vapour in the immensity of air? How can you speak with delight of fame and promotion, when you voluntarily renounce the grandeur arising from the most noble origin? You are proud of the celebrity of your country, the renown of your families, and the only glory you desire not partake, is that which ennobles the whole human race! In short, I would ask, by what strange error of the imagination it is, that in meditating on the existence of a God, men do not go further than to doubt it; since to support, to guide our judgment, we have only an understanding whose weakness we continually experience; since it is capable of gradual improvement, as knowledge is perpetually accumulating? There exists not any proportion between the measure of our knowledge and the unbounded extent which is displayed before us; there is not any between the union of all our powers and the profound mysteries of nature: how then shall we dare to say, that men are arrived at the pinnacle of knowledge, and that in the endless ages to come, there will never break forth a more penetrating faculty than our weak reason? However, were men even to lose the hope of advancing one step in metaphysical researches; and persisted to declare insufficient and imperfect the various proofs of the existence of a God; it is not to be contested, that all other systems are surrounded with still greater obscurity, and they would only have a doubt as the result of their reasoning. But have they ever reflected on the influence a simple doubt has, when that doubt is applied to an idea, whose relations are without bounds? Let us try to represent an equal probability in a circumstance which only concerns the interests of this transitory life, and we shall soon see what force the same degree of probability would have in the immensurable relations of the finite to the infinite. Thus, not only an uncertainty, but the slightest presumption of the existence of a God, would, in the estimation of sound reason, be a sufficient foundation for religion and morality. Yes, we might thus humbly pray, though depressed by doubt:—O Thou God who art unknown! sovereign goodness whose image is stamped on our hearts—if Thou existest, if Thou art Lord of this magnificent universe, deign to accept our love and humble homage.—— Undoubtedly, these thoughts are sufficient to inspire with respect and fear beings ignorant of their origin, who have so little to sacrifice and so much to desire, who, on account of their extreme weakness, cannot relinquish some hopes, and must attach themselves to a fixed and predominate idea, which may serve as an anchor in the midst of the inconsistencies and agitations of their minds.