with greater diligence, where it becomes a prey to its own black disquietudes, or to sullen vexatious imaginations. The only remaining relief against all this, is the Conversation of a virtuous Society: now, what Society can better agree with it than a religious one, where one would think, all manner of human helps should be afforded, with more charity than elsewhere, and where their vows should be united to demand those succours from heaven, which cannot reasonably be expected from men.
It is as natural for old people to take up with Devotion, as it is ordinary with young men to abandon themselves to Pleasures. In the latter, Nature full charg'd, throws out of her self her superfluity of vigour, hunting after voluptuousness in external Objects: in the others, languishing Nature seeks in God what she has lost, and adheres more closely to him, to provide for her self a kind of resource in her decay. Thus the same spirit that leads to Society in our wants, conducts us to God in our languishings; and if Convents were instituted as they ought to be, we should find in the same place both the support of Heaven, and the assistance of Men: but after the manner they are settled, instead of an alleviation of our miseries, we find there the hardship of a blind obedience, either in the performance of unprofitable things, or in the forbearance of innocent ones. We find there an ordinary sacrifice of Reason; Laws more difficult to be observ'd than the divine and political; Ordinances scandalously broke by Libertines, and impatiently borne by the most submissive.
I confess, we meet sometimes with some religious persons of an inestimable merit; such as knew the Vanities of the world which they have quitted; and the grimace of that kind of life which they have embrac'd. These are truly virtuous and devout then, who refine the dictates of Morality by those
