segrity of their own hearts; anxious to deferve a good fame on the one hand, by a life free from reproach, yet fecretly too defirous on the other of fecuring a worldly and fashionable reputation; while their general affo ciates are perfons of honour, and their general refort places of fafety; yet allow themfelves to be occafionally prefent at the midnight orgies of revelry and gaming, in houfes of no honorable eftimation; and thus help to keep up characters, which without their fuftaining hand, would fink to their juft level of contempt and reprobation. While they are holding out this plank to a drowning reputation, rather, it is to be feared, fhewing their own ftrength than affifting another's weaknefs, they value themfelves, perhaps, on not partaking of the worst parts of the amufements which may be carrying on; but they fanction them by their prefence; they lend their countenance to corruptions they fhould abhor, and their example to the young and inexperienced, who are looking about for fome fuch fanction to juftify them in that to which they were before inclined, but were too timid to have ventured upon without the protection of fuch unfullied names. Thus thefe refpectable characters, without looking to the general confequences of their indifcretion, are thoughtlessly employed in breaking down, as it were, the broad fence which should ever feparate two very different forts of fociety, and are becoming a kind of unnatural link between vice and virtue.

There is a grofs deception which even perfons of reputation practise on themselves. They loudly condemn vice and irregularity as an abstract principle; nay, they ftigmatize them in perfons of an oppofite party, or in thofe from whom they themfelves have no profpect of perfonal advantage or amusement, and in whom therefore they have no particular intereft to tolerate evil. But the fame disorders are viewed without abhorrence when practifed by thofe who in any way minifter to their pleafures. Refined entertainments, Juxurious decorations, felect mufic, whatever furnishes any delight rare and exquifite to the fenfes, these soften the feverity of criticism; these palliate fins, there varnish over the flaws of a broken character, and extort

not pardon merely, but juftification, countenance, intimacy! The more refpectable will not, perhaps, go all the length of vindicating the difreputable vice, but they affect to disbelieve its existence in the individual inftance; or, failing in this, they will bury its acknowledged turpitude in the feducing qualities of the agree able delinquent. Talents of every kind are confidered as a commutation for a few vices; and fuch talents are made a paffport to introduce into honorable fociety characters whom their profligacy ought to exclude from it.

But the great object to which you, who are or may be mothers, are more efpecially called, is the education of your children. If we are reíponsible for the use of influence in the cafe of thofe over whom we have no immediate control, in the cafe of our children we are refponsible for the exercife of acknowledged power: a power wide in its extent, indefinite in its effects, and inestimable in its importance. On you depend in no fmall degree the principles of the whole rifing generation. To your direction the daughters are almost exclufively committed; and until a certain age, to you alfo is configned the mighty privilege of forming the hearts and minds of your infant fons. To you is made over the awfully important truft of infufing the firft principles of piety into the tender minds of those who may one day be called to inftruct not families merely, but diftricts; to influence, nor individuals, but fenates. Your private exertions may at this moment be contributing to the future happiness, your domestic neglect, to the future ruin, of your country. And may you never forget, in this your early inftruction of your offspring, nor they, in their future application of it, that religion is the only fure ground of morals; that private principle is the only folid basis of public virtue. O think that they both may be fixed or forfeited forever according to the ufe you are now making of that power which God has delegated to you, and of which he will demand a ftrict account. By his bleffing on your pious labours may both fons and daughters hereafter" arife and call you bleffed." And in the great day of general account, may every chriftian mother be

enabled through divine grace to fay, with humble confidence, to her Maker and Redeemer, "Behold the "children whom thou haft given me !"

Christianity, driven out from the rest of the world, has ftill, bleffed be God! a ftrong hold" in this country. And though it be the fpecial duty of the appointed "watchman, now that he feeth the fword come up"on the land, to blow the trumpet and warn the peo"ple, which if he neglect to do, their blood fhall be required of the watchman's hand :"* yet in this facred garrifon, impregnable but by neglect, You too have an awful poft, that of arming the minds of the rifing race with the fhield of faith, whereby they fhall be able to "quench the fiery darts of the wicked;" that of " gird

ing them with that fword of the Spirit which is the "word of God." Let that very period which is defecrated in a neighbouring country, by a formal renunciation of religion, be folemnly marked by you to purpofes diametrically oppofite. Let that difhonoured æra in which they avowed their refolution to exclude Chriftianity from the national education, be the precife moment feized upon by you for its more fedulous inculcation. And while their children are fyftematically trained to "live without God in the world," let YOURS, with a more decided emphafis, be confecrated to promote his glory in it!

