The most enlightened Catholic of to-day ought to admit that Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, were the true reformers of his creed.

They supplied it with ideas which saved it from becoming finally a curse to civilisation.

It was no Christian prelate, but Diderot who burst the bonds of a paralysing dogma by the magnificent cry, _Detruisez ces enceintes qui retrecissent vos idees! Elargissez Dieu!_[103] We see the same phenomenon in our own day.

The Christian churches are assimilating as rapidly as their formula will permit, the new light and the more generous moral ideas and the higher spirituality of teachers who have abandoned all churches, and who are systematically denounced as enemies of the souls of men.

_Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes!_ These transformations of religion by leavening elements contributed from a foreign doctrine, are the most interesting process in the history of truth.
The Encyclopaedia became a powerful engine for aiding such a transformation.