their subjects, have made it their sacred duty to torment, to persecute, to destroy those whose conscience made them think otherwise than they do.  A religious bigot at the head of an empire, is one of the greatest scourges which Heaven in its fury could have sent upon earth.  One fanatical or deceitful priest who has the ear of a credulous and powerful prince, suffices to put a State into disorder and the universe into combustion.

In almost all countries, priests and devout persons are charged with forming the mind and the heart of the young princes destined to govern the nations.  What enlightenment can teachers of this stamp give?  Filled themselves with prejudices, they will hold up to their pupil superstition as the most important and the most sacred thing, its chimerical duties as the most holy obligations, intolerance, and the spirit of persecution, as the true foundations of his future authority; they will try to make him a chief of party, a turbulent fanatic, and a tyrant; they will suppress at an early period his reason; they will premonish him against it; they will prevent truth from reaching him; they will prejudice him against true talents, and prepossess him in favor of despicable talents; finally they will make of him an imbecile devotee, who will have no idea of justice or of injustice, of true glory or of true greatness, and who will be devoid of the intelligence and virtue necessary to the government of a great kingdom.  Here, in brief, is the plan of education for a child destined to make, one day, the happiness or the misery of several millions of men.

CL.—­The shield of religion is for tyranny, A weak rampart against the despair of the people.  A despot is A madman, who injures himself and sleeps upon the edge of A precipice.

Priests in all times have shown themselves supporters of despotism, and the enemies of public liberty.  Their profession requires vile and submissive slaves, who never have the audacity to reason.  In an absolute government, their great object is to secure control of the mind of a weak and stupid prince, in order to make themselves masters of the people.  Instead of leading the people to salvation, priests have always led them to servitude.

For the sake of the supernatural titles which religion has forged for the most wicked princes, the latter have generally united with the priests, who, sure of governing by controlling the opinion of the sovereign himself, have charge of tying the hands of the people and of keeping them under their yoke.  But it is vain that the tyrant, protected by the shield of religion, flatters himself with being sheltered from all the blows of fate.  Opinion is a weak rampart against the despair of the people.  Besides, the priest is the friend of the tyrant only so long as