The generality of mankind are so much accustomed to what is irrational, that it is astonishing to find people endeavouring to draw a rational inference from their conduct. Experience teaches us that they are always running after shadows, and that they neither do nor say anything betokening common sense. These fanatical notions on which they found their belief will always be in vogue, in spite of the efforts of the learned who have invariably set themselves against them. So rooted are their follies that they had rather be crammed with them to repletion than make any effort to be rid of them. It was to no purpose that Moses boasted that he was the interpreter of God, and attempted to prove his mission and his authority by extraordinary signs. If he absented himself for a short time (as he did occasionally, to hold conference with the Divinity, by his account, and as in like manner did Numa Pompilius and many other legislators), it was only to find on his return strong traces of the worship of the gods whom the Hebrew people had seen in Egypt. It was in vain that he had led them for forty years through the desert, that they might lose recollection of the divinities which they had left behind. They had not forgot them, and they always wished for some visible symbol to precede them, which, if they had got, they would have worshipped obstinately, at the risk of being exposed to extreme cruelty. The pride-inspired contempt alone which led them to the hatred of other nations, made them insensibly forget the gods of Egypt, and attach themselves to that of Moses. They worshipped him for some time with all the outward observance of the law; but with that inconstancy which leads the vulgar to run after novelty, they deserted him at last to follow the God of Jesus Christ. § 20. The most ignorant alone of the Hebrews followed Moses--such also were they who ran after Jesus Christ; and their name being legion, and as they mutually supported each other, it is not to be wondered at if this new system of error was widely circulated. The teaching of these novelties was not without danger to those who undertook the task, but the enthusiasm which they excited extinguished every fear. Thus, the disciples of Christ, miserable as they were in his train, and even dying of hunger--(as we learn from the necessity under which they were, together with their leader, of plucking the ears of corn in the fields to sustain their lives)--these disciples never despaired till they saw their master in the hands of his executioners, and totally incapable of gifting them with that wealth, and power, and grandeur, which he had led them to expect.