“Lying priests,” retorted the missionaries, “it is you who abuse the credulity of ignorant nations to subjugate them.  It is you who have made of your ministry an art of cheating and imposture; you have converted religion into a traffic of cupidity and avarice.  You pretend to hold communications with spirits, and they give for oracles nothing but your wills.  You feign to read the stars, and destiny decrees only your desires.  You cause idols to speak, and the gods are but the instruments of your passions.  You have invented sacrifices and libations, to collect for your own profit the milk of flocks, and the flesh and fat of victims; and under the cloak of piety you devour the offerings of the gods, who cannot eat, and the substance of the people who are forced to labor.”

“And you,” replied the Bramins, the Bonzes, the Chamans, “you sell to the credulous living, your vain prayers for the souls of the dead.  With your indulgences and your absolutions you have usurped the power of God himself; and making a traffic of his favors and pardons, you have put heaven at auction; and by your system of expiations you have formed a tariff of crimes, which has perverted all consciences."*

* As long as it shall be possible to obtain purification from crimes and exemption from punishment by means of money or other frivolous practices; as long as kings and great men shall suppose that building temples or instituting foundations, will absolve them from the guilt of oppression and homicide; as long as individuals shall imagine that they may rob and cheat, provided they observe fast during Lent, go to confession, and receive extreme unction, it is impossible there should exist in society any morality or virtue; and it is from a deep conviction of truth, that a modern philosopher has called the doctrine of expiations la verola des societes.

“Add to this,” said the Imans, “that these men have invented the most insidious of all systems of wickedness,—­the absurd and impious obligation of recounting to them the most intimate secrets of actions and of thoughts (confessions); so their insolent curiosity has carried their inquisition even into the sanctuary of the marriage bed,* and the inviolable recesses of the heart.”

* Confession is a very ancient invention of the priests, who did not fail to avail themselves of that means of governing.  It was practised in the Egyptian, Greek, Phrygian, Persian mysteries, etc.  Plutarch has transmitted us the remarkable answer of a Spartan whom a priest wanted to confess.  “Is it to you or to God I am to confess?” “To God,” answered the priest:  “In that case,” replied the Spartan, “man, begone!” (Remarkable Savings of the Lacedemonians.) The first Christians confessed their faults publicly, like the Essenians.  Afterwards, priests began to be established, with power of absolution from the sin of idolatry.  In the time of Theodosius, a woman having publicly confessed