Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/309

 ger, still he fees his blood spilt cheerfully, as it will doubtless reclaim you to the path of virtue, from which you began to swerve. I feel myself very faint, and am unable to expatiate long on the mystery of this unhappy night, but in justice to you all, will briefly relate some particulars.

"The most sacred duty of our Covenant, is, to protect our unexperienced members, and to chastise conjugal infidelity, especially in wives and their seducers. The crime of adultery has risen to an alarming: height in this degenerate age, the laws instead of preventing tend rather to encourage it, and thousands of husbands bewail the consequences of that baneful and detested; crime. Friendship is now but an empty, name, and under its mask the artful seducer generally succeeds in his diabolical purpose. My Carlos has always shewn too much kindness to friends, and unless he attends to this, salutary lesson, by tempering with caution, the confidence he reposes in them, he will split upon that rock. It was I, who have promoted his union with Adela, whose con-