was artfully proportioned to the credulity of the vulgar, while the
sagacious and the wise, who perceived these cheats, were overawed into
silence by the dangers that threatened their lives and fortunes, if they
should expose the artifice. Thus,' continues this author, 'does it
generally happen, when danger attends the discovery and the profession
of truth, the prudent are _silent_, the multitude _believe_, and
impostors _triumph_.'

Beausobre, too, in his learned account of Manicheism reads a severe
lesson to those who, under the influence of such passions as _fear_ and
_avarice_, will do nothing to check the march of superstition, or
relieve their less 'sensible,' but more honest, fellow-creatures from
the weight of its fetters. After alluding to an epistle written by that
'demi-philosopher,' Synesius, when offered by the Patriarch the
Bishopric of Ptolemais, [48:1] Beausobre says, 'We see in the history
that I have related a kind of hypocrisy, which, perhaps, has been far
too common in all times. It is that of ecclesiastics, who not only do
not say what they think, but the reverse of what they think.
Philosophers in their closet, when out of them they are content with
fables, though they know well they are fables. They do more; they
deliver to the executioner the excellent men who have said it. How many
Atheists and profane persons have brought holy men to the stake under
the pretext of heresy? Every day, hypocrites consecrate the host and
cause it to be adored, although firmly convinced as I am that it is
nothing more than a piece of bread.'

Whatever may be urged in defence of such execrable duplicity, there can
be no question as to its anti-progressive tendency. The majority of men
are fools, and if such 'sensible' politicians as our Doctor and the
double doctrinising ecclesiastics, for whose portraits we are indebted