Page:The Rebellion in the Cevennes (Volume 2).djvu/159

Rh beaux esprits and of the courtiers here, and although his morals had not suffered as much as one might well have been led to fear, his religious principles at least, which may never have been very strong, were by this intercourse entirely stifled and destroyed. Knowledge, understanding were the most important to him, however he devoted himself with religious worship to poetry, as well as to the history of the ancient Greeks. No one could be more eloquent than he, when he enlarged upon these subjects. That these sentiments, as I was of a very lively disposition, should influence me, was very natural; my tutor seemed to me the most gifted of mortals, and his decisions were my oracles. Though I may still honour his memory, I must nevertheless censure as a weakness in what then certainly appeared to me his greatest forte, namely, his unwearied mockery of Christianity and of every religion; all others rather than the various sects of the Christian Church,