(Seeing questions rising to lips.) Hold your little tongues, children; it’s very late, and you’ll make me forget what I’ve to say.  Fancy yourselves in pews, for five minutes.  There’s one point of possible good in the conventual system, which is always attractive to young girls; and the idea is a very dangerous one;—­ 0the notion of a merit, or exalting virtue, consisting in a habit of meditation on the “things above,” or things of the next world.  Now it is quite true, that a person of beautiful mind, dwelling on whatever appears to them most desirable and lovely in a possible future, will not only pass their time pleasantly, but will even acquire, at last, a vague and wildly gentle charm of manner and feature, which will give them an air of peculiar sanctity in the eyes of others.  Whatever real or apparent good there may be in this result, I want you to observe, children, that we have no real authority for the reveries to which it is owing.  We are told nothing distinctly of the heavenly world; except that it will be free from sorrow, and pure from sin.  What is said of pearl gates, golden floors, and the like, is accepted as merely figurative by religious enthusiasts themselves; and whatever they pass their time in conceiving, whether of the happiness of risen souls, of their intercourse, or of the appearance and employment of the heavenly powers, is entirely the product of their own imagination; and as completely and distinctly a work of fiction, or romantic invention, as any novel of Sir Walter Scott’s.  That the romance is founded on religious theory or doctrine;—­that no disagreeable or wicked persons are admitted into the story;—­and that the inventor fervently hopes that some portion of it may hereafter come true, does not in the least alter the real nature of the effort or enjoyment.

Now, whatever indulgence may be granted to amiable people for pleasing themselves in this innocent way, it is beyond question, that to seclude themselves from the rough duties of life, merely to write religious romances, or, as in most cases, merely to dream them, without taking so much trouble as is implied in writing, ought not to be received as an act of heroic virtue.  But, observe, even in admitting thus much, I have assumed that the fancies are just and beautiful, though fictitious.  Now, what right have any of us to assume that our own fancies will assuredly be either the one or the other?  That they delight us, and appear lovely to us, is no real proof of its not being wasted time to form them:  and we may surely be led somewhat to distrust our judgment of them by observing what ignoble imaginations have sometimes sufficiently, or even enthusiastically, occupied the hearts of others.  The principal source of the spirit of religious contemplation is the East; now I have here in my hand a Byzantine image of Christ, which, if you will look at it seriously, may, I think, at once and forever render you cautious in the indulgence of a merely contemplative habit