.

they must yet be contented to relinquifh honours, and muft unjustly be compelled to renounce fame while they muft. feduloufly labour to deserve it.

But for Chriftian women to act on the low views fuggefted to them by their illjudging panegyrifts; and to look up with a giddy head and a throbbing heart to honours and renumerations, fo little fuited to the wants and capacities of an immortal fpirit, would be no lefs ridiculous than if Christian heroes fhould look back with envy on the Pagan rewards of ovations, oak garlands, parfley crowns, and laurel wreaths. The Chriftian hope more than reconciles Chriftian women to these petty privations, by fubftituting a nobler prize for their ambition, "the prize of the "high calling of God in Chrift Jefus." By fubftituting, for that popular and fluc tuating voice, which may cry "Hofanna" and "crucify" in a breath, that "favour "of God which is eternal life."

If women fhould lament the difadvantages attached to their fex, that their character is of fo delicate a texture as to be fullied by the flightest breath of calumny, and that the ftain is indelible; yet are they not led by that very circumftance more inftinctively to fhrink from all thofe irregularities to which the lofs of character is fo infeparably attached; and, to fhun with keener circumfpection the moft diftant approach towards the confines of danger? Let them not lament it as a hardship, but enjoy it as a privilege, that the delicacy of their fex impels them more fcrupulously to avoid the very appearance of evil, fince that very neceffity ferves to defend their purity by a more deep intrenchment from the evil itself.

Though it be one main object of this little work, rather to lower than to raise any defire of celebrity in the female heart; yet I would awaken it to a juft fenfibility to honeft fame: I would call on women

to

to reflect that our religion has not only made them heirs to a blessed immortality hereafter, but has greatly raised them in the scale of being here, by lifting them to an importance in fociety unknown to the moft polished ages of antiquity. The religion of Christ has even bestowed a degree of renown on the fex beyond what any other religion ever did. Perhaps there are hardly fo many virtuous women (for I reject the long catalogue whom their vices have transferred from oblivion to infamy) named in all the pages of Greek or Roman History, as are handed down to eternal fame, in a few of those short chapters with which the great Apostle to the Gentiles has concluded his epiftles to his converts. Of "devout and honour. "able women," the facred fcriptures record "not a few." Some of the most affecting scenes, the most interesting transactions, and the moft touching converfations which are recorded of the Saviour

of

of the world, paffed with women. They are the first remarked as having "minif"tered to him of their substance." Theirs was the praise of not abandoning their despised Redeemer when he was led to execution, and under all the hopeless circumstances of his ignominious death; they appear to have been the last attending at his tomb, and the first on the morning when he arofe from it. Theirs was the privilege of receiving the earliest confolation from their rifen Lord; theirs was the honour of being firft commiffioned to announce his glorious refurrection to the world. And even to furnish heroic confeffors, devoted faints, and unfhrinking martyrs to the Church of Chrift, has not been the exclufive honour of the bolder fex.

f

CHAP. XIV.

CONVERSATION.-Hints fuggefted on the fubject-On the tempers and difpofitions to be introduced in it.-Errors to be avoided. -Vanity under various fhapes the cause of thofe errors.

THE fexes will naturally desire to appear to each other, fuch as each believes the other will beft like; their conversation will act reciprocally; and each fex will appear more or lefs rational as they perceive it will more or lefs recommend them to the other. It is therefore to be regretted, that many men, even of distinguished fense and learning, are too apt to confider the fociety of ladies, rather as a scene in which to reft their understandings, than to exercise them; and ladies, in return, are too much addicted to make their court by lending themselves to this spirit of trifling;