has
always been worshipped, has endured uninterruptedly. It is a wonderful,
incomparable, and altogether divine fact that this religion, which has
always endured, has always been attacked. It has been a thousand times on
the eve of universal destruction, and every time it has been in that state,
God has restored it by extraordinary acts of His power. This is astonishing,
as also that it has preserved itself without yielding to the will of
tyrants. For it is not strange that a State endures, when its laws are
sometimes made to give way to necessity, but that... (See the passage
indicated in Montaigne.)[111]

614. States would perish if they did not often make their laws give way to
necessity. But religion has never suffered this, or practised it. Indeed,
there must be these compromises or miracles. It is not strange to be saved
by yieldings, and this is not strictly self-preservation; besides, in the
end they perish entirely. None has endured a thousand years. But the fact
that this religion has always maintained itself, inflexible as it is, proves
its divinity.

615. Whatever may be said, it must be admitted that the Christian religion
has something astonishing in it. Some will say, "This is because you were
born in it." Far from it; I stiffen myself against it