following is from the letter on the Socinians. "Do you remember a
certain orthodox bishop, who in order to convince the Emperor of the
consubstantiality [of the three Persons of the Godhead] ventured to
chuck the Emperor's son under the chin, and to pull his nose in his
sacred majesty's presence? The Emperor was going to have the bishop
thrown out of the window, when the good man addressed him in the
following fine and convincing words: `Sir, if your Majesty is so angry
that your son should be treated with disrespect, how do you think that
God the Father will punish those who refuse to give to Jesus Christ
the titles that are due to Him?' The people of whom I speak say that
the holy bishop was ill-advised, that his argument was far from
conclusive, and that the Emperor should have answered: `Know that
there are two ways of showing want of respect for me; the first is not
to render sufficient honor to my son, the other is to honor him as
much as myself.'"[Footnote: Voltaire, xxxvii. 144.] Such words as
these were hardly to be borne. But the French authorities recognized
that there was a greater and more insidious danger to the church in
certain other passages by which Frenchmen were made to learn some of
the results of English abstract thought.

Among the French writers of the eighteenth century are several men of
eminent talent; one only whose sinister but original genius has given a
new direction to the human mind. I shall treat farther on of the ideas
of Rousseau. The others, and Voltaire among them, belong to that class
of great men who assimilate, express, and popularize thought, rather
than to the very small body of original thinkers. Let us then pause for
a moment, while studying the French Philosophers and their action on
the church, and ask who were their masters.

Montaigne, Bayle, and Grotius may be considered the predecessors on the