calculation, rather than that of attachment. So that, in this interesting particular, the liberty of European females is in an inverse ratio to the rank of their families. The deplorable consequences are the same as might reasonably be expected;-such as coldness, alienation, domestic feuds, and conjugal infidelity, so common and notorious among those high-born ladies that had been given in marriage contrary to their own wishes.

Nor does it by any means follow, on the other hand, that paternal authority has no concern in this matter. It has indeed a deep concern, but it is rather negative than injunctive. A father has an undoubted right, nay, he is in duty bound to refuse consent to an alliance which he thinks would be deeply prejudicial to the interest of his child, and to use all proper means in his power to prevent it.* So far is this from cruelty, that it is a mark of affection, and an act of kindness. But if he overleaps this boundary; if he assumes the right of selection; if he attempts to give his daughter in marriage against her own inclination; if he would sacrifice her peace to the mammon of avarice or to the moloch of ambition-it is then that he acts the part of a tyrant, and is deserving of severity of censure.

Such instances, however, do seldom happen in common life; in which there is a much greater number of children who rush into the state of marriage with a criminal disregard to parental authority and feeling, than of parents who abuse their authority in the manner above mentioned. Nor does this species of undutifulness often fail of resulting in matrimonial infelicity.

*I have particular reference here to children, either in the state of minority, or not of age fully mature.

CHAP. LXX.

Of useful Industry, considered as a moral duty.

THE fourth cominandment in the sacred decalogue, lays upon us two distinct obligations: it imposes labor

no less expressly than it enjoins a holy rest. shalt thou labor, and do all thy work."

"Six days

Hence, it is a just and fair inference, that a life of voluntary idleness is a life of disobedience to the law and will of heaven. If, of your own choice, you spend the six working days idly, you are as verily a transgressor of the moral law, as you would be in disregarding the day that is consecrated. And besides, we are the better fitted for the duties of the sabbath, by means of our industry in providing "things honest" during the rest of the week; while, on the other hand, he that idles way the six days of labor, is very ill prepared for the sacred day of rest. The idle body, who, nevertheless, appears occasionally devout, separates what God hath joined together; for he that said, "Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy," bath also said, "Six days shalt thou labor."

Well-directed industry, is a moral and christian duty, a scriptural duty, which none that are capable of it can dispense with, and be guiltless. Neither wealth, nor rank, nor sex, can excuse a person in good health, and of competent faculties, from all and every kind of useful labor either of body or mind, or of both. Mere amusement is for little children. Employment, useful employment, is for men and women. And, indeed, as little is there granted us the liberty of doing no good with our faculties, as of employing them in doing evil and mischief.

Labor is either mental, or bodily, or mixed. There are none whose labor is a greater "weariness of the flesh," as well as of the nobler part of humanity, than men of close and remitless study; and there are none, whose industry is more useful to mankind. The man of talents, who, in solitude, and perhaps in neglected poverty, employs discreetly the faculties of his mind, to enlighten and instruct his fellow beings in their immortal, or even their mortal interests, is a benefactor to community, rather than a burden. Nevertheless, he, even he, errs wofully, if he neglects to exercise his body. It is lamentable to see, how many men of study, how many promising youths, waste away their strength, impair their constitutions, and bring upon

themselves incurable diseases and premature death, solely for the want of a proper mixture of bodily exercise with the strenuous labors of their minds.

In the proud and fastidious times in which we live, manual labor of the useful kind is accounted a thing too vulgar for those of the better sort. Many a young gentleman would feel himself dishonored by doing any thing called work; and many a young lady would blush to be found employed in an occupation really useful; even though in circumstances imperatively demanding their industry.

In this respect, the manners of society have suffered a deplorable change. The time has been when labor was held in honor among even the rich and the noble; when even ladies of the highest fortune and rank thought it not beneath them to work occasionally with their hands.

Near the conclusion of the last century but one, Queen Mary of England, who was joint sovereign with her husband the heroic William the Third, "used frequently," as history informs us, "to employ some part of her time in needle work; appointing one or other of her maids of honor to read something lively as well as instructive, to her and to the rest, whilst they were busy with their needles."

