agreed to receive the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper.
The priest, however, to make every thing sure and solid, still
continued his instructions; and began the next day with the usual
question, <How many Gods are there? None at all>, replies
B/ENEDICT\; for that was his new name. <How! None at all>! cries the
priest. , said the honest proselyte. <You have told me
all along that there is but one God: And yesterday I eat him>.

     Such are the doctrines of our brethren the Catholics. But to
these doctrines we are so accustomed, that we never wonder at them:
Though in a future age, it will probably become difficult to
persuade some nations, that any human, two-legged creature could
ever embrace such principles. And it is a thousand to one, but these
nations themselves shall have something full as absurd in their own
creed, to which they will give a most implicit and most religious
assent.

     I lodged once at P/ARIS\ in the same  with an ambassador
from T/UNIS\, who, having passed some years at L/ONDON\, was
returning home that way. One day I observed his M/OORISH\ excellency
diverting himself under the porch, with surveying the splendid
equipages that drove along; when there chanced to pass that way some
 friars, who had never seen a T/URK\; as he, on his part,
though accustomed to the E/UROPEAN\ dresses, had never seen the
grotesque figure of a : And there is no expressing the
mutual admiration, with which they inspired each other. Had the
chaplain of the embassy entered into a dispute with these
F/RANCISCANS\, their reciprocal surprize had been of the same
nature. Thus all mankind stand staring at one another; and there is
no beating it into their heads, that the turban of the A/FRICAN\ is
not just as good or as bad a fashion as the cowl of the E/UROPEAN\.
<He is a very honest man>, said the prince of S/ALLEE\, speaking of
de R/UYTER\, <It is a pity he were a Christian>.

     How can you worship leeks and onions? we shall suppose a
S/ORBONNIST\ to say to a priest of S/AIS\. If we worship them,
replies the latter; at least, we do not, at the same time, eat them.
But what strange objects of adoration are cats and monkies? says the
learned doctor. They are at least as good as the relics or rotten
bones of martyrs, answers his no less learned antagonist. Are you
not mad, insists the Catholic, to cut one another's throat about the
preference of a cabbage or a cucumber? Yes, says the pagan; I allow
it, if you will confess, that those are still madder, who fight
about the preference among volumes of sophistry, ten thousand of
which are not equal in value to one cabbage or cucumber.[62]

     Every by-stander will easily judge (but unfortunately the by-
standers are few) that, if nothing were requisite to establish any
popular system, but exposing the absurdities of other systems, every
votary of every superstition could give a sufficient reason for his
blind and bigotted attachment to the principles in which he has been
educated. But without so extensive a knowledge, on which to ground
this assurance (and perhaps, better without it), there is not
wanting a sufficient stock of religious zeal and faith among
mankind. D/IODORUS\ S/ICULUS\[63] gives a remarkable instance to
this purpose, of which he was himself an eye-witness. While E/GYPT\
lay under the greatest terror of the R/OMAN\ name, a legionary
soldier having inadvertently been guilty of the sacrilegious impiety
of killing a cat, the whole people rose upon him with the utmost
fury; and all the efforts of the prince were not able to save him.
The senate and people of R/OME\, I am persuaded, would not, then,
have been so delicate with regard to their national deities. They
very frankly, a little after that time, voted A/UGUSTUS\ a place in
the celestial mansions; and would have dethroned every god in
heaven, for his sake, had he seemed to desire it. <Presens divus
habebitur> A/UGUSTUS\, says H/ORACE\. That is a very important
point: And in other nations and other ages, the same circumstance
has not been deemed altogether indifferent.[64]

     Notwithstanding the sanctity of our holy religion, says
T/ULLY\,[65] no crime is more common with us than sacrilege: But was
it ever heard of, that an E/GYPTIAN\ violated the temple of a cat,
an ibis, or a crocodile? There is no torture, an E/GYPTIAN\ would
not undergo, says the same author in another place,[66] rather than
injure an ibis, an aspic, a cat, a dog, or a crocodile. Thus it is
strictly true, what D/RYDEN\ observes,

     "Of whatsoe'er descent their godhead be,

     "Stock, stone, or other homely pedigree,

     "In his defence his servants are as bold,

     "As if he had been born of beaten gold."

                                  

                    A/BSALOM\ and A/CHITOPHEL\.

     Nay, the baser the materials are, of which the divinity is
composed, the greater devotion is he likely to excite in the breasts
of his deluded votaries. They exult in their shame, and make a merit
with their deity, in braving, for his sake, all the ridicule and
contumely of his enemies. Ten thousand Crusaders inlist themselves
under the holy banners; and even openly triumph in those parts of
their religion, which their adversaries regard as the most
reproachful.

     There occurs, I own, a difficulty in the E/GYPTIAN\ system of
theology; as indeed, few systems of that kind are entirely free from