adversity, when our strength is broken, in which we have placed our confidence, piety comes to succour and console us; it shows us the nothingness of vanity and worldly illusions; it calms the remorse of our souls, by reminding us of a particular providence; it softens our regrets, by presenting more worthy hopes than any earthly object can afford, in order to engage our interest and fix our attention. I am not led to these reflections by a temporary melancholy; I should be afraid of it, if I had not always had the same thoughts, and if the various circumstances of a life, often perturbed, had not led me to think of the necessity of attaching myself to some principle independent of men and events. Almost entirely alone at this instant, and thrown into solitude by an unforeseen accident, I experience, it is true[10], more than ever, the want of those rational ideas, the representations of all that is great, and I approach with renewed interest the truths which I always loved; grand and sublime truths, which I have recommended to men at the moment when I see them more than ever inclined to neglect them. How mistaken are they in their calculations, they trust to-day in the strength of their minds, to-morrow they will find their weakness; they imagine, that in turning their views from the termination of life they remove the fatal boundary; but already the hand trembles on the dial to give the signal of their last moment. What a dire sacrifice we should make, if we gave up those consoling truths which still present to us a future, when all the bustle of life is over! We should again demand them, search for them with the most diligent anxiety, if ever the traces of them were unfortunately effaced. All these ideas, some may say, are vague, and do not agree with the humour of the age; but at a certain distance from the field of ambition and vanity, is there any thing to every one of us more vague than the passions of others? Are men employed about our interest? do they dream of our happiness? No, they are like ourselves; they seek for precedency; now and then indeed they pronounce the name of public good; but it is only a watch word which they have stolen, to be able to run over our ranks without danger. Where shall we find then a real tie? Where shall we find a universal rendezvous, if not in those unalterable ideas which are so consonant to our nature, which should equally interest us all, being suited to all without distinction; and which are ready to welcome us when we see the folly of earthly pursuits? They may not, indeed, gratify the childish wishes of the moment; but they relieve our anxiety about to-morrow, they are allied to objects of meditation which belong to our whole life, and above all, they unite us to that spirit which constitutes our true grandeur, to that sublime spirit, a few of whose relations only are yet discovered by us, and the full extent of whose power and goodness can be but faintly guessed at by finite beings.