You say, that guillotine massacres were not the effect of the Popish religion, but of the disbelief of this system. This deserves some consideration. It is not true, that the majority of the people of Paris were unbelievers. No, Sir, they swore to the miracles of Abbe Paris, and were as ready to give testimony to the wonderful cures and prodigies operated by his intercession, as the Jews or Christians have been to vouch for theirs. The fact is this: the lively disposition of the French, the unintelligibility of their religion, and the shameful conduct of the priests, turned their attention to the more serious object of politics; but this event could not immediately change the nature of the murderers of the Protestants on St. Bartholomew's day. Does your Lordship imagine, that the peasants of La Vendee are models of morality? If you think so, I must undeceive you. Nothing but ignorance prevails in that district; like the ancient crusaders, they are led solely by their priests, who, by means of certain words which early habits and superstition have made their followers respect, and, together with want of communication with the rest of France, have inflamed them, and driven them to slaughter: even miracles have not been wanting in that part of the country; but in this, as in many other instances, they have disappeared, on the arrival of incredulous troops, whose hearts are perhaps hardened by God, like the Egyptians of old. Since God diminishes men's faith in proportion as he gives them human wisdom, let us not endeavour to controvert this heavenly will, by endeavouring to make the enlightened people of the eighteenth century so credulous as in the former days of ignorance. The Bishop allows, that the higher classes of every country all lean towards infidelity; they are more guided by reason, and reason is the avowed enemy of faith, it being the criterion of faith, that it contains natural impossibilities. It is unfortunate that so many sects pretend to faith, and differ so much among themselves; and that to explain their faiths, they use the weapons of reason against one another. This of itself proves, that faith is but a cant word, since the faithful argue about what comes not under human knowledge. Thus all religious sectaries, whether Christians, Jews, Mahometans, Boodzoists, or Bramins, as staunchly believe contradictory doctrines, while, in the inquiries that depend on their reason, we find that, wherever men have long been civilized, they have, in astronomy, in physics, or ethics, come in general to the same conclusions. The language of the philosopher is understood in Pekin as well as in Rome; but the religious fanatics of every country differ in their opinions, and consider all but themselves as dreamers and impostors. The Bramin laughs at the story of Noah and the ark, the stopping of the sun, and the incarnation of God; while the Christian shows the same contempt for the incarnation of Vishnu, and other articles of the Braminical