THE SCEPTIC.
"Leur raison, qu'ils prennent pour guide, ne présente à leur esprit que des conjectures et des embarrass; les absurdités où ils tombent en niant la Religion deviennent plue insoutenables que les verités dont la hauteur les étonne; et pour ne vouloir pas croire des mystères incompréhensibles, ils suivent l'une après l'autre d'incompréhensibles erreurs,"
Bossuet, Oraisons Funèbres.
When the young Eagle, with exulting eye,
Has learn'd to dare the splendour of the sky,
And leave the Alps beneath him in his course,
To bathe his crest in morn's empyreal source;
Will his free wing, from that majestic height,
Descend to follow some wild meteor's light,
Which far below, with evanescent fire,
Shines to delude and dazzles to expire?
No! still through clouds he wins his upward way,
And proudly claims his heritage of day!
—And shall the spirit, on whose ardent gaze
The dayspring from on high hath pour'd its blaze,
Turn from that pure effulgence, to the beam
Of earth-born light that sheds a treacherous gleam,
VOL. III.A
