which leap upon the cattle are ring-streaked, speckled, and grizzled; for I have seen all that Laban does unto thee.  Now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred.”  As he was returning with his whole family, and with all he obtained from his father-in-law, he had, says the Bible, a wrestle with an unknown man during the whole night, until the breaking of the day, and as this man had not been able to subdue him, He asked him who he was.  Jacob told Him his name; and He said:  “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.”

This is a specimen of the first of these pretended Visions and Divine Revelations.  We can judge of the others by these.  Now, what appearance of Divinity is there in dreams so gross and illusions so vain?  As if some foreigners, Germans, for instance, should come into our France, and, after seeing all the beautiful provinces of our kingdom, should claim that God had appeared to them in their country, that He had told them to go into France, and that He would give to them and to their posterity all the beautiful lands, domains, and provinces of this kingdom which extend from the rivers Rhine and Rhone, even to the sea; that He would make an everlasting alliance with them, that He would multiply their race, that He would make their posterity as numerous as the stars of Heaven and as the sands of the sea, etc., who would not laugh at such folly, and consider these strangers as insane fools!

Now there is no reason to think otherwise of all that has been said by these pretended Holy Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in regard to the Divine Revelations which they claim to have had.  As to the institution of bloody sacrifices, the Holy Scriptures attribute it to God.  As it would be too wearisome to go into the disgusting details of this kind of sacrifices, I refer the reader to Exodus. [See chapters xxv., xxvii., xxyiii., and xxix.]

Were not men insane and blind to believe they were honoring God by tearing into pieces, butchering, and burning His own creatures, under the pretext of offering them as sacrifices to Him?  And even now, how is it that our Christ-worshipers are so extravagant as to expect to please God the Father, by offering up to Him the sacrifice of His Divine Son, in remembrance of His being shamefully nailed to a cross upon which He died?  Certainly this can spring only from an obstinate blindness of mind.

In regard to the detail of the sacrifices of animals, it consists but in colored clothing, blood, plucks, livers, birds’ crops, kidneys, claws, skins, in the dung, smoke, cakes, certain measures of oil and wine, the whole being offered and infected by dirty ceremonies as filthy and contemptible as the most extravagant performances of magic.  What is most horrible of all this is, that the law of this detestable Jewish people commanded that even men should be offered up as sacrifices.  The barbarians, whoever they were, who introduced this horrible law, commanded to put to death any man who had been consecrated to the God of the Jews, whom they called Adonai:  and it is according to this execrable precept that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter, and that Saul wanted to sacrifice his son.