Those who represent the obligations of religion as indifferent, assure us, that we may repose safely the maintenance of morality on some general sentiments, which we have adopted; but do not consider that these sentiments derive their origin, and almost all their force, from that spirit of religion which they wish to weaken. Yes, even humanity, this emotion of a noble soul, is animated and fortified by the idea of a Supreme Being; the alliance between men holds but feebly from the conformity of their organization; nor can it be attributed to the similitude of their passions, that continual source of so much hatred; it depends essentially on our connexion with the same author, the same superintendant, the same judge; it is founded on the equality of our right to the same hopes, and on that train of duties inculcated by education, and rendered respectable by the habitual dominion of religious opinions. Alas! it is a melancholy avowal, that men have so many infirmities, so much injustice, selfishness, and ingratitude, at least, in the eyes of those who have observed them collectively, that we never can keep them in harmony by the mere lessons of wisdom: it is not always because they are amiable that we love them; it is sometimes, and very often indeed, because we ought to love them, that we find them amiable. Yes, goodness and forbearance, these qualities the most simple, still require to be compared, from time to time, with an idea general and predominate, the band of all our virtues. The passions of others wound us in so many ways, and there is often so much depth and energy in our self-love, that we have need of some succour to be constantly generous in our sentiments, and to be really interested for all our fellow-creatures, in the midst of whom we are placed. In short, not to dissemble, if a man once came to consider himself as a being that is the child of chance, or of blind necessity, and tending only to the dust from whence he sprung, and to which he must return, he would despise himself; and far from seeking to rise to noble and virtuous reflections, he would consider this species of ambition as a fantastic idea, which consumes in a vain and illusory manner, a part of those fleeting minutes which he has to pass on earth; and all his attention being fixed on the shortness of life, and on the eternal silence which must close the scene, he would only think _how to devour this reign of a moment_.