66 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



horrible, before idols which they themfelves have 

 rendered fo tremendous : and as the people are 

 not permitted to intermix blood with them, they 

 conftrain, by the power of prejudice over the ty- 

 rants, their widows to burn themfelves alive, with 

 the body of the dead hufband. 



Is it not, then, a very horrible condition, for 

 men reputed wife, and who give law to their Na- 

 tion, to be witneflbs of the untimely death, in cir- 

 cumftances fo fliocking, of their female friends 

 and relations, of their daughters, their fifters, their 

 mothers ? Travellers have cried up their know- 

 ledge : but is it not an odious alternative for en- 

 lightened men, either to terrify perpetually the 

 ignorant, by opinions which, at the long-run, fub- 

 jugate even thofe who propagate them ; or, if they 

 arc fo fortunate as to preferve their reafon, to make 

 a fliameful and criminal ufe of it, by employing it to 

 diffeminate falfliood ? How is it poffible for them 

 to efteem each other ? How is it poffible to retire 

 within themfelves, and to lift up their eyes to that 

 Divinity, of whom, as we are told, they entertain 

 conceptions fo fublime, and of whom they exhibit 

 to the People reprefentarions fo abominable ? 



Whatever may he, as far as their ambition is 

 concerned, the melancholy fruit of their policy, 

 it has drawn in it's train the mifery of this vaft 



Em pire J 



