It may be a substitute for worldly pursuits; yet
narrow, instead of enlarging the heart: but virtue must be loved as in
itself sublime and excellent, and not for the advantages it procures
or the evils it averts, if any great degree of excellence be expected.
Men will not become moral when they only build airy castles in a
future world to compensate for the disappointments which they meet
with in this; if they turn their thoughts from relative duties to
religious reveries.
Most prospects in life are marred by the shuffling worldly wisdom of
men, who, forgetting that they cannot serve God and mammon,
endeavour to blend contradictory things.- If you wish to make your son
rich, pursue one course- if you are only anxious to make him virtuous,
you must take another; but do not imagine that you can bound from
one road to the other without losing your way.*
* See an excellent essay on this subject by Mrs. Barbauld, in
Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose.
Chap. VI.
The Effect Which an Early Association of Ideas Has upon
the Character.
Educated in the enervating style recommended by the writers on
whom I have been animadverting; and not having a chance, from their
subordinate state in society, to recover their lost ground, is it
surprising that women every where appear a defect in nature? Is it
surprising, when we consider what a determinate effect an early
association of ideas has on the character, that they neglect their
understandings, and turn all their attention to their persons?
The great advantages which naturally result from storing the mind
with knowledge, are obvious from the following considerations.
Pages:
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193