Diana L. Eck is an American scholar of religious studies and professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies at Harvard University. She is also the Director of <em>The Pluralism Project</em> at Harvard.
In this excerpt, the order in which she presents the items serves a rhetorical purpose. The items are listed in order of how "accepted" they are in mainstream American society. Christianity (a cross) is well-accepted, while Judaism (yarmulke) is still omnipresent, but more contentious. As she goes on, the list would appear more and more exotic to American readers. The question therefore is successful in testing the limits of religious plurality.
The answer is the first one
The correct answer is:
<span>[O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd,
Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?]
The poet is wondering why a girl would ever reject a man who is hitting on her and wants to marry her. It is implied that women had no say in this - that their marriage depended solely on the man and that they couldn't choose at all. The entire poem is quite satirical and meant to mock these kinds of ideas and behaviors.
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The last one I think I took this last week
