The religious female then, in addition to all the ordinary motives which can incite to virtue, has the additional one of wishing to please her God and of providing for her happiness hereafter. Religion softens and disciplines the feelings, it quickens and heightens the tender sensibilities, and increases all the sympathies of our nature. It throws, in fine, a drapery of grace, of amiableness and loveliness over the whole female character. Woman is never so lovely as in the quiet unobtrusive discharge of her religious duties. "Men," says Dr. Cogan, "contemplate a female atheist with more disgust and horror, than if she possessed the hardest features embossed with carbuncles." Even those who do not believe in the truth of christianity, turn frequently with disgust from unbelieving women; they know too well the value of religion and piety in the mother and the wife; they know full well that the religious woman is generally the one who loves most tenderly, most engrossingly, and most constantly. There is a mysterious connection between even human love and religion. Rousseau has long ago remarked upon the similarity of the languages of the two.[5] How soon does a man in love, convert his mistress into an _angel_; he is ready to make every _sacrifice_ for her; he kneels at her _shrine_; he _worships_, he _adores_ her; 'tis _heaven_ where she is, _torment_ where she is not. [Footnote 5: He says that "the enthusiasm of devotion borrows the language of love; the enthusiasm of love borrows the language of devotion."] I have already spoken of some of the effects of human love on man; it is through the medium of the same powerful, mysterious agent, that woman can frequently do so much for the cause of religion. There are few men who can be deeply devoted to a pious female without a deep sense of the beauty, the loveliness, and the holiness of true religion. I once knew a being who loved, and loved devotedly a pious lady. I have seen him gaze on her, as she moved before him in all the loveliness of modesty and grace. Her looks, her words, her actions, were all the subject of his intensest thoughts. I do believe he had wrought them into a science, which he did most dearly love to study. "She could bend him to her ev'ry will, His soul's emotions all were in her power."