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of God. A sublime expression! Man searching by his intellect into the Divine conception, and seeing that order is the purpose of God, freely combines to prosecute the great design; and while he sacrifices his personal interests to this consummate order of all created things, expects no other recompense than the pleasure of contemplating it.
I do not believe that interest is the sole motive of religious men; but I believe that interest is the principal means which religions themselves employ to govern men, and I do not question that in this way they strike into the multitude and become popular. It is not easy clearly to perceive why the principle of interest rightly understood should keep men aloof from religious opinions; and it seems to me more easy to show why it should draw men to them. Let it be supposed that, in order to attain happiness in this world, a man combats his instinct on all occasions and deliberately calculates every action of his life; that, instead of yielding blindly to the impetuosity of first desires, he has learned the art of resisting them, and that he has accustomed himself to sacrifice without an effort the pleasure of a moment to the lasting interest of his whole life. If such a man believes in the religion which he professes, it will cost him but little to submit to the restrictions it may impose. Reason herself counsels him to obey, and habit has prepared him to endure them. If he should have conceived any doubts as to the object of his hopes, still he will not easily allow himself to be stopped by them; and he will decide that it is wise to risk some of the advantages of this world, in order to preserve his rights to the great inheritance promised him in another. “To be mistaken in believing that the Christian religion is true,” says Pascal, “is no great loss to any one; but how dreadful to be mistaken in believing it to be false!”
The Americans do not affect a brutal indifference to a future state; they affect no puerile pride in despising perils which they hope to escape from. They therefore profess their religion without shame and without weakness; but there generally is, even in their zeal, something so indescribably tranquil, methodical, and deliberate, that it would seem as if the head, far more than the heart, brought them to the foot of the altar.
The Americans not only follow their religion from interest, but they often place in this world the interest which makes them follow
