well can feafon daily infipidity? I fcarcely can canceive a gift of more paternal and divine benevo◄ lence!

This has sweetened every bitter of my life, this alone has fupported me under the most corroding cares, when the forrows of a bursting heart wanted vent. My eyes fwam in tears, and my fpirit groaned with anguish. Then when men have daily asked, "where is now thy God?" when they rejected the fympathy, the affection of my foul, with rude contemptuous fcorn; when acts of honeft fimplicity were calumniated, and the facred impulfe of confcious truth was ridiculed, hiffed at, and despifed; in those burning moments, when the world afforded no comfort, even then did the Almighty open mine eyes, even then did he give me an unfailing fource of joy, contained in a gentle, tender, but internally firm, female mind; an afpect like that of unpractifed, cloistered virginity, which felt, and was able to efface each emotion, each paffion, in the most concealed feature of her husband's countenance, and who, by thofe means, without any thing of what the world calls beauty, fhone forth beauteous as an angel. Can there be a more noble or important practice than that of a phyfiognomonical fenfation for beauties fo captivating, fo excellent as these.

This phyfiognomonical fenfation is the most effectual prefervative against the degradation of ourselves and others. What can more readily discover the boundary between appetite and affection, or cunning under the mafk of fenfibility? What fooner can diftinguish defire from love, or love from friendfhip? What can more reverently, internally, and profoundly feel the fanctity of innocence, the divinity of maiden purity, or fooner detect coquetry unbleffed,

unbleffed, with wiles affecting every look of modefty? How often will fuch a phyfiognomift turn contemptuous from the beauties moft adored, from the wretched pride of their filence, their measured affectation of fpeech, the infipidity of their eyes, arrogantly overlooking mifery and poverty, their authoritative nofe, their languid, unmeaning lips, relaxed by contempt, blue with envy, and half bitten through by artifice and malace! The obviousnefs of thefe and many others will preferve him, who can fee from the dangerous charms of their fhameless bofom! How fully convinced is the man of pure phyfiognomonical fenfation, that he cannot be more degraded than by fuffering himself to be enfnared by fuch a countenance! Be this one proof among a thousand.

But if a noble, fpotlefs maiden but appear; all innocence, and all foul; all love, and of love all worthy, which muft as fuddenly be felt as the manifeftly feels; if in her large arched forehead all the capacity of immeafurable intelligence which wisdom can communicate be visible; if her compreffed but not frowning eyebrows fpeak an unexplored mine of understanding, or her gentle outlined or fharpened nofe, refined tafte, with fympathetic goodness of heart, which flows through the clear teeth, over her pure and efficient lips; if the breathe humility and complacency; if condefcenfion and mildnefs be in each motion of her mouth, dignified wisdom in each tone of her voice; if her eyes, neither too open nor too close, but looking ftraight forward, or gently turned, fpeak the foul that feeks a fifterly embrace; if fhe be fuperior to all the powers of defcription; if all the glories of her angelic form be imbibed like the mild and golden rays of an autumnal evening fun; may not then this so highly priz

ed

ed phyfiognomonical fenfations be a destructive fnare or fin, or both?

"If thine eye be fingle, thy whole body fhall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light." And what is phyfiognomonical fenfations but this fingleness of eye? The foul is not to be seen without the body, but in the body; and the more it is thus seen, the more facred to thee will the body be. What! man having this fenfation, which God has beftowed, wouldst thou violate the fanctuary of God? Wouldst thou degrade, defame, debilitate and deprive it of fenfibility? Shall he, whom a good or great countenance does not inspire with reverence and love, incapable of offence, fpeak of phyfiognomonical fenfation; of that which is the revelation of the fpirit? Nothing maintains chastity fo entire, nothing fo truly preferves the thoughts from brutal paffion, nothing fo reciprocally exalts fouls, when they are mutually held in facred purity. The contemplation of power awakens reverence, and the picture of love infpires love; not selfish gratification, but that pure paffion with which spirits of heaven embrace.

CHA P. XXXIV.

General Remarks on Male and Female.-A Word on the physiognomonical Relation of the Sexes.

G

ENERALLY fpeaking, how much more pure, tender, delicate, irritable, affectionate, flexible, and patient, is woman than man! The primary matter of which they are constituted appears to be more

2

flexible,

flexible, irritable, and elaftic, than that of man. They are formed to maternal mildness and affection. All their organs are tender, yielding, easily wounded, fenfible, and receptible.

Among a thousand females there is scarcely one without the generic feminine figns the flexible, the circular, and the irritable. They are the counterpart of man, taken out of man, to be fubject to man; to comfort him like angels, and to lighten his cares. "She fhall be faved in child bearing, if they continue in faith, and charity, and holiness, with fobriety." (1 Tim. ii. 15.)

This tendernefs and fenfibility, this light texture of their fibres and organs, this volatility of feeling render them so easy to conduct and to tempt; fo ready of fubmiffion to the enterprize and power of the man; but more powerful through the aid of their charms than man, with all his ftrength. The man was not firft tempted, but the woman, afterwards the man by the woman. And not only easily to be tempted, fhe is capable of being formed to the pureft, nobleft, moft feraphic virtue; to every thing which deferve praise or affection.

Highly fenfible of purity, beauty, and symmetry, fhe does not always take time to reflect on internal life, internal death, internal corruption. "The woman faw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be defired to make one wife, and fhe took of the fruit thereof." The female thinks not profoundly; profound thought is the power of the man. Women feel more: fenfibility is the power of the woman. They often rule more effectually, more fovereignly than man. They rule with tender looks, tears, and fighs, but not with paffion and threats; for, if they fo rule, they are no longer women, but abortions.

They

They are capable of the sweetest fenfibility, the moft profound emotion, the utmost humility, and the excess of enthusiasm. In their countenance are the figns of fanctity and inviolability, which every feeling man honours, and the effects of which are often miraculous. Therefore, by the irritability of their nerves, their incapacity for deep inquiry and firm decifion, they may easily, from their extreme fenfibility, become the moft irreclaimable, the most rapturous enthusiasts.

The love of woman, strong and rooted as it is, is very changeable; their hatred almost incurable, and only to be effaced by continued and artful flattery. Men are most profound, women are more fublime. Men most embrace the whole; women remark individually, and take more delight in selecting the minutie which form the whole. Man hears the bursting thunders, views the deftructive bolt with ferene afpect, and ftands erect amidst the fearful majefty of the ftreaming clouds. Woman trembles at the lightning and the voice of diftant thunder, and fhrinks into herself, or finks into the arms of man.

A ray of light is fingly received by man, woman delights to view it through a prifm, in all its dazzling colours. She contemplates the rainbow as the promife of peace; he extends his inquiring eye over the whole horizon.

Woman laughs, man smiles; woman weeps, man remains filent. Woman is in anguish when man weeps, and in defpair when man is in anguifh; yet has the often more faith than man. Without religion, man is a difeafed creature, who would perfuade himself he is well, and needs not a physician: but woman, without religion, is raging and montrous. A woman with a beard is not fo digufting as a woman who acts the free-thinker; her fex is formed