It is true
that only a small section of them treated religion as if _necessarily_
superstition, or went quite so far as John Adams, who said, _this would
be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it_. But
an attentive reading of ancient and modern philosophical books has
satisfied the Author of this Apology that through all recorded time,
religion has been _tolerated_ rather than _loved_ by great thinkers, who
had _will_, but not _power_ to wage successful war upon it. Gibbon
speaks of Pagan priests who, 'under sacerdotal robes, concealed the
heart of an Atheist.' Now, these priests were also the philosophers of
Rome, and it is not impossible that some modern philosophical priests,
like their Pagan prototypes, secretly despise the religion they openly
profess. Avarice, and lust of power, are potent underminers of human
virtue. The mighty genius of Bacon was not proof against them, and he
who deserves to occupy a place among 'the wisest and greatest' has been
'damned to eternal fame' as the, 'meanest of mankind.'
Nor are avarice and lust of power the only base passions under the
influence of which men, great in intellect, have given the lie to their
own convictions, by calling that religion which they knew to be rank
superstition.
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