nefits, they will do well to be on their guard left this very softness and ductility lay them more open to the feductions of temptation and error.

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They have in the native conftitution of their minds, as well as from the relative fituations they are called to fill, a certain fenfe of attachment and dependence, which is peculiarly favourable to religion. They feel, perhaps, more intimately the want of a ftrength which is not their Christianity brings that fuperinduced ftrength; it comes in aid of their confcious weaknefs, and offers the only true counterpoise to it. "Woman, be "thou healed of thine infirmity," is ftill the heart-cheering language of a gracious Saviour.

own.

Women alfo bring to the study of Chriftianity fewer of those prejudices which perfons of the other fex too often early contract. Men, from their claffical education, acquire a ftrong partiality for the manners of Pagan antiquity, and the

docu

documents of Pagan philofophy: this, together with the impure taint caught from the loose descriptions of their poets, and the licentious language even of their hif torians, (in whom we reasonably look for more gravity,) often weakens the good impreffions of young men, and at least confuses their ideas of piety, by mixing them with so much heterogeneous matter. Their very spirits are imbued all the week with the impure follies of a depraved mythology; and it is well if even on Sundays they can hear of the "true God, and Jesus "Chrift whom he has fent." While women, though struggling with the fame natural corruptions, have commonly less knowledge to unknow, and fewer schemes to unlearn; they have not to shake off the pride of fyftem, and to difencumber. their minds from the fhackles of favourite theories: they do not bring from the porch or the academy any " oppofitions "of science" to obftruct their reception

of thofe pure doctrines taught on the Mount: doctrines which ought to find a readier entrance into minds uninfected with the pride of the school of Zeno, or the libertinifm of that of Epicurus.

And as women are naturally more affectionate than faftidious; they are likely both to read and to hear with a lefs critical fpirit than men: they will not be on the watch to detect errors, fo much as to gather improvement; they have feldom that hardnefs which is acquired by dealing deeply in books of controverfy, but are more inclined to the perufal of works which quicken the devotional feelings, than to fuch as awaken a spirit of doubt and scepticism. They are lefs disposed to confider the compofitions they read, as materials on which to ground objections and answers, than as helps to faith and rules of life. With these advantages, however, they should also bear in mind that their more eafily received impreffions being often lefs abiding, and their reason

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lefs

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lefs open to conviction by means of the ftrong evidences which exift in favour of the truth of Chriftianity," they ought, "therefore, to give the more earnest heed "to the things which they have heard, "left at any time they should let them "flip." Women are alfo, from their domestic habits, in poffeffion of more leisure and tranquillity for religious pursuits, as well as fecured from those difficulties and strong temptations to which men are exposed in the tumult of a bustling world. Their lives are more regular and uniform, lefs agitated by the paffions, the bufineffes, the contentions, the shock of opinions, and the opposition of interefts which divide fociety, and convulfe the world.

If we have denied them the poffeffion of talents which might lead them to excel as lawyers, they are preferved from the peril of having their principles warped by that too indifcriminate defence of right and wrong, to which the profeffors of the law are pofed. If we fhould queftion their title to

eminence as mathematicians, they are happily exempt from the danger to which men devoted to that fcience are faid to be liable; namely, that of looking for demonstration on fubjects, which by their very nature, are incapable of affording it. If they are lefs converfant in the powers of nature, the structure of the human frame, and the knowledge of the heavenly bodies, than philofophers, phyficians, and astronomers; they are, however, delivered from the error into which many of each of these have fometimes fallen, I mean from the fatal habit of refting in fecond causes, inftead of referring all to the first; instead of making the heavens declare the glory of "God, and proclaim his handy work;" instead of concluding, when they obferve "how fearfully and wonderfully we are "made, marvellous are thy works O Lord! " and that my foul knoweth right well."

And let the weaker fex take comfort, that in their very exemption from privileges, which they are fometimes foolifhly difpofed

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