The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1806-09-04 00:00:00

EXISTENCE OF GOD.
Extra& from the interesting work of Francis Augusta Chi-
tratibrisetd, demenstrstung the qttstenee of Grol, from the
wonderful Works of Nature. Trarnlated hero the French
by FREDERICK SCHOBERL.
(Continued.)
Every thing tends to confirm the troth of tli:eisirte;
mark : A savage is more powerfully attac
his hut, than a prince to his palace ; and the moun-
taineer is more delighted with his native rocks, than
the inhabitant of the plain with his golden corn.
fields. Ask a Scotch highlander, if he would change
his lot with the first potentate of the earth. When
far removed from his beloved mountains, he carries
with him the recolleAion of them wherever he goes;
he sighs for his flacks, his torrents, and his clouds.
He longs to eat again his barley bread, to drink
gnat's milk, and to sing in the valley the ballads
which were sang also by his forefathers. He pines
if he is prevented from returning to his native
clime.
It is a mountain plant which must be rooted
among rocks; it cannot thrive unless it be battered
by the winds and by the rain ; in the soil, the shel-
ter, and the sunshine of the plain, it soon droops and
dies.
With what joy will he again fly to his roof of
furze? with what delight will he visit all the sacred
relics of his indigence. And who can be more hap-
py than the Esquimau:, in his frightful country ?
What to him are all the flowers of our climates,
compared to the snows of Labrador, and all our
palaces to his smoky cabin ? He embarks; in spring,
with his wife, on a fragment of floating ice'. Hur-
ried along by the currents, he advances into the open
nhe
sea on this throne of the God of Tempests.
mountain waves oa the deep its luminous peaks and
its trees of snow ; the tea-wolves resign themselves
to the influence of love in its vallies; and the whales
accompany it over the black bosom of Ocean. The
hardy savage, on his moving rock, covered with the
spray of the billows, amid tempestuous whirlwinds
and driving snows, presses to his heart the wife
whom God has given him, and finds with her un-
known joys in this minute of perils and of plea-
sures.
Think not, however, that this savage basset very
gond reasons for preferring his country and his con-
ditioa to yours. Degraded as his nature appears to
you, still you mardiscever, either in him, or in the
arts he pratises, something that displays the dignity
of man. The European is lost
ship, the masterpiece of human industry, ou the
same shores where the Esquimatut, Luring in a
seal's skid, laughs at dangers of every kind. Some-
times he hears the ocean which covers him roaring
a hundred feet above his head ; sometimes moun-
tains-billows bear him aloft to the skies; he sports
among the surges, as a child balances himself on
tufted branches in the peaceful messes of the forest.
When God placed man in this region of tempests,
he impressed upon him a mark of royalty :—" Go,"
said he to him, from amidst the whirlwinds , " go,
wretched mortal ; I cast thee naked on the earth ;
but that, miserable as thou art, it may be impossi-
ble to misapprehend thy high destinies, thou shalt
subdue the monsters of the deep with a reed, and
thou shalt trample the tempests under thy feet."
Thus, in attaching us to our native land, Provi-
dence justifies its dealings towards us, and we may
have a thousand and a thousand reasons for loving
our country. The Arab never irrupts the well of
the camels, the antelope, and the horse, the compa-
nion of his jousnies in his paternal deserts; the Ne-
ro never ceases to remember his cottage, his jave-
lin, his banana, and the track of the tiger and of
the elephant in his native sands.
It is related that an English cabin boy had con-
ceived such an attachment to the ship in which he
was born, that he could never be induced to leave
her for a single moment. The greatest punishment
the Captain could inflift, was to threaten to send
him ashore ; on these occasions he would run, with
loud shrieks, and conceal himself in the hold.—
What inspired the little mariner with such an ea-
traordinary affedion for a plank, battered by the
winds? Assuredly, not consonances purely local
and physical. Was it a certain moral conformity
between the destinies of man and those of a ship ?
or did he find a pleasure in concentrating his joys
and his sorrows in what we may justly denominate
his cradle ? Tile heart is naturally fond of contraa-
ing itself ; the more it is compressed, the smaller
is the surface it presents to wounds : this is the rea-
son why persons of delicate sensibility, such as the
unfortunate in general, love to inhabit humble re-
treats. What sentiment gains in energy, it loses
in extent. When the Roman Republic was bound-
ed by Mount Aventine, her children sacrificed
their lives for her with joy ; toey ceased to love her,
when the Alps sad Mount Taurus were the limits
of her territory. It was undoubtedly some reason►
of this kind which cherished in the heart of the Eng-
lish youth that predilettion for his paternal vessel.
An unknown passenger on the ocean of life, he
beheld veloolo saw placed between him and our
affliCtions ; happy in viewing only from a distance
the melancholy shores of time world !
In Louisiana fiber* was • Negro woman and a sa-
vage, slaves LD two neighbouring planters. The
two women hod each a Child ; the *grecs, a little
girl, two years old, and the Indies, a boy, of the
same age : the latter died. The two antortunate
women having agreed to meet at a certain place in
the desert, repaired thither three successive eights.
The one brought her dead child, the other her fir-
ing child ; the one her Meadow. the other her Fclacite.'
They were not surprised thus to find themselves of
the same religion, both being wretched. The In-
dian performed the hollows of the solitude " This
is the tree of my country," said she, " sit down
beneath it to weep." They then placed their child-
ren on a branch of catalpa, and rocked them to-
gether, singing airs of their respedive conutries.
Alas! these maternal sports, which had often lulled
innocence to sleep, were incapable of awaking death !
rwas thus these two women consoled thera,eives ;
the one had lost her child and her liberty, the other
her liberty and her country. We derive comfort
even from alladion itself.
It is said, that a Frenchman, who was obliged
to withdraw during the reign of terror, purchased.
with the little he had left, a boat, upon the Rhine.
Here he lived, with his wife and two children.
Having no money, there was no hospitality for him.
• See Mimosas la Nouvelle France, by Chattevem.