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116 those high and elevating subjects, so dear to the General and his worthy family,—those edifying topics that afford to us such solid enjoyment, are, unhappily, too much neglected by the many."

"Perhaps," said Oriana, "the most part imagine that to introduce religious topics would be impolite or unfashionable, or think that such discourse tends to burthen and oppress the mind with gloom, cause melancholy or an undue seriousness, and by degrees chase all disposition for gaiety and pleasure."

"That such subjects being avoided," continued the Doctor, "may not always spring from a total indifference upon religious points, is very possible; yet at the same time it argues that the mind is not duly affected, as it should be, with a matter of such high moment, for we never fail to lend a willing and attentive ear to what we find delightful. Even at all times and places, the soul, intent upon its progressive risings towards heaven, abstracting itself from temporal to the contemplation of eternal things, may glow with an inward harmony, a peace and bliss which, depend upon it, the fascinating, giddy charms of sense and the world can never so amply convey."

In such conversation a very agreeable half-hour passed, when Mrs. De Brooke rising to depart, the General, in shaking Doctor Lovesworth