"They talk of shedding the blood of innocent children--of destroying
peasant women, who can only think and feel as their husbands bid them.
You will not allow that this should be done, will you?"
"Is the life of a woman more precious to her than that of a man? It is
a false sentiment which teaches us to spare the iniquities of women
because of their sex. Their weakness entitles them to our protection,
their beauty begets our love; but neither their weakness or their beauty
should be accepted as an excuse for their crimes."
"But poor innocent babes--it is not possible that they should have
committed crimes."
"In the religion of Christ it is declared, that the sins of the fathers
shall be visited on the children, to the third and fourth generation.
The priests who made these laws, and handed them down to their flocks,
as the very words of their God, had closely studied human nature. I do
not believe that an Almighty Creator condescended to engrave on stone,
with his own finger, these words, as they would feign that he did do;
but the law is not the less true; the children must expatiate, to the
third and fourth generation, the sins of their fathers.
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