed the kind of minds, and the first habits of the greater part of those to whom they address such discourses, they would know how easy it is to wound them in the sentiment which is the source of all their tranquility, and the safeguard of their moral conduct. The deliverer of Switzerland struck off with one of his arrows an apple placed on the head of his only son; but every one cannot expect to be so fortunate. Some would contradict these assertions, by saying, that celebrated men have occasioned rapid changes in the church of Rome without weakening religion. The origin, the circumstances, and the result of a revolution so marked in history, has not any connexion with the present question; the reformers of the sixteenth century, preaching a new doctrine, openly professed religious zeal and a fervent piety: thus, at the same time that they disapproved of a part of the established worship, they more rigidly recommended all the fundamental opinions of Christianity, and sought to introduce a severity of manners which even extended to the proscription of several indulgences that had not been before condemned: and, in fact, if the new doctrines had not been united to the greatest respect for the essential principles of the Christian religion, they never would have had so many followers. They cannot then establish any kind of comparison between the censures poured forth by the reformers, and the ridicule or contempt of those who now insult our most respectable opinions; those men, who at present abound, are sometimes excited by a libertinism of mind and conduct, by self-love or the enthusiasm of false philosophy, and some of them are seduced by an air of superiority, attached to the principles which they themselves institute. There is a great difference between the grave and serious course of the reformers, and the various evolutions of the active opponents of religion: the latter do not take care to stop at clearing up a point of doctrine, or a disputed interpretation of some dogma; it is religion itself that they wish to attack, and if they begin with the outworks, it is in order to undermine it; they take skilfully their post, and know when to have recourse to a tone of pleasantry; which is very dangerous, as it gives an air of confidence to those who employ it, and they obtain a kind of ascendency in avoiding every idea of an equal combat: one is disposed to think, that it is by disdain that they glance slightly over the subject; we cowardly submit to the appearance of their superiority; and that which is in them weakness or impotence gives consequence.