192 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



earth which covers their remains, can bring them 

 back from the land of fhadows. What do they 

 expeâ: for ihemfelves, from a hfe to come, who 

 exprefs all this unavailing regret over the afhes of 

 their departed favourites ? There is no profpeft fo 

 inimical to the interefls of moft men ; for fome, 

 having lived a life of fraud, or of violence, have 

 reafon to apprehend a (late of piinifliment ; others, 

 having been opprefTed in this world, might juftly 

 fear, that the life to come was to be regulated con- 

 formably to the fame deftiny which prefided over 

 that which they are going to leave. 



Shall we be told. It is pride which cheriflies 

 this fond opinion in their breads ? What, is it 

 pride that induces a wretched Negro, in the Weft- 

 Indies, to hang himfelf, in the hope of returning 

 to his own country, where a fécond ftate of llavery 

 awaiis him ? Other Nations, fuch as the iflanders 

 of Taïti, reftridl the hope of this immortality, to 

 a renovation of precifely the fame life which they 

 are going to leave. Ah ! the pafïïons prefent to 

 Man far different plans of felicity ; and the mife- 

 ries of his exiftence, and the illumination of his 

 reafon, would long ago have deftroyed the life 

 that is, had not the hope of a life to come been, 

 in the human breaft, the refult of a fupernatural 

 feeling. 



But 



