The furnace of affliction refines us from earthly drossiness, and softens us for the impression of God's own stamp.

It is pure illusion to think that an opinion which passes down from century to century, from generation to generation, may not be entirely false.

In matters of religion, it is very easy to deceive a man and very hard to undeceive him.

So that, were it the purpose of God to produce comets as signs of his wrath it would be true to say that he is quickening a false devotion almost all over the world, increasing the number of pilgrims to Mecca, multiplying the offerings to the most famous impostors, inducing men to build mosques for Mohammedan worship, causing the invention of new superstitions among the dervishes - in a word, stimulating many abominable things which otherwise might not have been.

The furnace of affliction refines us from earthly drossiness, and softens us for the impression of God's own stamp.

If an historian were to relate truthfully all the crimes, weaknesses, and disorders of mankind, his readers would take his work for satire rather than for history.

It is thus tolerance that is the source of peace, and intolerance that is the source of disorder and squabbling.