Page:Modern literature (1804 Volume 1).djvu/172

 peaceable enough when sober, are prone to fight when heated with liquor: such ought to abstain from too plenteous libations. There are, likewise, many extremely well disposed young women, who yet are not to be trusted with the no less intoxicating beverage of moonlight walks, or even daylight excursions through fields and woods. Though there may be no particular plot formed against innocence and happiness, yet nature and passion have contrived a general plot, which, carried on in such scenes and by such actors, rarely fails to produce the catastrophe. As, alas! all the human race is frail, the best and wisest of moral systems has strongly inculcated, that the surest means of avoiding vice is to keep from temptation. Chastity may be considered as a garrison, which may stand a very long siege, may either repulse the assailant or make terms