PREFACE.

wish to hear. The former will be more reluctant to yield to reason and truth: they are certainly those who, out of fear of trouble and loss, whitewash two walls from the same bucket a reference to the Latin proverb eadem fidelia duos parietes dealbare, meaning to play both sides to satisfy the world, donning various masks so as to gratify the world. Although they may not be so hostile toward us, they still do not listen with displeasure when we are attacked in this or that matter; indeed, they offer ears all too ready to the slanders directed at us. We believe, however, that most of them would be satisfied if they would hear us out, or at the very least, they would cast off the depraved and sinister opinions they had conceived regarding us. The latter, however, are either entirely ignorant or still very weak, whose simplicity is too credulous: so much so that they very often