You tell us it is corruption of the heart which produces atheists; that they shake off the yoke of the Deity because they fear His terrible judgments.  But why do you paint your God in such black colors?  Why does this powerful God permit that such corrupt hearts should exist?  Why should we not make efforts to break the yoke of a Tyrant who, being able to make of the hearts of men what He pleases, allows them to become perverted and hardened; blinds them; refuses them His grace, in order to have the satisfaction of punishing them eternally for having been hardened, blinded, and not having received the grace which He refused them?  The theologians and the priests must feel themselves very sure of Heaven’s grace and of a happy future, in order not to detest a Master so capricious as the God whom they announce to us.  A God who damns eternally must be the most odious Being that the human mind could imagine.

CLXXXIX.—­PREJUDICES ARE BUT FOR A TIME, AND NO POWER IS DURABLE EXCEPT IT IS BASED UPON TRUTH, REASON, AND EQUITY.

No man on earth is truly interested in sustaining error; sooner or later it is compelled to surrender to truth.  General interest tends to the enlightenment of mortals; even the passions sometimes contribute to the breaking of some of the chains of prejudice.  Have not the passions of some sovereigns destroyed, within the past two centuries in some countries of Europe, the tyrannical power which a haughty Pontiff formerly exercised over all the princes of his sect?  Politics, becoming more enlightened, has despoiled the clergy of an immense amount of property which credulity had accumulated in their hands.  Should not this memorable example make even the priests realize that prejudices are but for a time, and that truth alone is capable of assuring a substantial well-being?

Have not the ministers of the Lord seen that in pampering the sovereigns, in forging Divine rights for them, and in delivering to them the people, bound hand and foot, they were making tyrants of them?  Have they not reason to fear that these gigantic idols, whom they have raised to the skies, will crush them also some day?  Do not a thousand examples prove that they ought to fear that these unchained lions, after having devoured nations, will in turn devour them?

We will respect the priests when they become citizens.  Let them make use, if they can, of Heaven’s authority to create fear in those princes who incessantly desolate the earth; let them deprive them of the right of being unjust; let them recognize that no subject of a State enjoys living under tyranny; let them make the sovereigns feel that they themselves are not interested in exercising a power which, rendering them odious, injures their own safety, their own power, their own grandeur; finally, let the priests and the undeceived kings recognize that no power is safe that is not based upon truth, reason, and equity.