reasure.
Know that this young, man, whose life Providence hath shortened, would
have assassinated his aunt in the space of a year, and thee in that of
two."

"Who told thee so, barbarian?" cried Zadig; "and though thou hadst read
this event in thy Book of Destinies, art thou permitted to drown a youth
who never did thee any harm?"

While the Babylonian was thus exclaiming, he observed that the old man had
no longer a beard, and that his countenance assumed the features and
complexion of youth. The hermit's habit disappeared, and four beautiful
wings covered a majestic body resplendent with light.

"O sent of heaven! O divine angel!" cried Zadig, humbly prostrating
himself on the ground, "hast thou then descended from the Empyrean to
teach a weak mortal to submit to the eternal decrees of Providence?"

"Men," said the angel Jesrad, "judge of all without knowing anything; and,
of all men, thou best deservest to be enlightened."

Zadig begged to be permitted to speak. "I distrust myself," said he, "but
may I presume to ask the favor of thee to clear up one doubt that still
remains in my mind? Would it not have been better to have corrected this
youth, and made him virtuous, than to have drowned him?"

"Had he been virtuous," replied Jesrad, "and enjoyed a longer life, it
would have been his fate to be assassinated himself, together with the
wife he would have married, and the child he would have had by her."

"But why," said Zadig, "is it necessary that there should be crimes and
misfortunes, and that these misfortunes should fall on the good?"

"The wicked," replied Jesrad, "are always unhappy; they serve to prove and
try the small number of the just that are scattered through the earth; and
there is no evil that is not productive of some good."

"But," said Zadig, "suppose there were nothing but good and no evil at
all."

"Then," replied Jesrad, "this earth would be another earth. The chain of
events would be ranged in another order and directed by wisdom; but this
other order, which would be perfect, can exist only in the eternal abode
of the Supreme Being, to which no evil can approach. The Deity hath
created millions of worlds among which there is not one that resembles
another. This immense variety is the effect of His immense power. There
are not two leaves among the trees of the earth, nor two globes in the
unlimited expanse of heaven that are exactly similar; and all that thou
seest on the little atom i