We could not avoid feeling a compassion as painful as well founded, if, in considering attentively the fate of the greater number of men, we supposed them all at one stroke deprived of the only thought which supported their courage; they would no more have a God to confide their sorrows with; they would no more attend his ordinances to search for the sentiments of resignation and tranquillity; they would have no motive for raising their looks to heaven; their eyes would be cast down, fixed for ever on this abode of grief, of death, and eternal silence. Then despair would even stifle their groans, and all their reflections preying on themselves, would only serve to corrode their hearts; then those tears which they have a satisfaction in shedding, and which are attracted by the tender persuasion, that there exists some where commiseration and goodness, these consoling tears would no more moisten their eyes. Who has not seen, sometimes, those veteran soldiers, who are prostrate here and there on the pavement of a sanctuary, erected in the midst of their august retreat? Their hair, which time has whitened; their forehead marked with honourable scars; that tottering step, which age only could impress on them, all inspire at first respect; but by what sentiments are we not affected, when we see them lift up and join with difficulty their weak hands, to invoke the God of the universe, of their heart and mind; when we see them forget, in this interesting devotion, their present pains and past griefs; when we see them rise with a countenance more serene, and expressive of the tranquillity and hope devotion has infused through their souls. Complain not in those moments, you who judge of the happiness of this world only from its enjoyments; their looks are humbled, their body trembles, and death awaits their steps; but this inevitable end, whose image only terrifies us, they see coming without alarm; they, through religion, have approached Him who is good, who can do every thing, whom none ever loved without receiving comfort. Come and contemplate this sight, you who despise religion, you who term yourselves superior; come and see the real value of your pretended knowledge for promoting happiness. Change the fate of men, and give them all, if you can, some portion of the enjoyments of life, or respect a sentiment which serves them to repulse the injuries of fortune; and since even the policy of tyrants has never dared to destroy it, since their power would be insufficient to enable them to succeed in the savage attempt, you, to whom nature has given superior endowments, be not more cruel, more inexorable than they; or if, by a pitiless doctrine, you wish to deprive the old, the sick, and the indigent, of the only idea of happiness which they can apply to, go from prison to prison, and to those dreary cells, where the wretched prisoners struggle with their chains, and shut with your own hands, if you have the heart