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Thus is the fair book of knowledge to be shut with an everlasting
seal! On reading similar passages I have reverentially lifted up
my eyes and heart to Him who liveth for ever and ever, and said, O
my Father, hast Thou by the very constitution of her nature forbid
Thy child to seek Thee in the fair forms of truth? And, can her
soul be sullied by the knowledge that awfully calls her to Thee?
I have then philosophically pursued these reflections till I
inferred, that those women who have most improved their reason must
have the most modesty --though a dignified sedateness of deportment
may have succeeded the playful, bewitching bashfulness of youth.*
(*Footnote. Modesty, is the graceful calm virtue of maturity;
bashfulness, the charm of vivacious youth.)
And thus have I argued. To render chastity the virtue from which
unsophisticated modesty will naturally flow, the attention should
be called away from employments, which only exercise the
sensibility; and the heart made to beat time to humanity, rather
than to throb with love. The woman who has dedicated a
considerable portion of her time to pursuits purely intellectual,
and whose affections have been exercised by humane plans of
usefulness, must have more purity of mind, as a natural
consequence, than the ignorant beings whose time and thoughts have
been occupied by gay pleasures or schemes to conquer hearts.
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