The novels of Charles Brockden Brown, consisting of Wieland;or, The transformation. Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the year 1793. Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a sleep-walker. Jane Talbot. Ormond; or, The secret witness. Clara Howard; or, The enthusiasm of love. With a memoir of the author.

JANE TALBOT. 133
and to make her will not only the regulator of my actions,
but the criterion of my understanding, it is impossible
not to hesitate, to review all that has passed between us,
and reconsider anew the motives that have made me act
as I have acted.
Yet the review always confirms me in my first opinion.
You err, but are not obstinate in error. If your opinions
be adverse to religion, your affections are not wholly estranged from it. Your understanding dissents, but your
heart is not yet persuaded. to refuse. You have powers,
irresistible in whatever direction they are bent; capable
of giving the highest degree of misery or happiness to
yourself and to others. At present they are misdirected
or inactive; they are either pernicious or useless.
How can I, who have had ample opportunities of knowing you, stand by with indifference while such is your
state? I love you, it is true. All your felicity and all
your woe become mine. I have a selfish interest in your
welfare. I cannot bear the thought of passing through
this world, or of entering any future world, without you.
My heart has tried in vain to create a separate interest,
to draw consolation from a different source. Hence indifference to your welfare is impossible. But would not
indifference, even if no extraordinary tie subsisted between
us, be criminal? What becomes of our obligation to do
good to others, if we do not exert ourselves, when all the
means are in our power, to confer the most valuable of
all benefits, to remove the greatest of all ills?
Of what stuff must that heart be made which can behold, unmoved, genius and worth, destitute of the joys
and energies of religion; wandering in a maze of passions
and doubts; devoured by fantastic repinings and vague regrets; drearily conscious of wanting a foundation whereon
to repose, a guide in whom to trust? What heart can
gaze at such a spectacle without unspeakable compassion?
Not to have our pity and our zeal awakened seems to
me to argue the utmost depravity of heart. No stronger
proof can be given that we ourselves are destitute of true
religion. The faith or the practice must be totally wanting. We may talk devoutly; we may hie, in due season,
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