made in that world to come, been too frequently in direct oppofition to all our moral fentiments.

That the affiduous courtier is often more favoured than the faithful and active fervant; that attendance and adulation are often shorter and furer roads to preferment than merit or fervice; and that a campaign at Versailles or St. James's is often worth two either in Germany or Flanders, is a complaint which we have all heard from many a venerable, but difcontented, old officer. But what is confidered as the greateft reproach even to the weakness of earthly fovereigns, has been ascribed, as an act of justice, to divine perfection; and the duties of devotion, the public and private worship of the Deity, have been reprefented, even by men of virtue and abilities, as the fole virtues which can either entitle to reward or exempt from punishment in the life to come. They were the virtues, perhaps, moft fuitable to their station, and in which they themselves chiefly excelled; and we are all naturally difpofed to over-rate the excellen

cies of our own characters. In the difcourfe which the eloquent and philofophical Masfillon pronounced, on giving his benediction to the ftandards of the regiment of Catinat, there is the following addrefs to the officers: "What is moft deplorable in your fitu"ation, Gentlemen, is, that in a life hard "and painful, in which the fervices and "the duties fometimes go beyond the ri

gour and feverity of the most austere "cloifters; you fuffer always in vain for "the life to come, and frequently even for "this life. Alas! the folitary monk in "his cell, obliged to mortify the flesh and "to fubject it to the fpirit, is fupported by "the hope of an affured recompence, and

by the secret unction of that grace which "foftens the yoke of the Lord. But you,

on the bed of death, can you dare to re"present to Him your fatigues and the daily hardships of your employment? can

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you dare to folicit Him for any recom"pence? and in all the exertions that you "have made, in all the violences that you "have done to yourselves, what is there

"that

"that He ought to place to His own ac"count? The best days of your life, how

ever, have been facrificed to your profef"fion, and ten years fervice has more worn out your body, than would, perhaps, have "done a whole life of repentance and mor"tification. Alas! my brother, one single

day of those sufferings, confecrated to

"the Lord, would, perhaps, have obtained

you an eternal happiness. One single "action, painful to nature, and offered up "to Him, would, perhaps, have fecured to

you the inheritance of the Saints. And you have done all this, and in vain, for "this world."

To compare, in this manner, the futile mortifications of a monaftery, to the ennobling hardships and hazards of war; to fuppofe that one day, or one hour, employed in the former fhould, in the eye of the great Judge of the world, have more merit than a whole life spent honourably in the latter, is furely contrary to all our moral fentiments; to all the principles by which nature has taught us to regulate our contempt or admiration.

miration. It is this fpirit, however, which, while it has reserved the celeftial regions for monks and friars, or for those whose conduct and converfation resembled thofe of monks and friars, has condemned to the infernal all the heroes, all the statesmen and lawgivers, all the poets and philofophers of former ages; all thofe who have invented, improved, or excelled in the arts which contribute to the fubfiftence, to the conveniency, or to the ornament of human life; all the great protectors, inftructors, and benefactors of mankind; all those to whom our natural fenfe of praise-worthiness forces us to afcribe the highest merit and moft exalted virtue. Can we wonder that so strange an application of this most refpectable doctrine fhould fometimes have exposed it to contempt and derifion; with those at least who had themselves, perhaps, no great taste or turn for the devout and contemplative virtues *?

See Voltaire.

Vous y grillez fage et docte Platon,
Divin Homere, eloquent Ciceron, &c.

CHA P. III.

Of the Influence and Authority of Confcience.

BUT

UT though the approbation of his own confcience can fcarce, upon fome extraordinary occafions, content the weakness of man; though the teftimony of the supposed impartial fpectator of the great inmate of the breast, cannot always alone fupport him; yet the influence and authority of this principle is, upon all occafions, very great; and it is only by confulting this judge within, that we can ever see what relates to ourselves in its proper shape and dimenfions; or that we can ever make any proper comparison between our own interefts and those of other people.

As to the eye of the body, objects appear great or fmall, not fo much according to their real dimenfions, as according to the nearnefs

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