Perhaps, there is not a virtue that mixes so kindly with every other
as modesty.- It is the pale moon-beam that renders more interesting
every virtue it softens, giving mild grandeur to the contracted
horizon. Nothing can be more beautiful than the poetical fiction,
which makes Diana with her silver crescent, the goddess of chastity. I
have sometimes thought, that wandering with sedate step in some lonely
recess, a modest dame of antiquity must have felt a glow of
conscious dignity when, after contemplating the soft shadowy
landscape, she has invited with placid fervour the mild reflection
of her sister's beams to turn to her chaste bosom.
A Christian has still nobler motives to incite her to preserve her
chastity and acquire modesty, for her body has been called the
Temple of the living God; of that God who requires more than modesty
of mien. His eye searcheth the heart; and let her remember, that if
she hope to find favour in the sight of purity itself, her chastity
must be founded on modesty, and not on worldly prudence; or verily a
good reputation will be her only reward; for that awful intercourse,
that sacred communication, which virtue establishes between man and
his Maker, must give rise to the wish of being pure as he is pure!
After the foregoing remarks, it is almost superfluous to add, that I
consider all those feminine airs of maturity, which succeed
bashfulness, to which truth is sacrificed, to secure the heart of a
husband, or rather to force him to be still a lover when nature would,
had she not been interrupted in her operations, have made love give
place to friendship, as immodest.
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