324 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



noted travellers, and founders of colonies, who 

 fhall carry the manners, and the language, of 

 France, to the Savages of America, or into the in- 

 terior of Africa itfelf. 



If we are kind to our children, they will blefs 

 our memory ; they will tranfmit, unaltered, our 

 cuftoms, our faOiions, our education, our govern- 

 ment, and every thing that awakens the recollec- 

 tion of us, to the very lateft pofterity. We (hall 

 be to them beneficent deities, who have wrought 

 their deliverance from Gothk barbarifm. We 

 fliould gratify the innate tafte of infinity, ftill bet- 

 ter, by launching our thoughts into a futurity of 

 two thoufand years, than into a retrofpeâ: of the 

 fame diftance. This manner of viewing, more 

 conformable to our divine nature, would fix our 

 benevolence on fenfible objeâis which do exift, and 

 which ftili are to exift *. We (hould fecure to 



ourfelves, 



* There is a fublime character in the Works of the Divi* 

 NITV. They are not only perfecl in themfelves, but they are 

 always in a progreffive ftate toward perfeftion. We have fug- 

 gefted fome thoughts refpe^ling this Law, in fpeaking of the 

 harmonies of plants. A young plant is of more value than the 

 feed which produced it ; a tree bearing flowers and fruits ig 

 more valuable than the young plant ; finally, a tree is never 

 more beautiful than when, declined into years, it is furrounded 

 with a foreft of young trees, fprouted up out of it's feeds. The 

 fame thing holds good as to Man, The llat€ of an embryon is 



fuperior 



