most celebrated Quakers of England," whose name, it appears, was Andrew Pitt, and who received him in due Quaker fashion. In reply to Voltaire, he explains and justifies by texts the peculiarities of the sect; why they do not acknowledge the efficacy of the two sacraments—why they have no ministers of their religion—why they refuse to address others with salutations and titles, to take oaths, and to serve in war—and why they wear a particular dress.
"You see," comments Voltaire, "how my holy man misused, plausibly enough, three or four passages of sacred writ which seemed to favour his sect, forgetting, in perfect good faith, a hundred passages which crush it. I took good care to contest nothing—there is nothing to gain by disputing with an enthusiast: it is not expedient either to tell a lover of the faults of his mistress, or an advocate of the weakness of his cause, or to talk of reason to one who has spiritual light—so I passed to other matters… I see the sect dying out every day in London. In every country the dominant religion, when it abstains from persecution, swallows up all the others in the end."
On the whole, he treats the Quakers very tenderly, as if he liked them. Nevertheless, what he said about them did not satisfy Andrew Pitt, who afterwards wrote to the author to complain that he had a little embellished the facts of the interview, and "to assure him that God was displeased at his having passed jests on the Quakers."
His next essay, on the Anglican Church, begins by saying, "England is the country of sects: in my Father's house there are many mansions. An Englishman goes to heaven, like a free man, by the road that pleases him." He then gives a satirical sketch of the clergy, such as
