[we Should] Suspend Our Belief

The Sectaries Of A Persecuted Religion, Depressed By Fear, Animated With Resentment, And Perhaps Heated By Enthusiasm, Are Seldom In A Proper Temper Of Mind Calmly To Investigate, Or Candidly To Appreciate, The Motives Of Their Enemies, Which Often Escape The Impartial And Discerning View Even Of Those Who Are Placed At A Secure Distance From The Flames Of Persecution.

The Monastic Studies Have Tended, For The Most Part, To Darken, Rather Than To Dispel, The Cloud Of Superstition.

If We Are More Affected By The Ruin Of A Palace Than By The Conflagration Of A Cottage, Our Humanity Must Have Formed A Very Erroneous Estimate Of The Miseries Of Human Life.

The Incapacity Of A Weak And Distracted Government May Often Assume The Appearance And Produce The Effects Of A Treasonable Correspondence With The Public Enemy. If Alaric Himself Had Been Introduced Into The Council Of Ravenna, He Would Probably Have Advised The Same Measures Which Were Actually Pursued By The Ministers Of Honorius.

The Brutal Soldiers Satisfied Their Sensual Appetites Without Consulting Either The Inclination Or The Duties Of Their Female Captives; And A Nice Question Of Casuistry Was Seriously Agitated, Whether Those Tender Victims, Who Had Inflexibly Refused Their Consent To The Violation Which They Sustained, Had Lost, By Their Misfortune, The Glorious Crown Of Virginity. There Were Other Losses Indeed Of A More Substantial Kind And More General Concern.