sacrifice, and that His love is granted only to those who tax themselves
so foolishly. God can only demand from His creatures the practice of
virtues the seed of which He has sown in their soul, and all He has given
unto us has been intended for our happiness; self-love, thirst for
praise, emulation, strength, courage, and a power of which nothing can
deprive us--the power of self-destruction, if, after due calculation,
whether false or just, we unfortunately reckon death to be advantageous.
This is the strongest proof of our moral freedom so much attacked by
sophists. Yet this power of self-destruction is repugnant to nature, and
has been rightly opposed by every religion.

A so-called free-thinker told me at one time that I could not consider
myself a philosopher if I placed any faith in revelation. But when we
accept it readily in physics, why should we reject it in religious
matters? The form alone is the point in question. The spirit speaks to
the spirit, and not to the ears. The principles of everything we are
acquainted with must necessarily have been revealed to those from whom we
have received them by the great, supreme principle, which contains them
all. The bee erecting its hive, the swallow building its nest, the ant
constructing its cave, and the spider warping its web, would never have
done anything but for a previous and everlasting revelation. We must
either believe that it is so, or admit that matter is endowed with
thought. But as we dare not pay such a compliment to matter, let us stand
by revelation.

The great philosopher, who having deeply studied nature, thought he had
found the truth because he acknowledged nature as God, died too soon. Had
he lived a little while longer, he would have gone much farther, and yet
his journey would have been but a short one, for finding himself in his
Author, he could not have denied Him: In Him we move and have our being.