that it could not be for his interest to let them grow more considerable, by subjecting and oppressing the Persians; but that he should rather make the latter his friend, who might serve as a barrier to his empire against the enterprises of the Median prince; and lastly, that Persia lay very convenient for the Babylonian troops to march through into Media, in case Cyaxares should resolve upon a rupture. The prince of Persia spoke both in public and private assemblies with so much eloquence and strength of reason; he shewed during the course of his negociation, which lasted some months, so much candor and truth; he managed the nobles with so much prudence and delicacy, that in the end he brought them all over. An alliance was sworn in a solemn manner, and Nabuchodonosor continued faithful to it the rest of his life.

Cyrus, impatient to see the sacred books of the Hebrews, which contained oracles relating to his future greatness, conversed every day with Daniel; and the prophet gladly embraced the opportunity to instruct him in the Hebrew religion. He at length opened the books of Isaiah, who had prophesied of Cyrus by name an hundred and fifty years before his birth, and the prince read these words" Thus saith the Lord to his annointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden to subdue nations before him and put kings to flight ; and I will open before him the two leaved gates, and the gates shall not be shut. I will go before thee, I will humble the great ones of the earth, I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron; and I will reveal to thee the hidden treasures, and the secret of secrets, that thou mayst know that I the Lord, who have called thee by thy name, am the

God of Israel. For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name, I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God besides me. I form the light and create darkness. I have made the earth and created man upon it; I, even my hands, hase stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded. I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways; he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the Lord of hosts."

Cyrus was struck with awe and reverence, as well as astonishment, to see so clear and circumstantial a prediction, a thing unknown in other nations: for there the oracles were always obscure and ambiguous. "Eleazar (said he to the prophet) has already shewn me, that the great principles of your theology, concerning the three states of the world, agree with those of other nations. He has removed all my difficulties about the origin of evil, by proving the freedom of all intelligent natures; he shuts the mouth of impiety, by his sublime ideas concerning the pre-existence of souls, their voluntary fall, and their total restoration; but he has said nothing to me of the supernatural establishment of your law. I conjure you, by the God whom you adore, to answer my questions: Has your tradition the same source with that of other nations? Has it been transmitted to you by a purer channel? Was your lawgiver a mere philosopher, or a divine person?"

"I know, answered Daniel, the endeavors which our doctors use to accomodate religion to the taste of philosophers; but they are bewildered and lost in a croud of uncertain opinions. Who can find out the

ways of God, or penetrate into his secret purposes? Our thoughts are weak, and our conjectures vain; the body, this earthly tabernacle, depresses the soul, and will not suffer it to reach these heights to which it fondly aspires. It is certain that God has permitted evil, only that he might draw from it an infinitę good; but how he will accomplish his purpose, is a secret hidden from the eyes of mortals. All the systems that can be imagined, are either dangerous or defective. The curiosity of seeing into every thing, explaining every thing, and adjusting it to our imperfect notions, is the most fatal disease of the human mind. The most sublime act of our feeble reason, is to keep itself silent before the sovereign reason; let us leave to God the care of justifying one day the incomprehensible ways of his providence. Our pride and our impatience will not suffer us to wait for this unravelling; we would go before the light, and by doing so we lose the use of it. "Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker, unto him who is but clay and a potsherd of the earth.' Isaiah xlv. Forget, therefore, all the refined speculations of the philosophers; I shall speak to you a more sure and simple language; I shall propose nothing to you, but such truths as are supported by the universal tradition of all nations, or else palpable facts, of which the eyes, ears, and all the senses of men are judges.

"The ETERNAL created our first parents in a state of innocence, happiness, and immortality, but the ambitious desire of increasing their knowledge, and of being as gods, carried them to disobey the orders of the MOST HIGH. They were driven from their habitation of delights, and their whole race was involved in their punishment, as it had been in their crime; thus we

were degraded in our origin and blasted in our source. When mankind discontinued to be just, they ceased to be immortal; sufferings followed close upon crimes, and men were condemned to a state of pain and misery in order to make them aspire perpetually after a better life. For the first ages after the fall, religion was not written; the moral part of it was found in reason itself, and the mysteries of it were transmitted by tradition from the ancients. As men lived then several ages, it was easy to preserve that tradition in its purity. But the sublime knowledge of the first men having served only to make them the more criminal, the whole race of mankind, except the family of Noah, was destroyed, in order to stop the course of impiety, and the increase of vice. The fountains of the great abyss were broken up, and the waters covered the earth with an universal deluge, of which there yet are some traces in the traditions of all nations; and of which we see every day convincing proofs when we dig into the bowels of the earth. The constitution of the world, which had suffered by the fall, was impaired anew; the juices of the earth were impoverished and spoilt by this inundation; the herbs and fruits had no longer the same virtue : the air, loaded with an excessive moisture, strengthened the principles of corruption, and the life of man shortened. The descendants of Noah, who spread themselves over the face of the earth, quickly forgot this terrible effect of the divine indignation; they corrupted their ways, and gave themselves up to all wickedness. It was then that the ETERNAL resolved to choose a pe-. culiar people, to be the despositary of religion, morality and all divine truths, that they might not be debased and entirely obscured by the imagination, passions and

vain reasonings of men. The sovereign Wisdom chose the most stupid and untractible people to be the guardian of his oracles. The Assyrians, Chaldeans and Egyptians, who were eminent for subtlety of understanding, and a superior skill in all the sciences, might have been suspected of having mixed their own notions and reasonings with the divine revelation; but the Hebrews, among whom you have found the sublimest ideas of the Divinity and of morality, have nothing in their natural genius which can make them suspected of having invented these truths. Abraham by his faith and obedience, was found worthy to be the head and the father of this happy people. THE MOST HIGH promised him, that his posterity should be multiplied as the stars of heaven, that they should one day possess the land of Canaan, and that of his seed should come the DESIRE OF NATIONS in the fulness of time. The rising family of this patriarch, feeble in its beginnings, went down to Egypt, where they became very numerous, awakened the jealousy of the Egyptians, and were reduced to a state of slavery; but having been tried and purified, by all sorts of afflictions, for the space of four hundred years, God raised Moses to deliver them.

"THE MOST HIGH having first inspired our dliverer with the purest wisdom, lent him his almighty power to prove his divine mission by the most signal wonders; these wonders were nothing less than a frequent and instantaneous changing of the order and course of nature. The haughty king of Egypt refused to obey the orders of the ALMIGHTY. Moses terrified his court with repeated signs of the vengeance of Heaven: he stretched out his arm, and the whole kingdom felt its dreadful power; rivers were turned into blood;