"The superstition which once taught us to believe that prayer and penance brought down their blessing on some beloved one, was at least a kindly one. The affections of earth grew at once more tender and more spiritual, thus elevated and purified by an intercourse with heaven. The court was dissipated, worldly, false, — even as human nature has ever been from the beginning, and will be even unto the end; but there, also, human nature asserted its better part, and its deeper feelings and had its higher hopes. Many a young and lovely woman, whose feet knew but the pleasant paths of prosperity, and whose ear was familiar but with the voice of the flatterer, would voluntarily offer up a portion of her time, as her holiest sacrifice ; and on the straw pallet, and in the serge robe, take a profound lesson of the vanities which made up ordinary existence. To these vanities, it is true, they returned ; but surely not without a stronger humility, and some thoughts which even in the world, were God's own."