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Think of an education which impressed on the minds of interesting young girls that the trifling sins which they committed every day, and which proceeded from the exuberance of animal spirits, justly doomed them to everlasting burnings, without expiations, a creed so cruel as to undermine the health, and make life itself a misery!

In the beginning of the year, which was the consulate of Lucius Cornelius and Quintus Minucius, such frequent reports of earthquakes were brought, that people grew weary, not only of the matter itself, but of the religious rites enjoined in consequence; for neither could the senate be convened, nor the business of the public be transacted, the consuls were so constantly employed in sacrifices and expiations.

The gazettes were full of the new constitution, which they called the "Additional Act," and the act of the "Champ de Mai." Mr. Goulden always had something to say, sometimes about one article and sometimes another, but I mixed no more in these affairs, and repented of having complained of the processions and expiations; I had had enough of politics. This lasted till the 23d of May.

To the Roman, Ihne says, "religion turns out to be the fear lest the gods should punish them for neglect; any unusual occurrence may be a sign that the gods are withdrawing their co-operation from the state, and this must be looked into, and the due expiations used if judged necessary."

"My family, as you have seen, are rather exact in the distribution of their time, but we do not distress ourselves at interruptions which are unavoidable: but her arrangements were carried on with a rigor which made her consider the smallest deviation as a sin that required severe repentance. Her alms were expiations, her self-denials penances.

This was often carried on until they worked themselves up to a pitch of madness, and then they began boxing each other until the floor of the church would be smeared with blood; upon which most severe expiations were exacted from them; as, however, much has been shed in the cause of the church, it was not to be permitted that the holy sanctuary should ever be stained with aught so impure.

An eclipse, an earthquake, a storm, a shipwreck, unusual rain or drought, a good or a bad harvest and not merely these, but many other occurrences far smaller and more unimportant, as we may see by the eighteenth chapter of the Characters of Theophrastus were then regarded as visitations of the gods, requiring to be interpreted by recognized prophets, and to be appeased by ceremonial expiations.

Whether the point under discussion constitutes a minor or a major offence, in any case those who have lapsed stand outside the category of those qualified for the knowledge of Brahman. For Smriti, i.e. the text quoted above, 'I see no expiatory performance by which he, a slayer of Brahman as he is, could become pure again, declares that expiations are powerless to restore purity.

All religious scruples were fully removed by expiations; at Locri, too, the affair of the sacrilege had been thoroughly investigated by Quintus Minucius, and the money replaced in the treasury out of the effects of the guilty.

He is so much swayed by the spirit of his order, he has conceived such a love for self-denial, for humility and poverty, that it will need all my efforts and much help from on high to make him agree to this change of expiations." "It is you, then, prior, who from sheer goodness of heart are undertaking to alter this fatal resolution?