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.

136 JANE TALEOT.
to work on your convictions without a suitable foundation
for my own?
And see now, my friend, the blindness of our judgments. I, who am imagined to incur such formidable
perils from intercourse with you, am, in truth, indebted
to you alone for all my piety,-all of it that is permanent and rational. Without those apprehensions which
your example inspired, without that zeal for your conversion which my attachment to you has, produced, what
would now have been my claims to religious knowledge?
Had I never extorted from you your doubts, and the
occasion of these doubts; had I never known the nmost
powerful objections to religion from your lips, I should
have been no less ignorant of the topics and arguments
favourable to it.
And I think I may venture to ascribe to myself no less
a progress in candour than in knowledge. My belief is
stronger than it ever was, but I no longer hold in scorn
or abhorrence those who differ from me. I perceive the
speciousness of those fallacies by which they are deluded.
I find it possible for men to disbelieve and yet retain
their claims to our reverence, our affection, and especially
our good offices.
Those whom I once thought were only to be hated and
shunned, I now find worthy of compassionate efforts for
their good. Those whom I once imagined sunk beneath
the reach of all succour, and to merit scarcely the tribute
of a sigh for their lost estate, now appear to be easily
raised to tranquillity and virtue, and to have irresistible
claims to our help.
In no respect has your company made me a worse —
in every respect it has made me a better-woman. Not
only my piety has become more rational and fervent,
but a new spring has been imparted to my languishing
curiosity. To find a soul to whom my improvement will
give delight; eager to direct and assist my inquiries;
delicately liberal no less of censure when merited than
of praise where praise is due; entering, almost without
the help of language from me, into my inmost thoughts;
assisting me, if I may so speak, to comprehend myself;
and raising to a steadfast and bright flame the spark