Let us recollect, then, all the happiness which we owe to religious sentiments and obvious reflections, which, in attracting us continually towards the future, seem willing to save from the present moment the purest part of ourselves; these are, without our perceiving it, the enchantments of the moral world; if it were possible that, by cold reasoning, we at length destroyed them, a sad melancholy would ally itself to most of our reflections; and it would seem as if a winding-sheet had taken place of that transparent veil, through which the prospects of life are embellished. Undoubtedly, there would be still some charm in the days of youth, when the pleasures of the senses press on us, and fill a considerable time; but when the passions are tempered by age, when our strength has been broken by years, or prematurely attacked by sickness; in short, when the time is arrived, when men are constrained to seek, in the principles of morality, the chief support of their happiness; what would become of them, if those hopes and opinions were dissipated, which afford solid comfort and encouragement; and if an imagination, thus active, were weakened, which enlivens all the objects that anticipation can reach? Reflect, then, with attention, on the different consequences which would be the fatal train of the annihilation of religious opinions; it is not a single idea, a single view, that men would lose; it would be, besides, the interest and the charm of all their desires and ambition. There is nothing indifferent, when our actions and designs can be in any respect attached to a duty; there is nothing indifferent, when the exercise and the improvement of our faculties appear the commencement of an existence, whose termination is unknown: but, when this period offers itself on all sides to our view, when we approach it every moment, what strong illusion would be sufficient to defend us from a sad despondency? Strictly circumscribed in the space of life, its limits would be in such a manner present to our mind, to every sentiment and enterprize perhaps, that we should be tempted to examine, what it is which can merit, on our part, an assiduous research; what it is which deserves close and painful application. Indeed, fame itself, which is called immortal, would no more hurry us on in the same manner, if we had a secret conviction, that it cannot grow, rise, subsist, but in such portions of space, and such durations of time, as our imagination cannot conceive. It is necessary, that the uncertain future be still our country, in order that we should be able to feel that unquiet love of a long celebrity, and those ardent impulses towards great things which is the salutary effect of it.