me strong arguments in favour of revealed religion.  I prefer rather founding my creed upon the fitness of its doctrines than upon historical evidences or the nature of its miracles.  The Divine Intelligence chooses that men should be convinced according to the ordinary train of their sensations, and on all occasions it appears to me more natural that a change should take place in the human mind than in the order of nature.  The popular opinion of the people of Judaea was that certain diseases were occasioned by devils taking possession of a human being; the disease was cured by our Saviour, and this in the Gospel is expressed by his casting out devils.  But without entering into explanations respecting the historical miracles belonging to Christianity, it is sufficient to say that its truth is attested by a constantly existing miracle, the present state of the Jews, which was predicted by Jesus; their temple and city were destroyed, and all attempts made to rebuild it have been vain, and they remain the despised and outcasts of the world.

Onu.—­But you have not answered my objections with respect to the cruelties exercised by the Jews under the command of Jehovah, which appear to me in opposition to all our views of divine justice.

Amb.—­I think even Philalethes will allow that physical and moral diseases are hereditary, and that to destroy a pernicious unbelief or demoniacal worship it was necessary to destroy the whole race root and branch.  As an example, I will imagine a certain contagions disease which is transmitted by parents to children, and which, like the plague, is communicated to sound persons by contact; to destroy a family of men who would spread this disease over the whole earth would unquestionably be a mercy.  Besides, I believe in the immortality of the sentient principle in man; destruction of life is only a change of existence, and supposing the new existence a superior one it is a gain.  To the Supreme Intelligence the death of a million of human beings is the mere circumstance of so many spiritual essences changing their habitations, and is analogous to the myriad millions of larvae that leave their coats and shells behind them and rise into the atmosphere, as flies in a summer day.  When man measures the works of the Divine Mind by his own feeble combinations, he must wander in gross error; the infinite can never be understood by the finite.

Onu.—­As far as I can comprehend your reasoning, the priests of Juggernaut might make the same defence for their idol, and find in such views a fair apology for the destruction of thousands of voluntary victims crushed to pieces by the feet of the sacred elephant.