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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
Safety by the bearers of this letter , dictated ( for she Was by far too holy to have learned any worldly accomplishments ) by hersel f as would be testified by the signet which they must well remember . The bearers of this dispatch sent in word that they could wait no longer than till the next morning . Though they disliked the suddenness and peremptoriness of this summons , and did not know to what it would lead , the friends
would not listen to any persuasions to disobey their superior ^ They had not loved her in former times , but their remembrances of her were softened by absence ,, and by some sympathy in their mutual trials daring the years of separation , and they each owned that they wished to see her again . During the rest of the evening , and till they were actually in the saddle the next morning , it was pressed upon them by the friends they left behind , that their monastic vows were dissolved for ever , and that it might become a duty , from which they must not shrink , to assert their freedom by returning , in case of any attempt to impose a restraint upon their consciences .
Their love for their superior had cooled to its ancient temperature before they had been many hours in her maternal presence The circumstances she had gone through had confirmed all her faults , and the few virtues she had formerly displayed , did not appear so well in the open air of the world , as in the recess of her convent . She could not forgive the loss of her power , and was now making a last attempt to recover a portion of it . She had tried to recall one after another of her scattered brood , but some
were fluttering and warbling far out of reach of her cry , and some were nestling close , warm , and safe , and would not be tempted forth again into the storms that were still lowering around . Liese and Helena were the only ones who obeyed her summons , and in her delight at resuming her office of schooling , she marred her own interest , and estranged them at once and for ever .
After a very long lecture on the damnable crime , not only of heresy itself , but of tolerating heresy , which contained allusions too personal to be mistaken , she proposed a walk , a very acceptable relief to her auditors , but one which she would not have afforded but for a special purpose of her own . She led the way to a hovel at a little distance from the town , and insisting with much earnestness on their not touching the threshold , or speaking
to any one they might see , bade them look in at the open door . There was a dreadful spectacle . A poor maniac , a young woman , was crouching down in a corner , shivering with cold , for her rags did not half cover her , and chained by the ancle to one of the door posts . There was no furniture in the place but the straw on which she lay , and no traces of food but an empty trencher . She looked wild but not violent ; and Helena immediately asked if she was harmless . Liese had no dQubt of it from observing that the
Untitled Article
Liese ; or , the Progress of Worship . H £ &
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1832, page 325, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1812/page/37/
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