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nydus/Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of EuropePublic
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CHAP. II.

is very great, and it is perhaps the genuine source of the disgust of which the Illuminati were suspicious. But they have been dim-sighted indeed, or very unfortunate in their acquaintance, if they never observed any other source of repugnance in the mind of woman to what is immoral or immodest—if they did not see dislike—moral disapprobation. Do they mean to insinuate, that in that regard which modest women express in all their words and actions, for what every one understands by the terms decency, modesty, and the disapprobation of every thing that violates those feelings, the women only show female coyness? Then are they very blind instructors. But they are not so blind. The account given of the initiation of a young Sister at Frankfort, under the feigned name Psycharion, shows the most scrupulous attention to the moral feelings of the sex; and the confusion and disturbance which, after all their care, it occasioned among the ladies, shows, that when they thought all right and delicate, they had been but coarse judges. Minos damns the ladies there, because they are too free, too rich, too republican, and too wise, for being led about by the nose (this is his own expression). But Philo certainly thought more correctly of the sex in general, when he says, Truth is a modest girl: She may be handed about like a lady, by good sense and good manners, but must not be bullied and driven about like a strumpet. I would here insert the discourses or addresses which were made on that occasion to the different classes of the assembly, girls, young ladies, wives, young men, and strangers, which are really ingenious and well composed, were they not such as would offend my fair countrywomen.

The religious sentiments by which mortals are to be assisted, even in the discharge of their moral duties, and still more, the sentiments which are

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