LETTER LXI. Usbek to Rhedi, at Venice.

THE other day I went into a famous church, called Notre-Dame; whilst I was admiring this superb edifice, I had an opportunity of conversing with a churchman,

whom, as well as myself, curiosity had drawn thither. Our conversation fell upon the ease enjoyed in his profession. “The generality of people, said he, envy the happiness of our condition, and with reason. However it hath its uneasinesses; we are not so divided from the world, as not to be called into it upon a thousand occasions, and there it is very difficult to support our part. The people of the world are surprising, they can neither bear our approbation, nor our censures; if we attempt to reprove them, we are ridiculous; if we approve their conduct, we are considered as acting beneath our character. There is nothing so humbling, as the thought of having given scandal even to the impious. We are therefore obliged to use a doubtful kind of conduct, and deal with libertines, not in a decisive way, but by the uncertainty in which we leave them to judge of the manner in which we received their conversation. There must be a good deal of ingenuity to this purpose; this neutral state is very difficult: the men of the world, who hazard every thing, who indulge all their flights, and who, according to their success, pursue or drop them, succeed much better. This is not all. This state, so happy and so quiet, so much boasted of, is not to be kept up in the world. As, on our appearance there, we are forced to dispute: we are obliged to undertake, for example, to prove the efficacy of prayer, to a man who does not believe in God; the necessity of fasting, to another, who all his life time hath denied the immortality of the soul; the enterprize is difficult, and the laughers are not with us. Further, a strong desire to draw others to our opinion, perpetually torments us, and is, as I may say, fixed to our profession. This is as ridiculous, as it would be for the Europeans to labour, for the honour of human nature, to wash the Africans white. We trouble the state, we torment even ourselves, to make men receive the nonessential points of religion; and we are like that conqueror of China, who forced his subjects into a general revolt, because he wanted to oblige them to cut their hair and their nails. That zeal even which we have, to make those who are under our immediate care, fulfil the duties of our holy religion, is often dangerous, and cannot be attended with too much prudence. Theodosius, the emperor, put to the sword all the inhabitants of a certain city, even the women and children! afterwards offering to go into a church, Ambrose, a bishop, shut the doors against him, as a sacrilegious murderer; and in this he did a noble action. This emperor having afterwards submitted to the penance such a crime required, being admitted into the church, going to place himself among the priests, the same bishop turned him out; and in this he acted like a fanatic: so true it is that we ought to be diffident of our zeal. What did it import to religion, or the state, whether this prince had, or had not, a place among the priests?”

Paris, the first of the moon of the 1st Rebiab,
1714.