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(tides are swept away by wars and plagues ; and still 

 they remain full of people. 



As to the length of life, it has been an ancient opi. 

 nion, that men lived longer in cold countries than iri 

 hot. But the reverse is true. The inhabitants of the 

 Caribbee island?, usually live a hundred and fifty 

 years. In the Molucca islands, the ordinary life of 

 the natives is a hundred and thirty years, in Suma- 

 tra, Java, and the neighbouring islands, the life of the 

 inhabitants commonly extends to a hundred and forty 

 years : in the realm of Cassuby, to 150. The Brazi- 

 lians frequently live 160 years, and many, in Florida 

 and Jucatan, still longer. 



Nor is this at all improbable. For there being no 

 such inequality of weather iu those climates as in ours, 

 the body is not shocked by sudden changes, but kept 

 in a more equal temper. And sickly persons with us, 

 when fixed to their beds, and kept in an equal degree 

 of heat, are often found to hold out many years, who 

 would otherwise scarce have survived one. 



Before concluding this head, we may observe one 

 more eminent instance of the divine wisdom, in the 

 great variety throughout the world of men's faces, 

 voices, and hand- writing. Had men's faces been cast 

 in the same mould, their organs of speech given the 

 same sound : and had the same structure of muscles 

 and nerves, given the hand the same direction in writ. 

 ing : what confusion, what numberless inconvenien- 

 cies must we have been exposed to ? No security 

 could have been to our persons, no certainty of our 

 possessions. Our courts of justice abundantly testify 

 the effects of mistaking men's faces or hand-writing. 

 But this, the wise Creator has taken care to prevent 

 from being a general case. A man's face distinguishes 

 Jilm in the light, as his voice does in the dark : and 

 his hand-writing can speak for him when absent, and 

 secure his contracts to future generations. 



Lastly, how admirably has God secured the execu- 

 tion of his original sentence, upon every child of man. 



