It appears to me, that there are interests which may be considered as patriotic by intelligent and feeling beings; and while the inhabitants of the same country, and the subjects of the same prince, employ themselves diligently in one common plan of defence, the citizens of the world ought to be incessantly anxious to give every new and possible support to those exalted opinions on which the true greatness of their existence is founded, which preserves the imagination from that frightful spectacle of an existence without origin, of action without liberty, and futurity without hope. Thus after having, as I think, proved myself a citizen of France, by my administration, as well as my writings, I wish to unite myself to a fraternity still more extended—that of the whole human race: it is thus, without dispersing our sentiments, we may be able nevertheless to communicate ourselves a great way off, and enlarge in some measure the limits of our circle: glory be to our thinking faculties for it! To that spiritual portion of ourselves which can take in the past, dart into futurity, and intimately associate itself with the destiny of men of all countries, and of all ages. Without doubt, a veil is thrown over the greater part of those truths, to which our curiosity would willingly attain; but those which a beneficent God has permitted us to see, are amply sufficient for our guide and instruction; and we cannot, for a continuance divert our attention without a species of slothful negligence, and a total indifference to the superior interests of man. How little is every thing indeed, when put in competition with those meditations, which give to our existence a new extent, and which, in detaching us from the dust of the earth, seem to unite our souls to an infinity of space, and our duration of a day to the eternity of time! Above all, it is for you to determine, who have sensibility—who feel the want of a Supreme Being, and who seek to find in him that support so necessary to your weakness, that defender and that assurance, without which painful inquietude will be perpetually tormenting you, and troubling those soft, tender affections which constitute your happiness. However, I must say, there never perhaps was a period, when it was more essentially necessary to recal to the minds of men, the importance of religious sentiments; at present they are but prejudices, if we may credit the spirit of licentiousness and levity; the laws dictated by fashion; and more particularly essential since we have had philosophical instructions, which excite the various deviations of vanity, and rally the wanderings of the imagination.