a God in the abstractness
of pantheism, but in a Supreme Being with whom they have relationship,
to whom they are accustomed to pray, and who at once awes and fortifies
them. This thought, you see, it is your belief as well as mine, is our
strength in evil days, is our strength against what we call the world;
the refuge; or better still, the strength of the weak. It is this
thought which gives women that stability which makes them resigned to a
thousand little things in life, which makes them carry all their
suffering to God, and ask of Him grace to fulfill their duty. That
religion, gentlemen, is the Christian religion, and it is that which
establishes a relationship between God and man. Christianity, in placing
a sort of intermediary power between God and ourselves, renders God more
accessible, and communication with Him easier. That the Mother of Him
who has made Himself the Saviour should receive the prayers of women,
cannot affect, so far as I can see, purity, religious sanctity, or
religious sentiment itself. But here is where the change begins. In
order to accommodate a religion to all natures, all sorts of petty,
miserable, paltry things are introduced. The pomp of the ceremonies,
instead of being a true pomp which lays hold on the soul, often
degenerates into a commerce in relics, medals, of little saints and
Virgins. To what, gentlemen, do the minds of children, curious, ardent,
and tender, lend themselves, especially the minds of young girls? To all
these enfeebled, attenuated, miserable images of the religious
spirit. They then take upon themselves little religious duties to put in
practice, little devotions of tenderness, of love, and in the place of
having in their soul the sentiment of God, the sentiment of duty, they
abandon themselves to reveries, to little devices, to little
devotions. And then comes the poesy, and then comes, it is very
necessary to say it, a thousand thoughts of charity, of tenderness, of
mystic love, a thousand forms which deceive young girls and sensualize
religion. These poor children, naturally credulous and weak, take to all
this poesy and reverie instead of attaching themselves to something more
reasonable and severe. Whence it happens that you have very many strong
devotees among women who are not religious at all. And when the wind
blows them from the path where they ought to walk, in place of finding
strength to combat it, they find only a kind of sensuality which
bewilders