SECTION III.

My friends, when we have preached toleration in prose and in verse, in some of our pulpits, and in all our societies--when we have made these true human voices resound in the organs of our churches--we have done something for nature, we have reestablished humanity in its rights; there will no longer be an ex-Jesuit, or an ex-Jansenist, who dares to say, I am intolerant.

There will always be barbarians and cheats who will foment intolerance; but they will not avow it--and that is something gained. Let us always bear in mind, my friends, let us repeat--for we must repeat, for fear it should be forgotten--the words of the bishop of Soissons, not Languet, but Fitzjames-Stuart, in his mandate of 1757: "We ought to regard the Turks as our brethren."

Let us consider, that throughout English America, which constitutes nearly the fourth part of the known world, entire liberty of conscience is established; and provided a man believes in a God, every religion is well received: notwithstanding which, commerce flourishes and population increases. Let us always reflect, that the first law of the Empire of Russia, which is greater than the Roman Empire, is the toleration of every sect.

The Turkish Empire, and the Persian, always allowed the same indulgence. Mahomet II., when he took Constantinople, did not force the Greeks to abandon their religion, although he looked on them as idolaters. Every Greek father of a family got off for five or six crowns a year. Many prebends and bishoprics were preserved for them; and even at this day the Turkish sultan makes canons and bishops, without the pope having ever made an imam or a mollah.

My friends, there are only some monks, and some Protestants as barbarous as those monks, who are still intolerant. We have been so infected with this furor, that in our voyages of long duration, we have carried it to China, to Tonquin, and Japan. We have introduced the plague to those beautiful climes. The most indulgent of mankind have been taught by us to be the most inflexible. We said to them at the outset, in return for their kind welcome--Know that we alone on the earth are in the right, and that we ought to be masters everywhere. Then they drove us away forever. This lesson, which has cost seas of blood, ought to correct us.