Men, in order to express their gratitude to the sovereign Master of the World, must borrow from their imaginations every thing grand and majestic: thus, when they detach from those reverential signs the ideas that they represented and preserve, they only display a vain gravity, a chimerical pomp; and it is easy to make a similar contrast a subject of ridicule; but in acting thus, far from making us applaud their talents, they insult, without any sense, the habit most men have acquired of venerating, on the whole, every system of worship paid the Supreme Being. Nevertheless, the bold and frivolous discourses which are permitted against religion in general, have made such a progress, that at present the persons who most respect these opinions, without ostentation or severity, find themselves obliged to conceal or moderate their sentiments, lest they should be exposed to a kind of contemptuous pity, or run the risk of being suspected of hypocrisy. We are at liberty to speak on every subject, except the most grand and interesting which can occupy men. What strange authority gave rise to this imperious legislation, which is termed fashionable? What a miserable conspiracy, that of weakness against Omnipotence! Men are proud of knowing at what hour the king wakes, goes to the chace, or returns; they are very eager to be informed of the vile intrigues which successively debase or exalt his courtiers; they pass, in short, their whole lives in panting after objects of vanity and badges of slavery; they are continually brought into conversation; and they proscribe, under the dreadful name of vulgarity, the most remote expression, which would recal the idea of the harmonious universe, and the Being who has bestowed on us all the gifts of the mind; what is most excellent in our nature we overlook, to dwell only on the inflations of vanity. Ungrateful that we are! Our intelligence, our will, all our senses, are the seal of an unknown power; and, is it the name of our Master and Benefactor that we dare not pronounce? it is from your modern philosophers that this false shame arises; you, who spread derision over the most respectable sentiments, and employing in the dispute the frivolous shafts of ridicule, have given confidence to the most insignificant of men; you have, for your followers, a numerous race, which is taken promiscuously from every rank and age.