only beginning to unfold themselves, this is an intima. tion of Providence that it should be the first seized on for the best uses. It should therefore be devoted to lay in a stock of the more easy and devotional parts of Scripture. The Psalms alone are an inexhaustible store-house of rich materials.* Children whose minds have been early well furnished from these, will be competent at nine or ten years old to produce from them, and to select with no contemptible judgment suitable examples of all the parts of prayer; and will be able to extract and appropriate texts under each respective head, so as to exhibit, without help, complete specimens of every part of prayer. By confining them entirely to the sense, and nearly to the words of Scripture, they will be preserved from enthusiasm, from irregularity, and conceit. By being obliged continually to apply for themselves, they will get a habit in all their difficulties, of "searching the "Scriptures," which may be useful to them on future and more trying occasions. But I would confine them to the Bible; for were they allowed with equal freedom to ransact other books with a view to get helps to embellish their little compositions, or rather compilations, they might be tempted to pass off for their own what they pick up from others, which might tend at once to make them both vain and deceitful. This is a tempta tion to which they are too much laid open when they get commended for any pilfered passage with which they decorate their little themes and letters. But in the pres

instance there is no danger of any similar deception, So there is such a sacred signature stamped on every Scripture phrase, that the owner's name can never be aced or torn off from the goods, either by fraud or wiolence.

This will be so far from spoiling the cheerfulness, or impeding asures of childhood, that the author knows a little girl who, she was seven years old, had learnt the whole Psalter through d time; and that without any diminution of uncommon gaiety , or any interference with the elegant acquirements suited to

sation.

It would be well, if in those Psalms which children were first directed to get by heart, an eye were had to this their future application; and that they were employed, but without any intimation of your subsequent design, in learning such as may be best turned to this account. In the 139th the first great truth to be imprinted on the young heart, as was before observed, is unfolded with such a mixture of majestic grandeur, and such an interesting variety of intimate and local circumstances, as is likely to seize on the quick and lively feelings of youth. The awful idea that that Being whom she is taught to reverence, is not only in general “ac"quainted with all her ways," but that he is about "her path, and about her bed," bestows such a sense of real and present existence on him of whom she is apt to conceive as having his distant habitation only in Heayen, as will help her to realize the sense of his actual presence.

The 103d Psalm will open to the mind rich and abundant sources of expression for gratitude and thanksgiving, and it includes spiritual as well as temporal favours. It illustrates the mercies of God, by familiar and domestic images, of such peculiar tenderness and endearment, as are calculated to strike upon every chord of filial fondness in the heart of an affectionate child. The 51st supplies an infinite variety of matter in whatever relates to confession of sin, or to supplication for the aids of the Spirit. The 23d abounds with captivating expressions of the protecting goodness of their heavenly Father, conveyed by pastoral imagery of uncommon sweetness in short, the greater part of these beautiful compositions overflow with materials for every head of prayer.

་

The child who, while she was engaged in learning these Scriptures, was not aware that there was any spe cific object to be answered by it, will afterwards feel an unexpected pleasure arising from the application of her petty labours, when she is called to draw out from her little treasury of knowledge the stores she has been col

N

lecting; and will be pleased to find that without any fresh application to study, for she is now obliged to exercise a higher faculty than memory, she has lying ready in her mind the materials with which she is now called

upon to work. Her judgment must be set about selecting one or two, or more texts which shall contain the substance of every specific head of prayer before noticed; and it will be a farther exercise to her understanding to concatenate the detached parts into one regular whole, occasionally varying the arrangement as she likes; that is, changing the order, sometimes beginning with inVocation, sometimes with confession; sometimes dwelling longer on one part, sometimes on another. As the hardships of a religious Sunday are often so pathetically pleaded, as making one of the heavy burdens of religion; and as the friends of religion are so often called upon to mitigate its rigours, might not such an exercise as has been here suggested help to vary its occupations ?

The habits of the pupil being thus early formed, her memory, attention, and intellect being bent in a right direction, and the exercise invariably maintained, may one not reasonably hope that her affections also, through divine grace, may become interested in the work, till she will be enabled "to pray with the spirit and with "the understanding also ?" She will now be quali fied to use a well composed form with seriousness and advantage; for she will now use it not mechanically, but rationally. That which before appeared to her a mere mass of good words, will now appear a signifi. cant composition, exhibiting variety, and order, and beauty; and she will have the farther advantage of being enabled by her improved judgment to distinguish and select for her own purpose such as are more judicious and more scriptural.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

ON THE

MODERN SYSTEM

OF

FEMALE EDUCATION.

WITH

A VIEW OF THE PRINCIPLES AND CONDUCT PREVALENT AMONG WOMEN OF RANK AND FORTUNE.

BY HANNAH MORE.

May you so raise your character that you may help to make the next age a better thing, and leave posterity in your debt, for the advantage it shall receive by your example. LORD HALIFAX.

IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

Salem, (Mass.)

PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL WEST.

.......