* That we may understand the general feelings of priests respecting the rest of mankind, whom they always call by the name of the people, let us hear one of the doctors of the church. "The people," says Bishop Synnesius, in Calvit. page 315, "are desirous of being deceived, we cannot act otherwise respecting them. The case was similar with the ancient priests of Egypt, and for this reason they shut themselves up in their temples, and there composed their mysteries, out of the reach of the eye of the people." And forgetting what he has before just said, he adds: "for had the people been in the secret they might have been offended at the deception played upon them. In the mean time how is it possible to conduct one's self otherwise with the people so long as they are people? For my own part, to myself I shall always be a philosopher, but in dealing with the mass of mankind, I shall be a priest." "A little jargon," says Geogory Nazianzen to St. Jerome (Hieron. ad. Nep.) "is all that is necessary to impose on the people. The less they comprehend, the more they admire. Our forefathers and doctors of the church have often said, not what they thought, but what circumstances and necessity dictated to them." "We endeavor," says Sanchoniaton, "to excite admiration by means of the marvellous." (Proep. Evang. lib. 3.) Such was the conduct of all the priests of antiquity, and is still that of the Bramins and Lamas who are the exact counterpart of the Egyptian priests. Such was the practice of the Jesuits, who marched with hasty strides in the same career. It is useless to point out the whole depravity of such a doctrine. In general every association which has mystery for its basis, or an oath of secrecy, is a league of robbers against society, a league divided in its very bosom into knaves and dupes, or in other words agents and instruments. It is thus we ought to judge of those modern clubs, which, under the name of Illuminatists, Martinists, Cagliostronists, and Mesmerites, infest Europe. These societies are the follies and deceptions of the ancient Cabalists, Magicians, Orphies, etc., "who," says Plutarch, "led into errors of considerable magnitude, not only individuals, but kings and nations." That they had everywhere attributed to themselves prerogatives and immunities, by means of which they lived exempt from the burdens of other classes: That they everywhere avoided the toils of the laborer, the dangers of the soldier, and the disappointments of the merchant: That they lived everywhere in celibacy, to shun even the cares of a family: That, under the cloak of poverty, they found everywhere the secret of procuring wealth and all sorts of enjoyments: That under the name of mendicity they raised taxes to a greater amount than princes: