which we implore Him? He accepts all homage, but none can reflect honour on Him. The Almighty has no need of our officious care: if it is possible to offend Him, only unjust acts can do it. He will judge us by our virtues, and not by our sacrifices."
At Brussels, on this occasion, he met with a French poet, Jean Baptiste Rousseau,[1] with whom he had had some friendly correspondence; but their personal intercourse was not so happy, and produced a permanent hostility. Rousseau, in the pride of a poet's heart at meeting an appreciative listener, read to him a poem he had just finished, an "Ode to Posterity." Voltaire expressed a doubt "whether it would reach its address." Having delivered himself of this conciliatory witticism, he, being also actuated by the pride of a poet rather than by the prudence of a man of the world, chose that fortunate moment to recite his "Epistle to Uranie" to the injured bard. Rousseau, despising the fact that his own writings and his own life were both scandalous, begged to know why Voltaire had chosen him for the confidant of such impious views; and upon these uncomfortable terms the minstrels parted.
