and virtue its encouragement; oppressed innocence its only refuge, and sensibility its dearest hopes. Yes, the pure spirit of religion surrounds us on every side, it makes the charm, of solitude, the band of society, the invigorater of intimate affections; and can we calumniate it and wish to destroy it, on recollecting the tyrannic opinions of some priests and sovereigns, whose principles and conduct we now detest? I shall further remark, and ask why men denounce a sentence of reprobation against religion, and give as the motive, the ancient wars of which it has been the origin; whilst they never contest the importance of commerce, though rivers of blood have been continually shed for the smallest advantage on this account? Can they be so mistaken in their judgment, as to compare a few pecuniary advantages, which one political state never enjoys, but at the expence of another, with those, as precious as they are universal, of which religion is the origin and support? In short, among the various arguments that are employed to attack these opinions, the most frivolous, undoubtedly, is that which derives all its force from the errors and faults of which the present times do not furnish any example. What should we say if, at the moment when a superb edifice was firm on its foundation, we should be exhorted to level it with the ground, by a relation of all the accidents its erection occasioned? Throwing then a painful retrospect on the period of history, when religion was made the pretext of wars and cruelty; let us oppose to the return of those sanguinary scenes, let us oppose to the spirit of intolerance all the force of wisdom, and the instructions of that religion which they pretend to serve by a blind zeal. But far from freeing us from the respect which we owe to such salutary opinions, which men have abused, let us take advantage of experience, as a new defence against the wanderings of our imaginations, and the surprises of our passions[2]. CHAP. IX. _Another Objection examined. The Sabbath._