150 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



minds, that the objeâ:s of their religious vvorfhip 

 will be at their difpofal, in proportion as they are 

 within their reach. Hence it is that the devotions 

 of the common people, in every country, are pre- 

 fented in the fields, and have natural objeds for 

 their centre. It always attracts the religion of the 

 peafantry. A hermitage on the fide of a mourv- 

 tain, a chapel at the fource of a ftream, a good 

 image of the Virgin, in wood, niched in the trunk 

 of an oak, or under the foliage of a hawthorn, 

 have, to them, a much more powerful attradtion 

 than the gilded altars of our Cathedrals. I except 

 thofe, however, whom the love of money has com- 

 pletely debauched, for fuch perfons muft have 

 faints of filver, even in the country. 



The principal religious aéls of the people in 

 Turkey, in Perfia, in the Indies, and in China, 

 are pilgrimages in the fields. The rich, on the 

 contrary, prevented in all their wants and wiflies 

 by men, no longer look up to GOD for anything. 

 Their whole life is pafled within doors, where 

 they fee only the produdions of human induftry, 

 luftres, wax-candles, mirrors, fecretaries, parafites, 

 books, wits. They come infenfibly to lofe fight 

 of Nature; whofe productions are, befidcs, almoft 

 always exhibited to them disfigured, or out of 

 feafon, and always as an effed of the art of their 

 gardeners, or artifans. 



They 



