[Footnote 4: Babington tells us, that in orphan asylums, hospitals and convents, the effect of contagion is so great, that the nervous disorder of one female easily and quickly becomes the disorder of all. He tells us, upon the authority of a medical work, on which he places the most implicit reliance, of a large convent in France, where the example of one female who imitated the mewing of a cat, set the whole convent to mewing, so as to make every day a complete cat concert. And upon the authority of Carden, he tells of a nun in a German convent, who commenced biting her companions like a mad dog. The contagion spread from one to the other, until all in the nunnery were affected with this rabid humor, which spread from convent to convent until it reached Rome. These cases, however, if they actually occurred, were of a very extraordinary character, and could only happen under such circumstances as generally attend on the secluded, contemplative and eccentric life of a convent, which nature never intended to be the life of a rational, active, social being.] _Effects of Religion on Woman_. Religion, I mean the religion of the heart and of the feelings, such as woman generally possesses, has undoubtedly a tendency to heighten and improve all those qualities and attributes which we consider as most essential to the female character. All the great duties of life, those of wife, mother, friend, &c. she performs with a double relish, and under the influence of a double motive. Religion furnishes a new and powerful impulse to virtue. Virtue, it is true, has its own charms, and may be said, by the happiness which it affords, to constitute its own reward; but you have never so well fortified it and guarded it against dangerous assault, as when you have thrown over it the sacred panoply of the christian religion. Most of the religions of the world have chimed in with the prevailing tendencies of the corrupt portions of our nature, and have flattered and ministered to some of the worst and most malignant passions of the human heart. Not so with the christian religion; it has exalted the humble and meek in spirit, and pulled down the proud and wicked: it has waged war on vice and the indulgence of evil passions of every description, and has proclaimed the great law on which the whole code of morality hangs, that "whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."