And, if thus we respect God, can we give credit to the mysterious
insinuations which insult his laws? Can we believe, though it
should stare us in the face, that he would work a miracle to
authorize confusion by sanctioning an error? Yet we must either
allow these impious conclusions, or treat with contempt every
promise to restore health to a diseased body by supernatural means,
or to foretell, the incidents that can only be foreseen by God.
SECTION 13.2.
Another instance of that feminine weakness of character, often
produced by a confined education, is a romantic twist of the mind,
which has been very properly termed SENTIMENTAL.
Women, subjected by ignorance to their sensations, and only taught
to look for happiness in love, refine on sensual feelings, and
adopt metaphysical notions respecting that passion, which lead them
shamefully to neglect the duties of life, and frequently in the
midst of these sublime refinements they plunge into actual vice.
These are the women who are amused by the reveries of the stupid
novelists, who, knowing little of human nature, work up stale
tales, and describe meretricious scenes, all retailed in a
sentimental jargon, which equally tend to corrupt the taste, and
draw the heart aside from its daily duties. I do not mention the
understanding, because never having been exercised, its slumbering
energies rest inactive, like the lurking particles of fire which
are supposed universally to pervade matter.
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