separated, is exempted from all the natural causes of decay.'

OMAR paused; and ALMORAN having stood some moments without reply, he
seized this opportunity to impress him with an awful sense of the power
and presence of the Supreme and Eternal Being, from whom his own
existence was derived: 'Let us remember,' said he, 'that to every act of
this immaterial and immortal part, the Father of spirits, from whom it
proceeds, is present: when I behold the busy multitudes that crowd the
metropolis of Persia, in the persuit of business and projects infinitely
complicated and various; and consider that every idea which passes over
their minds, every conclusion, and every purpose, with all that they
remember of the past, and all that they imagine of the future, is at
once known to the Almighty, who without labour or confusion weighs every
thought of every mind in His balance, and reserves it to the day of
retribution; my follies cover me with confusion, and my soul is humbled
in the dust.'

ALMORAN, though he appeared to listen with attention, and offered
nothing against the reasoning of OMAR, yet secretly despised it as
sophistry; which cunning only had rendered specious; and which he was
unable to confute, merely because it was subtil, and not because it was
true: he had been led, by his passions, first to love, and then to adopt
different opinions; and as every man is inclined to judge of others by
himself, he doubted, whether the principles which OMAR had thus laboured
to establish; were believed even by OMAR himself.

Thus was the mind of ALMORAN to the instructions of OMAR, as a rock
slightly covered with earth, is to the waters of heaven: the craggs are
left bare by the rain that washes them; and the same showers that
fertilize the field can only discover the sterility of the rock.