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While I was thus engaged with the maids, Azora and Antonią came into the room, and finding how I had been employed, they began to talk of problems, theorems, and equations, and foon convinced me, that I was not fuperior to them in this kind of knowledge; tho' I had studied it for a much longer time, and had taken more pains than ever they did. Their fine understandings faw at once the things that had made me sweat ma ny an hour, and in less time than I required for an operation, they could answer the most difficult queftions, and do any thing in fimple quadratic equations, and in the compofition and refolution of ratios. This I thought very wonderful; especially as they had been taught no longer than one year by Mr. Bur cot; and that they had acquired the most abftruse part of their knowledge by their own application. — I note the thing down as one of the strangest and most extraordinary cafes that ever came in my way; perhaps, that ever was heard. It is fuch a specimen of female understanding, as must for ever knock up the pofitive affertions of fome learned men, who will not allow that women have as ftrong reasoning heads as the

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By the way, I obferve, exclufive of thefe An obfer. two ladies, that I have feen many of the lative to

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fex who were diftinguished for accuracy and comprehensiveness, not only in the fcience, where known and required qualities are denoted by letters, but in other fine parts of learning. I have little right to pretend to any thing extraordinary in understanding, as my genius is flow, and fuch as is common in the lower claffes of men of letters; yet, my application has been very great: my whole life has been spent in reading and thinking and nevertheless, I have met with many women, in my time, who, with very little reading, have been too hard for me on feveral fubjects. In justice, I declare this; and am very certain from what I have heard numbers of them fay, and feen fome of them write, that if they had the laboured education the men have, and applied to books with all poffible attention for as many years as we do; there would be found among them as great divines as Epifcopius, Limborch, Whichcote, Barrow, Tillotson, and Clarke; and as great mathematicians, as Maclaurin, Saunderfon, and Simpson. The criticks may laugh at this affertion, I know they will: and, if they pleafe, they may doubt my veracity as to what I relate of the two ladies, and the ten young women, in Burcot-Hamlet; but what I fay is true notwithstanding. Facts are things too ftub

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born to be destroyed by laughing and doubting.

As to the ladies I have mentioned, they both did wonders in fpecious arithmetick; but Azora was the brighteft of the two, and in pure algebra, had gone much farther than Antonia. With wonder I beheld her, while she answered the most difficult queftions as faft as fingers could move; and in the folution of cubics, and the refolution of equations, both according to Des Cartes laborious method, and the better univerfal way, by converging feries, work with a celerity and truth beyond what I have ever seen any man do. Nor was it only algebra independent of geometry that fhe understood. She could

apply its reafoning to geometrical figures, and defcribe the loci of any equations by the mechanical motion of angles and lines. She was in this refpect the greatest prodigy I ever faw.

But it was not on account of this excellence that I fo much admired Azora, and honour her memory fo greatly as I do; nor because he talked fo excellently on various fubjects, as I have related; but, for her knowledge of the truths of chriftianity, and the habits of goodness fhe had wrought into her foul; for the care fhe took of the people under her government, by communicating every felicity in her power, to their bodies T 2

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and minds; and the pure religion of Christ Jefus, which the publickly maintained, in all the beauty of holiness, and in a just fervor of practice. She was herself, in her manners and piety, a fine copy of those bleffed women who converfed with our Lord and his apostles: and her fociety, in innocence and goodness, in usefulness and devotion, feemed an epitome of the first chriftian church at Jerufalem. Under a juft impreffion of the most heavenly principles they all lived, and ftrictly regarded their feveral offices. As the gofpel directs, they worshipped a firft caufe, the Deity, as the difciples of the Chrift of God, our holy mediator; and the authority of a Being of infinite wisdom, and unchangeable rectitude of nature, had made fuch an impreffion upon their minds, that they laboured continually to acquire that confecration and fanctity of heart and manners, which our divine religion requires. Excellent community! happy would Europe be, if all her states were like this people. A false religion would not then prevail; nor would fuperftition be the idol to which the world bows down. The evils, which now dishonour human nature, and infest society, would not be seen among us; nor those exceffes of paffion be known, which are the parent of difcord and calamity, and render this lower world one scene of fin and forrow: but, as

revelation

revelation inculcates, as reafon fuggefts, mankind would worship the Almighty Principle, the One God, the Only True God, with a worship fuitable to the nature of a Being, who is not confined to, or dependent upon, particular places and circumftances, who is always, and every where present with us; and like the minifters attending on the glorious throne of the Monarch of the world, they would, according to their measure, be pure, benevolent mortals, and as perfect in goodness, as men can be within the degree and limit of their nature.In a word, the Supreme Father of all things would then be the God of all christians; and in doing his will, in imitating his perfections, and in practising every thing recommended by the great and univerfal law of reason, (that law which God fent our Lord to revive and enforce), they would find the greatest pleasure. Such were the people of Burcot-Hamlet. Azora and Antonia were indeed moft glorious women (21).

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(21) Azora Burcot died in the year thirty two, fix years after I left them, but Antonia Fletcher is ftill living in the fame happy fituation; and by advifing the young women to marry fome young men of thofe mountains, has made an alteration in the community for the better, and encreased the number of her people. The fettlement is now like to continue, and they find many advantages from having men among them. The rifing generation

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