"
This delicate compliment did not gratify her vanity, but it reached her
heart. She then recollected that she had once sat for her picture--for
whom was it designed? For a boy! Her cheeks flushed with indignation, so
strongly did she feel an emotion of contempt at having been thrown
away--given in with an estate.
As Mary again gave way to hope, her mind was more disengaged; and her
thoughts were employed about the objects around her.
She visited several convents, and found that solitude only eradicates
some passions, to give strength to others; the most baneful ones. She
saw that religion does not consist in ceremonies; and that many prayers
may fall from the lips without purifying the heart.
They who imagine they can be religious without governing their tempers,
or exercising benevolence in its most extensive sense, must certainly
allow, that their religious duties are only practiced from selfish
principles; how then can they be called good? The pattern of all
goodness went about _doing_ good.
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