Hence, when her cousin at
length ventured to attack even those doctrines which all women who
have received a Christian education would naturally be expected to
revere the most, she was able to listen to him unshocked. But she
little thought, or he either, that it was only in virtue of what
Christian teaching she had had that she was capable of appreciating
what was grand in his doctrine of living for posterity without a
hope of good result to self beyond the consciousness that future
generations of perishing men and women would be a little more
comfortable, and perhaps a little less faulty therefrom. She did not
reflect, either, that no one's theory concerning death is of much
weight in his youth while life FEELS interminable, or that the gift
of comfort during a life of so little value that the giver can part
with it without regret, is scarcely one to be looked upon as a
mighty benefaction.
"But truth is truth," George would have replied.
What you profess to teach them might be a fact, but could never be a
truth, I answer. And the veiy value which you falsely put upon facts
you have learned to attribute to them from the supposed existence of
something at the root of all facts--namely, TRUTHS, or eternal laws
of being.
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