If you neglect this your bounden duty, you will have effectually contributed to expel Chriftianity from her laft citadel. And remember, that the dignity of the work to which you are called, is no lefs than that of "preferving the ark of the Lord."

* Ezekiel, xxxiii. 6.

D

CHAP. II.

On the education of women. The prevailing system - tends to eftablish the errors which it ought to to correct.-Dangers arifing from an exceffive cultivation of the arts.

It is

T is far from being the object of this flight work to offer a regular plan of female education, a task which has been often more properly affumed by far abler wri ters; but it is intended rather to fuggeft a few remarks on the reigning mode, which, though it has had many panegyrifts, appears to be defective, not only in certain particulars, but as a generalfyftem. There are indeed numberlefs honourable exceptions to an observation which will be thought fevere; yet the author would ask whether it be not the natural tendency of the prevailing and popular mode to excite and promote thofe very evils which it ought to be the main end and object of Chriftian inftruction to remove ? Whether the reigning fyftem does not tend to weaken the principles it ought to ftrengthen, and to diffolve the heart it fhould fortify? Whether instead of direct ing the grand and important engine of education to attack and deftroy vanity, felfishness, and inconfideration, that triple alliance in ftrict and conftant league against female virtue; the combined powers of instruction are not fedulously confederated in confirming their ftrength and establishing their empire?

If indeed the material substance; if the body and limbs, with the organs and fenfes, be really the more valuable objects of attention, then there is little room for animadverfion and improvement; but if the immaterial and immortal mind; if the heart "out of which are the iffues of life," be the main concern; if the great business of education be to implant right ideas, to communicate ufeful knowledge, to form a correct tafte and a found judgment, to refift evil propenfities, and above all to feize the favorable season for infufing principles and confirming habits; if education be a Ychool to fit us for life, and life be a school to fit us

for eternity; if fuch, I repeat it, be the chief work and grand ends of education, it may then be worth inquiring how far these ends are likely to be effected by the prevailing fyftem.

Is it not a fundamental error to confider children as innocent beings, whofe little weakneffes may perhaps want fome correction, rather than as beings who bring into the world a corrupt nature and evil difpo fitions, which it should be the great end of education to rectify? This appears to be fuch a foundationtruth, that if I were afked what quality is most important in an inftructor of youth, I should not hesitate to reply, fuch a frong impreffion of the corruption of our nature, as fhould infure a difpofition to counteract it; together with fach a deep view and thorough knowledge of the human heart, as fhould be neceffary for developing and controling its most secret and complicated workings. And let us remember that to know the world, as it is called, that is, to know its local manners, temporary ufages, and evanefcent fashions, is not to know human nature and that where this prime knowledge is wanting, thofe natural evils which ought to be counteracted will be fostered.

Vanity, for inftance, is reckoned among the light and venial errors of youth; nay, so far from being treated as a dangerous enemy, it is often called in as an auxiliary. At worst, it is confidered as a harmlefs weak- neis, which fubtracts little from the value of a characer; as a natural effervefcence, which will fubfide of it felf, when the firft ferment of the youthful paffions thall have done working.. But thofe perfons know little of the conformation of the human and efpecially of the female heart, who fancy that vanity is ever ex-haufted by the mere operation of time and events. Let thofe who maintain this cpinion look into our places of public refort, and there behold if the ghost of departed beauty is not to its laft flitting, fond of haunting the fcenes of is paft pleafures. The foul, unwilling: (if I may borrow an allufion from the Platonic mythology) to quit the fpot in which the body enjoyed its former delights, ftill continues to hover about the fame place, though the fame pleasures are no longer to be found there. Difappointments indeed may divert van