the anthropophagi of the convention that a Boissy d'Anglas could have boasted that he had banished the respect due to the Divinity from the legislative code, or proved that religion was foreign to social organization. Unfortunate victory! shameful triumph! if such terms can be applied to the temerity of an ignorant and ferocious mind! The necessity, therefore, of the existence of a religion

in

every social state is undeniable; or rather, it is amply proved by the united testimony of history and experience. All nations of the globe, ancient as well as modern, from the enduring Spaniard to the ceremonious Chinese, from the ungovernable Indian of Chili to the secluded savage of Canada; all are filled with profound veneration at the idea of a superior Being; all practise some consecrated rites to invoke his beneficence and appease his anger; all sanction their alliances with his mediation; and all, in short, are possessed of religion.

And, in fact, what object could present itself to the imagination more melancholy than a people without a God? To such an one the bonds of good faith, of justice, as well as every kind of virtue, would appear as vain and ridiculous phantoms. Under such a

constitution of things how could man value the rights of others, and hold them as sacred, when he did not conceive himself indebted to the supreme Being for the very existence he had thence received? The ties which bind mortals to the Divinity are the true origin and supreme cause of the obligations which unite men to each other; if, therefore, that religion which discovers and sanctions them is taken away, would not the most irrefragable principles of morality be rendered illusive? Besides, in a numerous society of such a kind, who would be able to set bounds to the torrent of vices which impiety drags after it? Would not disorders increase, in proportion to the greater number of individuals of whom such a society was composed, and to the irreconcilable discordancy of wills which the increasing divergency of interests would incessantly produce?

The atheist is a consummate egotist, who, obstinately disregarding the bounds within which honour and shame had placed him, mechanically follows the violent impulse of his own inordinate desires, has no other measure for his actions than the unlimited extent of his own welfare; and, resting his whole. happiness on the pleasures of the moment,

knows no other right than force, no other courage than rashness. He is a feverish invalid, who, despising the inexhaustible streams of Divine goodness, for an instant quenches his thirst out of the cup which his sensual appetite presents, and immediately after again thirsts. He is a being insupportable to himself, detestable to others, and continually exposed to become the victim of despair or the vengeance of others. And, if the outline of the man destitute of religion is thus gloomy, how much more horrid must be the picture representing a multitude of similar beings? An association of men in which the influence of this sovereign and benign virtue has no share, far from being considered as a people, would be rather called a herd of tigers, more savage than those which dwell in caverns, because they had degenerated from the nobleness of their primitive nature; and because they would make no other use of their liberty than to tear each other to pieces. It is, consequently, an undoubted fact that when atheism severs the invisible chain which unites the human race to their Creator, from that moment the most holy and advantageous laws remain without authority; the links which

bind each citizen to the other are broken; and the political body, after struggling with a dreadful convulsion, would finally experience a total dissolution.*

On the contrary, how beautiful is the appearance of a country when religion shines in its hemisphere! Wherever this benign star

* Cicero, "De Nat. Deor." lib. i. Pietate adversus Deos sublata, fides etiam et societas humani generis, et excellentissima virtus justicia tollitur.—The literati who, in detriment to true philosophy, suffer atheism to enter into their hearts, even when through the effects of education they should not approve of the excesses just described, are not on that account more useful to society. J. J. Rousseau, whose testimony, in their opinion, cannot be held as suspicious, in his Emile, vol. 3, says of them as follows: "Irreligion and a too philosophical spirit in general attaches us to life, enervates and debases the soul, concentrates all our passions in self-interest, and thus saps the foundations of society. If atheism be not so sanguinary, it is less out of a love to peace than from an indifference to virtue;-let the world go how it will, it little concerns these pretended sages, provided they can loll at ease in their closets. Their principles do not indeed excite them to slaughter mankind, but they prevent them from adding to their number by corrupting the manners which tend to their increase; by detaching themselves from their species, and reducing all their affections to a selfish egotism as fatal to population as it is to virtue. The indifference of the philosopher resembles the tranquillity of a state under a despotic government; it is the tranquillity of death, and more destructive than war itself."

triumphantly reigns, reason governs with more efficient authority, because thence she derives her origin and power;-there nature speaks, and is more promptly heard, because religion makes her voice more sonorous and penetrating; and the right of property is generally more respected, because God, to whom all creatures belong, by the seal of religion legalises the titles which the wisdom of legislators introduced to acquire it. Thus man, under the auspices of this transcendant virtue, whether he is considered in the different periods of life, or viewed in the various situations of fortune; whether he is contemplated as a private individual or beheld as a member of the civil body; in his actions and in his person, at all times emits some rays of that clear light issuing from the throne of the Supreme, and participates, in some degree, of the immense happiness which surrounds it. Yet these benefits would in vain be sought where impiety wields her iron sceptre.

The tender infant reclined on the maternal bosom feasts on the milk which, by giving vigour to its delicate members, is to crown the yet imperfect work of generation; and smiling quits its hold on the flowing breast, whilst its lips, still bedewed with the sweetest