Note 10 — THE WAR OF ANTICHRIST WITH THE CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION.

[2] To show how early the confederates of Voltaire had determined upon the gradual impoverishment of the Church and the suppression of the Religious orders, the following letters from Frederick II., will be of use. In the first dated 13th August, 1775, the Monarch writes to the then very aged “Patriarch of Ferney,” who had demanded the secularization of the Rhine ecclesiastical electorates and other episcopal benefices in Germany, as follows:—

“All you say concerning our German bishops is but too true; they grow fat upon the tithes of Sion. But you know, also, that in the Holy Roman Empire the ancient usage, the Bull of Gold, and other antique follies, cause abuses established to be respected. If we wish to diminish fanaticism we must not touch the bishops. But, if we manage to diminish the monks, especially the mendicant orders, the people will grow cold and less superstitious, they will permit the powers that be, to dispose of the bishops in the manner best suited to the good of each State. This is the only course to follow. To undermine silently and without noise the edifice of infatuation is to oblige it to fall of itself. The Pope, seeing the situation in which he finds himself, is obliged to give briefs and bulls as his dear sons demand of him. The power founded upon the ideal credit of the faith loses in proportion as the latter diminishes. If there were now found at the head of nations some ministers above vulgar prejudices, the Holy Father would become bankrupt. Without doubt posterity will enjoy the advantage of being able to think freely.”

Again, this curious compound of warrior, despot, Protestant free-thinker, poet, and mocker, writes to Voltaire, on the 8th September, 1775:—

“It is to Bayle, your predecessor, and to you, without doubt, that the glory is due of that revolution which has taken place in minds, but, to say the truth, it is not complete. The devotees have their party, and never will that be crushed except by a greater force. It is from the Governments that the sentence must go forth.... Without doubt this will be done in time, but neither you nor I will be spectators of an event so much desired.”

“I have remarked,” he says, also, “and others with me, that the places where there are most convents and monks are those wherein the people are most given to superstition. It is not doubtful that if we could succeed in destroying these asylums of fanaticism, the people would shortly grow indifferent and lukewarm regarding the things which form at present the objects of their veneration. It would be necessary then to destroy the cloisters, or at least to commence to diminish their number. The moment is arrived because the French Government and that of Austria are so indebted that they have exhausted the resources of industry without being able to pay their debts. The list of rich abbeys and of convents, with a good rent-roll, is seducing. In representing to them the evil which the cenobites do the population of their States, as well as the abuse of the great number of religious who fill their provinces, and, in the meantime, the facility of paying a part of their debts, by applying to that purpose the treasures of communities which have no natural succession, I think they could be brought to determine upon commencing that reform. It is to be presumed that after having enjoyed the secularization of some benefices their avidity would soon swallow up the rest. Every Government, which determines upon that operation, will desire the spread of philosophers and be a partisan of all the books which attack popular superstitions and the false zeal of hypocrites, who wish to oppose them. Behold a little project which I wish to submit for the examination of the Patriarch of Ferney. It is for him, as the Father of the Faithful, to rectify and to execute it. The Patriarch may demand of me, perhaps, what is to be done with the bishops. I answer that it is not yet the time to touch them, that it is necessary to commence by destroying those who inflame with fanaticism the hearts of the people. When the people shall have grown cold the bishops will become little boys, whom the Sovereigns will dispose of in the course of time at their good pleasure.”