and all that it sees. are there not for loving death; what numerous reasons for comprehending and hoping in the divine Creator of all things, the Power which was, is, and ever shall be; of whom, notwithstanding our weakness, we are permitted to have a glimpse; and to whom, notwithstanding our nothingness, we are allowed to pray.

Oh! then, what numerous reasons

The life of this world is a happiness, since it is the way which leads us to God.

Thus in proportion as life speaks, death loses its terrors, and appears to our souls but as a passage from darkness to light, a gate opening into heaven, at the threshold of which we only leave a corpse; a thing which, says Bossuet, has no longer a name, a handful of ashes.

Hence, to die is to be transformed; it is to pass from one life to another, from a world where we seek for truth, to a world where we possess it. Death leads us to God; this is a fact which destroys all its pains.

It is, then, for want of faith that we apprehend death, for want of enlightenment that we curse it; it is the greatest benefit of this life, since it is the end of life. But, do you say, I would not die. Well, be it so. Suppose God to give thee an eternity upon the earth. What a terrible present! Thou wouldst be condemned always to desire, without ever possessing; always to seek, without ever finding; to have constantly a glimpse of, without contemplating; always to love, without ever knowing the God whom thou lovest. Alas! what would life be, if it were restricted to this world, with desires which constantly extend beyond? All that which man seeks, loves, adores, has a glimpse of where is it? Nowhere here-below. Death then must give us that which life shows us. Death is therefore a good, the greatest good which the soul can conceive; the entrance to an eternity, which would be a

punishment upon earth, the accomplishment of the promises which life makes to us.

Man of little faith! thou blasphemest death, and it is by its means that thou mayest possess all the treasures which God permits thee in this life only to have a glimpse of and to desire. To understand death, is to study to live well; to understand life, is to be happy in death.

Let us then repose fearlessly upon this bed whereon the human race reposes. If wrath do not weigh heavily upon our life, wherefore should it suddenly show itself at our death? The laws of nature are laws of benevolence, which protect us unto the end; and it is perhaps in their last expression that God has placed the great secret of futurity. Observe the dying looks of all creatures directed towards the place where their posterity must be renewed. The butterfly falls near the flower in which it has deposited its eggs; the bird at the foot of the tree which sheltered its nest; the goat dies among its rocks; the bull in the meadows, stretched out upon the rich pasture; but man dies with his head and his eyes turned towards heaven, as a symbol of his immortality.

CHAPTER XXIX.

CONTINUATION OF THE SAME SUBJECT.

DEATH IS NOT A PUNISHMENT INFLICTED UPON THE

HUMAN RACE.

"Nous avons des affaires au ciel, ou plutot nous n'avons point d'affaires en ce monde; c'est au ciel que sont toutes nos affaires." "O mort! je te rends grâce des lumières que tu nous donnes." BOSSUET.

To the picture which we have just drawn, superstition opposes the most alarming prospects. It exclaims on our

arrival into the world: Have a care! thou art born in the hatred of the Lord. Have a care! this life so beautiful is but a condemnation to death. Lament, groan, suffer, punish thyself for thy birth; dost thou not see that thy father has committed a fault; that he is cursed, and that the avenging God will inflict punishment? Have a care! enjoy nothing, accept nothing; the pleasures which charm thy senses are snares; thy most innocent passions are crimes. The question is, not to regulate, but to kill them; to kill the work of God is to please God; it is only by the despising of natural gifts, and by a horror of thyself, that thy safety can be assured; and thou must also die by a terrible death; for death is not the deliverance from the troubles of life, but it is the punishment of thy iniquities. Child of wrath, tremble, and prostrate thyself before death, which brings hell and condemnation in its train.

Such are the doctrines with which it is pretended to explain the presence of evil upon the earth. If man, say the doctors, were not cursed, would he then be so miserable? Mark how pain is attached to his body—error attaching itself to his thoughts; all his pleasures withered by disgust, all his affections torn asunder by death; always punishments! First, those which nature imposes upon him, next those which he brings upon himself. Calumny, misery, poison, if he be virtuous; isolation, remorse, the scaffold, if he be criminal. Whatever be the career which he pursues, he must expect always punishments! punishments for Socrates, punishments for Cartouche, for Louis XVI., for Robespierre! Whether innocent or guilty, still always punishments! Oh, such a life could only have been bestowed in wrath; it is the punishment of a crimelet it then be the expiation. Thus speak the doctors, thus speaks Pascal himself; in order to comprehend man, this great genius allows himself to calumniate God.

But, in fact, does this universe, so magnificent, seem to offer nothing but vengeance? In this life, so wonderful, do we experience only pain? Silence for a moment the theological authorities, call to your assistance the authority of your eyes and of your soul, and dare to ask yourself if it is in the midst of abundance, on carpets of verdure and flowers, before the great spectacle of the sun, that God would have cast a creature smitten with a curse? You speak always of hatred and wrath, but I will speak to you always of benevolence and goodness. Here all obeys man; I see ferocious animals, but he controls them; I see sterile countries, but he covers them with crops. What! shall all the fruits of the earth, and all the animals which inhabit it, be given to a cursed being; the sun, colours, savours, perfumes, light, pleasure, and love, power and the throne; for, in fact, man is lord here below, he commands the whole of nature; this earth is his empire, and his life a royalty.

To these benefits which are bestowed upon us by benevolence, since they add pleasure to life, you oppose the evil which is upon the earth, and our physical and moral infirmities. I perceive them as well as yourself, and in order to try to comprehend them, I go back to the creation of man. What are the elements of which he is composed? If I consult the Scriptures, his soul is the living breath of God, but his body is only a little earth borrowed from the globe which he inhabits. God formed him from the dust of the earth, so it is said in Genesis. Thus, even according to the book of Moses, man, on coming out of the hands of the Creator, before committing a fault, before being cursed, was subject to all the evils, to all the infirmities, which are inseparable from matter.

He is not then, as Bossuet says, an edifice in ruins, which still preserves something of the beauty and the

grandeur of its original plan. He is at the present day, that which he was at the beginning of the world, a little earth, animated by a divine breath, a being complete in his perfections as well as in his imperfections; weak and strong, great and miserable, yielding to temptation, or overcoming it according as he allows himself to be ruled by soul or by matter. Hence it results that man, clogged with earth, could never have been immortal here below; the laws imposed upon matter are opposed to his terrestrial eternity. Another observation not less important, is that the fall of man would have necessitated the formation of a new world, in harmony with his new wants, and his new infirmities; of a world fallen like himself. But if we refer to the Scriptures, nothing is changed on the globe since the creation. Moses describes the earth, the air, and the waters, peopled with the same kind of vegetables, and animals which are still seen on it; he does more, he gives to each plant the seed which must reproduce it, and he exhibits to us all creatures attentive to the voice of God, who says to them, increase and multiply. Thus, all on the earth was prepared for death, even before the arrival of man. The means of reproduction are only ordained, because destruction is foreseen; it is the law of nature which is fulfilled. There is no exception to it; it would be the annihilation of life. A single gnat escaped from this law, would suffice in some years to overwhelm the creation.

And with respect to the proofs of the omnipotence of death from the origin of things, they are impressed in the very bowels of the earth; man cannot search without discovering vestiges of a creation more ancient than that of himself. Thus death laid waste the globe, before the appearance of man; it awaited him.

If therefore, before the appearance of man, death was a law of nature, the necessary condition of all existence, it