What is said and done in their visits is worthy of the
motive that inspires them. There is not a single serious thought
expressed, not a single word to show that these women have an
intelligence capable of comprehending the truth, a heart made to love
what is good, or a soul capable of receiving God Himself. If life
were but a dream, if there be no hereafter, if at death the soul must
perish with the body; and man must sink into the nothingness whence
he sprang; they would have nothing to change in their visits,
conversations and conduct.
There is a visit celebrated in Holy Writ, a visit paid by a young
woman to one of her own sex but more advanced in years, a visit so
holy and renowned that its anniversary is celebrated throughout the
Christian world,--it is the visit paid by the Blessed Virgin to her
cousin St. Elizabeth. O, Christian ladies, behold your true model!
Compare this visit with yours, and judge yourselves according to it.
Compare your motives with those of Mary. Compare your conversations
with that sublime conversation of which the sacred writer has given
us a fragment, being the most sublime canticle that has ever been
uttered by any intelligent creature under the action of divine
inspiration.
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