PAUL AND VIRGINIA. 183 



" Him is in your heart, in like manner as his 

 " works are before your eyes. Can you believe, 

 " then, that He will leave Firginia without a re- 

 " compenfe ? Can you believe, that the fame 

 " Power, which clothed a foul fo noble, in a form 

 " fo beautiful, in which fuch divine fkill was clearly 

 *' perceptible, was not able to have faved her from 

 *' the waves ? that He, who has arranged the ac- 

 *' tual happinefs of Man, by laws of which you 

 ** are entirely ignorant, could not prepare another 

 " for Firginia, by laws equally unknown to you ? 

 *' Before we were created, if we had pofleffed the 

 *' faculty of thinking, could we have formed any 

 ** idea of our future being? And now that we are 

 " in this dark and fugitive exiftence, can we fore- 

 " fee what is beyond death, by which we mud 

 *' make our tranfition from it ? Has the Al- 

 *' mighty occafion, like man, for this Httle globe 

 " of Earth, to ferve as the theatre of his wifdom 

 *' and goodnefs, and is he capable of propagating 

 " human life only in the plains of death ? There 

 " is not a fingle drop of water in the Ocean, but 

 " what is filled with living creatures, which have 

 " all a reference to us ; and does nothing exift 

 ** for us, among all thofe ftars which revolve over 

 ** our heads ! What, is there no fupreme Intelli- 

 '* gence, and divine Goodnefs, in any fpot but 

 ** precifely that where we are ; and in thofe ra- 

 " diant and innumerable globes, in thofe vaft 



N 4 . ** plains 



