The pervading object, the avowed purpose in this society, was to seek pleasure, to declaim against abuses in institutions, moral, political, and Christian, in the public at large, in domestic habits and manners, in the state, and in the church. But these refined creatures were not good, nor moral, nor pure, nor Christians themselves; they made no pretensions to any of these virtues; they were not proselyting reformers; they were in no sense radicals; they made no active exertions to pull down, neither did they aim to build up, nor to improve the world, but were content to deplore human evils and to rail at everybody. If a choice had been given to them to abolish institutions, or only to remove their abuses incident to all things of human creation, they would have preferred to abolish the institutions, provided the abuses were permitted to remain intact. But as they could not be rid of the beneficial advantages of the substance without the banishment of the evil shadow, they were content to tolerate the nuisance of what was a blessing to the nation, in order to possess for themselves the parts pernicious which were of sinful, comfortable consideration in their sight. They supposed their mission fulfilled when they talked and did nothing. If one of the coterie had turned patriot and aspired to usefulness, he would have been deemed a harmless traitor, and commiserated for the folly of his desertion. His efforts would have subjected him to their lamenting sympathy, their smiling mockery, their laconic brevities, which, although seemingly soothing, would be as scorching as they were short. Because he had accomplished something commendable or attempted its accomplishment, they would decide he had fallen from grace, had rendered himself liable to their biting condolence, and laid himself open to the piercing shafts of their pity. Voltaire, still lingering in his senility as head and chief priest of this highly refined and deeply depraved community, had sent forth a parting rescript to the faithful in their infidelity, that "one who has done nothing is possessed of a terrible advantage; but he must not abuse it."