172 



STUDIES OF NATURE. 



fupply, after we were gone, the country being ut- 

 terly defolated, 



A foldier's profeffion is a perpetual exercife of 

 virtue, from the necefiity to which it conftantly 

 fubjeéts the man, to fubmit to privations innume- 

 rable, and frequently to expofe his life. It has 

 Religion, therefore, for it's principal fupport. The 

 Ruffians keep up the fpirit of it, in their national 

 troops, by admitting among them not fo much as 

 one foreign foldier. The King of Pruffia, on the 

 contrary, has accompliflied the fame purpofe, by 

 receiving into his, foldiers of every religion 3 but 

 he obliges every one of them exaclly to obferve 

 that which he has adopted. I have feen, both at, 

 Berlin and at Potfdam, every Sunday morning, the 

 officers muftering their men on the parade, about 

 eleven o'clock, and then filing off with them in 

 feparate detachments, Calvinifts, Lutherans, Ca- 

 tholics, every one to his own church, to woriliip 

 God in his own way. 



I could wifli to have aboliflied among us the 

 other caufes of divifion, which lay one citizen un- 

 der the temptation, that he may live himlelf, to 

 wifh the hurt or the death of another. Our poli- 

 ticians have multiplied, without end, thefe fources 

 of hatred, nay, have rendered the State an accom- 

 plice in fuch ungracious fentiments, by the efta- 



blillament 



