But this is not all the Use I make of the above-mentioned Weekly Paper.  A Bill of Mortality [1] is in my Opinion an unanswerable Argument for a Providence.  How can we, without supposing our selves under the constant Care of a Supreme Being, give any possible Account for that nice Proportion, which we find in every great City, between the Deaths and Births of its Inhabitants, and between the Number of Males and that of Females, who are brought into the World?  What else could adjust in so exact a manner the Recruits of every Nation to its Losses, and divide these new Supplies of People into such equal Bodies of both Sexes?  Chance could never hold the Balance with so steady a Hand.  Were we not counted out by an intelligent Supervisor, we should sometimes be over-charged with Multitudes, and at others waste away into a Desart:  We should be sometimes a populus virorum, as Florus elegantly expresses it, a Generation of Males, and at others a Species of Women.  We may extend this Consideration to every Species of living Creatures, and consider the whole animal World as an huge Army made up of innumerable Corps, if I may use that Term, whose Quotas have been kept entire near five thousand Years, in so wonderful a manner, that there is not probably a single Species lost during this long Tract of Time.  Could we have general Bills of Mortality of every kind of Animal, or particular ones of every Species in each Continent and Island, I could almost say in every Wood, Marsh or Mountain, what astonishing Instances would they be of that Providence which watches over all its Works?

I have heard of a great Man in the Romish Church, who upon reading those Words in the Vth Chapter of Genesis, And all the Days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty Years, and he died; and all the Days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve Years, and he died; and all the Days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty nine Years, and he died; immediately shut himself up in a Convent, and retired from the World, as not thinking any thing in this Life worth pursuing, which had not regard to another.

The Truth of it is, there is nothing in History which is so improving to the Reader, as those Accounts which we meet with of the Deaths of eminent Persons, and of their Behaviour in that dreadful Season.  I may also add, that there are no Parts in History which affect and please the Reader in so sensible a manner.  The Reason I take to be this, because there is no other single Circumstance in the Story of any Person, which can possibly be the Case of every one who reads it.  A Battle or a Triumph are Conjunctures in which not one Man in a Million is likely to be engaged; but when we see a Person at the Point of Death, we cannot forbear being attentive to every thing he says or does, because we are sure that some time or other we shall our selves be in the same melancholy Circumstances.  The General, the Statesman, or the Philosopher, are perhaps Characters which we may never act in; but the dying Man is one whom, sooner or later, we shall certainly resemble.