against you, and slander you from the pulpit."

"Yes, as I do not adopt their dogmas, I am, to them, a heretic,"
said the king laughing; "and when they preach against me, it proves
that they fear me, and look upon me as a powerful enemy. The enemy
of the priests I will be as long as I live, that is to say, of those
arrogant and imperious men who are wise in their own eyes, and
despise all who do not agree with them! I will destroy the
foundations of all these different churches, with their different
dogmas. I will utterly extinguish them by a universal church, in
which every man shall worship God after his own fashion. The worship
of God should be the only object of every church! All these
different doctrines, which they cast in each other's teeth, and for
love of which they close their doors against each other, shall be
given up. I will open all their churches, and the fresh, pure air of
God shall purify the musty buildings. I will build a temple, a great
illimitable temple, a second Pantheon, a church which shall unite
all churches within itself, in which it shall be granted to every
man to have his own altar, and adopt his own religious exercises.
All desire to worship God; every man shall do so according to his
conscience! Look you, Jordan, how pathetically they discourse of
brotherly love, and they tear each other to pieces! Let me only
build my Pantheon, and then will all men, in truth, become brothers.
The Jew and the so-called heathen, the Mohammedan and the Persian,
the Calvinist and the Catholic, the Lutheran and the Reformer--they
will all gather into my Pantheon, to worship God; all their forms
and dogmas will simultaneously fall to the ground. They will believe
simply in one God, and the churches of all these different sects
will soon stand empty and in ruins." [Footnote: Thiebault, in his
"Souvenirs de Vingt Ans," tells of Frederick's plan for a Pantheon.]