human
My dear Count, Contrive matters so, in spite of your philosophy, that I may see you in heaven; for I should be very sorry to lose sight of you for an eternity. You are one of those rare men, both for heart and understanding, whom we could wish to love even beyond the grave, when we have once had the advantage of knowing them. No one has more reasons to be convinced of the spirituality and immortality of the soul than you have. The years glide away for the philosophers as well as for the ignorant; and what is to be the term of them cannot but employ a man who thinks. Own that I can manage sermons so as not to frighten away a bel esprit; and that if every one delivered as short and as friendly sermons as I do, you would sometimes go to hear a preacher. But barely hearing will not do ... the amiable Algarotti must become as good a Christian as he is a philosopher: then should I doubly be his friend and servant.
gpt
The Pope [Benedict XIV] is ever great and entertaining for his bons mots. He was saying the other day that he had always loved you, and that it would give him very great pleasure to see you again. He speaks with admiration of the king of Prussia ... whose history will make one of the finest monuments of the eighteenth century. See here and acknowledge my generosity! For that prince makes the greatest jest possible of the Court of Rome, and of us monks and friars. Cardinal Querini will not be satisfied unless he have you with him for some time at Brescia. He one day told me that he would invite you to come and dedicate his library.... There is no harm in preaching to a philosopher who seldom goes to hear a sermon, and who will not have become a great saint by residing at Potsdam. You are there three men whose talents might be of great use to religion if you would change their direction--viz. Yourself, Mons. de Voltaire, and M. de Maupertuis. But that is not the ton of the age, and you are resolved to follow the fashion. [1587] Ganganelli in his correspondence reveals himself as an admirer of Newton [1588] and somewhat averse to religious zeal. [1589] Of the papal government he admitted that it was favourable
human
while suavely reminding the Englishman of the
gpt
Whatever, he wrote,
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[1592] It was only in his relation to the bigots of his own Church that his thinking was rationalistic.
gpt
The Pope, he writes to a French marquis,
human
[1593] At his death an Italian wrote of him that
gpt
His tolerance is sufficiently exhibited in one of his letters to Algarotti:
human
I hope that you will preach to me some of these days, so that each may have his turn. [1594] Freethought had achieved something when a Roman Cardinal, a predestinate Pope, could so write to an avowed freethinker. Concerning Galiani we have the warm panegyric of Grimm.
gpt
If I have any vanity with which to reproach myself, he writes,