The age next preceding that of Mary, furnishes at least one example in high life, that is still more remarkable. Sir Walter Raleigh, lodging at the house of a noble Duke, early in the morning overheard the Dutchess inquiring of her servants if the pigs had been fed; and, with a significant smile, asking her, as he was going to the table, if her pigs had had their breakfast; she archly replied, "They have all been fed except the strange pig that I am now about to feed."

The man, who, of all the American worthies, was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen," was no less remarkable for industry than for his wisdom and integrity.

One of the biographers of Washington, remarks of him, "his industry was unremitted, and his method so exact, that all the complicated business of his military command, and civil administration, was managed with

out confusion, and without hurry. It was the assemblage of these traits of character, so early visible in him, that recommended him when scarcely more than a boy, to an embassy of no ordinary importance, hazard, and difficulty.'

Happy were it if the youths of America, would, in this respect, copy after the example of one whose memory they so delight to honor.

Few things are impossible to industry skilfully directed. By it, men of but middling talents rise sometimes to deserved eminence; by it the man of "small things" expands himself by little and little, till he comes at last to occupy a respectable space in society; and by it the face of the living world is illumined and gladdened. What difficulties have been overcome, what wonders have been wrought, and what immense benefits have been procured, by the industrious application of the mental and corporeal powers of man!

On the other hand, no gifts of nature, or of fortune, can supersede the necessity for industry. Sloth is a rust, that eats up the finest ingredients of genius, and mars and consumes the greatest of fortunes. He that is slothful of mind, loseth his mind: instead of enlarging, it contracts and diminishes as he increases in years. He that is slothful in business, will at last have neither business to do, nor any thing to sustain his declining age. In short, a downright slug, whether in high life or low, vegetates, rather than lives. Habitual indolence is one of the worst of symptoms in youth; a fever is less hopeless than a lethargy.

*Bancroft's Life of Washington.

CHAP. LXXI.

Of the two opposite errors-the extreme of suspicion and the extreme of confidence.

MANKIND are alike betrayed by the excess of suspiciou, and of confidence. The maxim, that in suspicion is safety, is true only in a qualified sense; for over

much suspicion errs as often as overmuch confidence. As to believe nothing, would be quite as wrong as to believe every thing; so, to trust no body, is no less an error than to trust every body. Indeed it is the worse error of the two, because there is more evil in causelessly thinking ill, than in causelessly thinking well of our fellow beings.

Bad men, who look chiefly into themselves for information concerning the human kind, are ready to believe the worst of others. Conscious of their own insincerity, they can hardly think that any speak friendly to them or act kindly toward them, with intentions that are really sincere. They suspect religion to be hypocrisy, and that apparent virtue is but a mask to conceal the naughtiness of the heart. Piety, self-government, munificence, and all the charities of life, they impute to corrupt, or interested motives. Hence they repose firm confidence scarcely in any one. Now, as to persons of this cast, they are not only the dupes of their own jealousy, but the victims. A suspicion of every body they have to do with, as it keeps them in perpetual fear and disquietude, and prevents their enjoying the common comforts and benefits of society, so it precludes all likelihood, and almost all possibility, of self-amendment. For their minds are too intent upon others' faults to attend to their own; and besides, their mistrusting ill of all about them, furnishes a powerful opiate to their own consciences.

It has been boasted by some men of business, that they never in all their lives suffered by imposition or imposture; that they had always accustomed themselves to keep so sharp an eye upon mankind that no body could cheat or deceive them. This is not, however, any great matter of boasting; for it is scarcely possible they should have been so constantly upon their guard against deception, if they had not had a vigilant monitor and prompter in their own hearts. Upon the same ground, it is an ill mark in any one, to decry apparent virtue in others, and assign bad motives to their good deeds; since it argues that the only motives that can fall within the ken of his own mental eye are generally faulty, if not totally corrupt. In short, it is better