There is a passage in Montesquieu’s Persian Letters that reads like a paraphrase and expansion of this: “Quand le médecin est auprès de mon lit, le confesseur me trouve à son avantage. Je sais bien empêcher la religion de m’affliger quand je me porte bien; mais je lui permets de me consoler quand je suis malade: lorsque je n’ai plus rien à espérer d’un côté, la religion se présente, et me gagne,” etc. Plutarch tells us of Tullus Hostilius, that he exulted in irreligious opinions while in health, but was frightened into superstition when taken ill. To this passage, one of Plutarch’s translators, Dr. Langhorne, appends a footnote, about none being so superstitious in distress as those who, in their prosperity, have laughed at religion; and cites as an instance the famous Canon Vossius, who was “no less remarkable for the greatness of his fears, than he was for the littleness of his faith.” Cowper would cite to the same purpose a more distinguished example: “The Frenchman first in literary fame; Mention him, if you please. Voltaire? The same. ... The Scripture was his jest-book, whence he drew _Bon-mots_ to gall the Christian and the Jew: An infidel when well, but what when sick? Oh, then a text would touch him to the quick.” Swift gives a satirical narrative of “what passed in London during the general consternation of all ranks and degrees of mankind” on account of the predicted destruction of the world by a comet, on a given day. Friday was the declared day; and during Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, public bewilderment and terror are described as extreme—the churches crowded, and thousands praying in the public streets. At length Friday came. But as the day wore on, popular fears began to abate, then lessened every hour; “at night they were almost extinct, till the total darkness that hitherto used to terrify, now comforted every freethinker and atheist. Great numbers went together to the taverns, bespoke suppers, and broke up whole hogsheads for joy. The subject of all wit and conversation was to ridicule the prophecy and rally each other. All the quality and gentry were perfectly ashamed, nay, some utterly disowned that they had manifested any signs of religion. “But the next day, even the common people, as well as their betters, appeared in their usual state of indifference. They drank, they swore, they lied, they cheated, they quarrelled, they murdered. In short, the world went on in the old channel.” To apply what Butler says of “saints” in his application of the word, as a cant term then of political significance: “For saints in peace degenerate, And dwindle down to reprobate; ... And though they’ve tricks to cast their sins, As easy as serpents do their skins, That in a while grow out again, In peace they turn mere carnal men; And from the most refined of saints As naturally turn miscreants,[15] As barnacles turn solan geese I’ th’ islands of the Orcades.”