accounts, and as tyrants dread the word liberty. And then, to crown
everything, they hire fanatics to cry at the top of their voices:
"Respect my master's absurdities, tremble, pay, and keep your mouths
shut."

It is thus that a great part of the world long was treated; but to-day
when so many sects make a balance of power, what course to take with
them? Every sect, as one knows, is a ground of error; there are no sects
of geometers, algebraists, arithmeticians, because all the propositions
of geometry, algebra and arithmetic are true. In every other science one
may be deceived. What Thomist or Scotist theologian would dare say
seriously that he is sure of his case?

If it were permitted to reason consistently in religious matters, it is
clear that we all ought to become Jews, because Jesus Christ our Saviour
was born a Jew, lived a Jew, died a Jew, and that he said expressly that
he was accomplishing, that he was fulfilling the Jewish religion. But it
is clearer still that we ought to be tolerant of one another, because we
are all weak, inconsistent, liable to fickleness and error. Shall a reed
laid low in the mud by the wind say to a fellow reed fallen in the
opposite direction: "Crawl as I crawl, wretch, or I shall petition that
you be torn up by the roots and burned?"




_TRUTH_


"Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered,