blames people for not admiring them, and not being attracted to
them. I do not believe that an admirable Christian life is
repulsive to the men of the world. I believe that wherever the
human mind recognizes a rounded, chastened, rich, and outspoken
Christian character, whether it belong to manhood or womanhood, it
admires it, and feels attracted to it, by the degree in which it
admires it. I believe, moreover, that the Christianity which
discards as vanities those things which God has provided for the
pleasure of His children, and mortifies the love of beauty, and
adopts the theory that God is pleased with penance, and degrades,
abuses, and traduces the body to win greater sanctity of soul, and
finds a sin in every sweet of sense, is a bastard Christianity.
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.




LESSON VII.

THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.


"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore ye soft pipes play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tones."
JOHN KEATS.

"I am as free as Nature first made man." DRYDEN.