It was
natural for women then to endeavour to preserve what once lost- was
lost for ever, till this care swallowing up every other care,
reputation for chastity, became the one thing needful to the sex.
But vain is the scrupulosity of ignorance, for neither religion nor
virtue, when they reside in the heart, require such a puerile
attention to mere ceremonies, because the behaviour must, upon the
whole, be proper, when the motive is pure.
To support my opinion I can produce very respectable authority;
and the authority of a cool reasoner ought to have weight to enforce
consideration, though not to establish a sentiment. Speaking of the
general laws of morality, Dr. Smith observes,- 'That by some very
extraordinary and unlucky circumstance, a good man may come to be
suspected of a crime of which he was altogether incapable, and upon
that account be most unjustly exposed for the remaining part of his
life to the horror and aversion of mankind. By an accident of this
kind he may be said to lose his all, notwithstanding his integrity and
justice, in the same manner as a cautious man, notwithstanding his
utmost circumspection, may be ruined by an earthquake or an
inundation. Accidents of the first kind, however, are perhaps still
more rare, and still more contrary to the common course of things than
those of the second; and it still remains true, that the practice of
truth, justice, and humanity, is a certain and almost infallible
method of acquiring what those virtues chiefly aim at, the
confidence and love of those we live with.
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