To the Chevalier Dubois, at Malta.

In my last, I sent you an account of the pleasing task I had undertaken; I now proceed to tell you how it has succeeded.

Sitting alone with Zilia, the other day; I have, says she, with equal pleasure, and surprise, read the life and discourses of your great Lawgiver: every example, every precept it contains, seems calculated to render mankind a set of happy social beings. The way which leads to heaven seems to be the only path they could tread, by which they could ensure to themselves a constant succession of calm and peaceful days on earth; yet, by some strange perversion of human nature, among you who glory in being called after the name of that divine person, how many miseries abound, owing to that wickedness and folly which prompts you to act contrary to reason, and the dictates of that religion which you profess; these things stagger my newly received faith.

Satisfy me, if you can; and tell me, why avarice, revenge, and all those unruly passions which trouble the repose of life, find a passage into the minds of men, who acknowledge the Gospel as a rule of action, and call themselves the followers of a disinterested, mild, and forgiving Saviour?

It is, says I, perhaps a question not easily answered; if men were not liable to be influenced by those passions, there would be no exertion of virtue, as there would be no vice to counteract: nor would it have been necessary for a God to have descended from heaven, where he reigned supreme, to pass a life of poverty and subordination on earth, when he might have been born a prince, and had nothing more to do, than declare his will, to creatures so prone to obedience. On the contrary, our Saviour, Christ Jesus, became man, in an humble station, and was invested with passions incident to human nature; that he might shew, by a practice of constant self-denial, that it was possible to controul desires, which, under proper regulation, are beneficial to the world, but if let loose, must prove destructive.