What results from these maxims of a moral fanaticism? It happens that laws so atrocious and cruel are enacted, that bigots alone are willing to execute them. Yes, Madam, blameless as you know my whole life to have been, consonant to integrity and honesty as you know my conduct to be, and free as I have ever been from intolerance, my existence would be endangered were these letters I am now writing to you to appear in print, or even be circulated in manuscript with my name attached to them as author. Yes, Christians have made laws, now dominant here in France, which would tie me to the stake, consume my body with fire, bore my tongue with a red hot iron, deprive me of sepulture, strip my family of my property, and for no other cause than for my opinions concerning Christianity and the Bible. Such is the horrid cruelty engendered by Christianity. It has sometimes been called in question whether a society of atheists could exist; but we might with more propriety ask if a society of fierce, impracticable, visionary, and fanatical Christians, in all the plenitude of their ridiculous system, could long subsist.[5] What would become of a nation all of whose inhabitants wished to attain perfection by delivering themselves over to fanatical contemplation, to ascetical penance, to monkish prayers, and to that state of things set forth in the Acts of the Apostles? What would be the condition of a nation where no one took any "thought for the morrow"?--where all were occupied solely with heaven, and all totally neglected whatever related to this transitory and passing life?--where all made a merit of celibacy, according to the precepts of St. Paul?--and where, in consequence of constant occupation in the ceremonials of piety, no one had leisure to devote to the well-being of men in their worldly and temporal concerns? It is evident that such a society could only exist in the Thebaid, and even there only for a limited time, as it must soon be annihilated. If some enthusiasts exhibit examples of this sort, we know that convents and nunneries are supported by that portion of society which they do not enclose. But who would provide for a country that abandoned every thing else for the purpose of heavenly contemplations?