The whole structure of religion would be overturned, if, by the strength or artifices of reasoning, men could destroy our confidence in the existence of a Supreme Being: morality, being detached from the opinions which sustain it, would remain a wavering, unsupported notion, only defended by a policy, whose power time would insensibly weaken. A fatal languor invading every mind, where would be that universal interest, that sentiment felt by all men, and proper to form a general alliance between them? Then those, who, with pure intentions, can only be guided and sustained by an intimate persuasion, would retire sad, and leave to others the care of supporting moral order by fictions and falsehoods; they would pity that dismayed race, called to appear and pass away like flowers, which bloom but for a day; they would despise those animated phantoms which only come to make a buz with their vanity and trivial passions, and fall in a little while into eternal oblivion. All that appears beautiful in the universe, and excites our enthusiasm, would soon lose its splendour and enchantment, if we perceived nothing in this brilliant scene but the play of some atoms, and the uniform walk of blind necessity; for it is always because a thing may be otherwise, that it acquires a claim to our admiration: in short, that soul, that spirit, which vivifies man, that faculty of thought which surprises and confounds those who reflect, would only appear a vain movement, if nothing was before, or was to follow, if some unknown breath, or general intelligence, did not animate nature. But we have dwelt too long on those gloomy thoughts; reassume your light and life, admirable works of God; come and confound the pride of some, and comfort others; come and take possession of our souls, and direct our affections towards Him whom we ought to love, towards Him who is the eternal model of perfect wisdom, and unlimitted goodness! I shall not endeavour to prove that there is a God, by reciting all the wonders the works of nature display to our eyes; several celebrated writers have already done it, and have missed their aim. Infinity can only be represented by astonishment and respect, which overwhelms all our thoughts: and when we labour to explain the successive and varied picture of the wonders of nature, this change of objects is more calculated to relax our admiration than to increase it; for any change eases our mind, by affording those relaxations which our weakness has need of; and if we were to investigate only one phœnomenon, we should soon discover the utmost extent of our faculties. We find the limits of our understanding in the examination of the organization of the smallest insect, as well as in observing the faculties of the soul; and the mysteries of the simplest vegetation is as far above the reach of our intelligence, as the principal agent of the universe.