race and withdrawn their attention from the most interesting things.  Does not the unjust and cruel manner in which so many nations are governed here below, furnish the most visible proofs, not only of the non-effect produced by the fear of another life, but of the non-existence of a Providence interested in the fate of the human race?  If there existed a good God, would we not be forced to admit that He strangely neglects the majority of men in this life?  It would appear that this God created the nations but to be toys for the passions and follies of His representatives upon earth.

CXLVI.—­CHRISTIANITY EXTENDED ITSELF BUT BY ENCOURAGING DESPOTISM, OF WHICH IT, LIKE ALL RELIGION, IS THE STRONGEST SUPPORT.

If we read history with some attention, we shall see that Christianity, fawning at first, insinuated itself among the savage and free nations of Europe but by showing their chiefs that its principles would favor despotism and place absolute power in their hands.  We see, consequently, barbarous kings converting themselves with a miraculous promptitude; that is to say, adopting without examination a system so favorable to their ambition, and exerting themselves to have it adopted by their subjects.  If the ministers of this religion have since often moderated their servile principles, it is because the theory has no influence upon the conduct of the Lord’s ministers, except when it suits their temporal interests.

Christianity boasts of having brought to men a happiness unknown to preceding centuries.  It is true that the Grecians have not known the Divine right of tyrants or usurpers over their native country.  Under the reign of Paganism it never entered the brain of anybody that Heaven did not want a nation to defend itself against a ferocious beast which insolently ravaged it.  The Christian religion, devised for the benefit of tyrants, was established on the principle that the nations should renounce the legitimate defense of themselves.  Thus Christian nations are deprived of the first law of nature, which decrees that man should resist evil and disarm all who attempt to destroy him.  If the ministers of the Church have often permitted nations to revolt for Heaven’s cause, they never allowed them to revolt against real evils or known violences.

It is from Heaven that the chains have come to fetter the minds of mortals.  Why is the Mohammedan everywhere a slave?  It is because his Prophet subdued him in the name of the Deity, just as Moses before him subjugated the Jews.  In all parts of the world we see that priests were the first law-givers and the first sovereigns of the savages whom they governed.  Religion seems to have been invented but to exalt princes above their nations, and to deliver the people to their discretion.  As soon as the latter find themselves unhappy here below, they are silenced by menacing them with God’s wrath; their eyes are fixed on Heaven, in order to prevent them from perceiving the real causes of their sufferings and from applying the remedies which nature offers them.