AND NEGLIGENT PRACTICE. 219 who have not had the advantage of seeing religion under a more engaging form, to serious piety, by leading them to make a most unjust association be- tween religion and bad taste. When they encounter a new acquaint- ance of their own school, these reciprocal signs of religious intelligence produce an instantaneous sisterhood ; and they will run the chance of what the cha- racter of the stranger may prove to be, if she speaks in the vernacular tongue. With them, words are not only the signs of things, but the things themselves. If the, phraseologists meet with a well- disposed young person, whose opportu- nities are slender, and to whom religion is new, they alarm her by the impetuosity of their questions. They do not ex- amine if her principles are sound, but " does she pray extempore ?" This alarms her, if her too recent knowledge of her Bible and herself has not yet enabled her to make, this desirable pro- kiency. " Will she tell her experi- L
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