to, but were too timid to have ventured upon without the protection of such unsullied names. Thus these respectable characters, without looking to the generalcon. sequences of their indiscretion, are thoughtlessly employed in breaking down, as it were, the broad fence which should ever separate two very different sorts of society, and are becoming a kind of unnatural link between vice and virtue.

There is a gross deception which even persons of reputation practise on themselves. They loudly condemn vice and irregularity as an abstract principle; nay, they stigmatize them in persons of an opposite party, or in those from whom they themselves have no prospect of personal advantage or amusement, and in whom therefore they have no particular interest to tolerate evil. But the same disorders are viewed without abhorrence when practised by those who in any way minister to their pleasures. Refined entertainments, luxurious decorations, select music, whatever furnishes any delight, rare and exquisite to the senses, these soften the severity of criticism; these palliate sins, varnish over the flaws of a broken character, and extort not pardon merely but justification, countenance, intimacy! The more respectable will not, perhaps, go all the length of vindicating the disreputable vice, but they affect to disbelieve its existence in the individual instance; or, failing in this, they will bury its acknowledged turpitude in the seducing qualities of the agreeable delinquent. Talents of every kind are considered as a commutation for a few vices, and such are made a passport to introduce into honourable society characters whom their profligacy ought to exclude from it.

But the great object to which you who are, or may be mothers, are more especially called, is the educatie of your children. If we are responsible for the us influence in the case of those over whom we have e mediate control, in the case of our children any responsible for the exercise of acknowledge, alive a power wide in its extent, indefinite in and inestimable in its importance. Op

fr

in no small degree the principles of the whole rising generation. To your direction the daughters are almost exclusively committed; and until a certain age, to you also is consigned the mighty privilege of form. ing the hearts and minds of your infant sons. By the blessing of God on the principles you shall, as far as it depends on you, infuse into both sons and daughters, they will hereafter "arise and call you blessed." And in the great day of general account, may every Christian mother be enabled through divine grace to say, with humble confidence, to her Maker and Redeemer, Be"hold the children whom thou hast given me !"

(6

Christianity, driven out from the rest of the world, has still, blessed be God! a "strong hold" in this country. And though it be the special duty of the appointed "watchmen, now that he seeth the sword come upon "the land, to blow the trumpet and warn the people, 66 which if he neglect to do, their blood shall be re"quired of the watchman's hand :"* yet, in this sacred garrison, impregnable but by neglect, You too have an awful post, that of arming the minds of the rising generation with the shield of faith, whereby they shall be "able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked;" that of girding them with "that sword of the spirit which is "the word of God." If you neglect this your bounden duty, you will have effectually contributed to expel Christianity from her last citadel. And, remember, that the dignity of the work to which you are called, is no less than that of preserving the ark of the Lord.

* Ezekiel xxxiii. 6.

t

be ence; should

perience
to justify th

to

fav. firming

life, and

CHAPTER II.

On the education of women.-The prevailing system tends to establish the errors which it ought to correct.-Dangers arising from an excessive cultivation of the arts.

It is far from being the object of this slight

work to offer a regular plan of female education, a task which has been often more properly assumed by far abler writers; but it is intended rather to suggest a few. remarks on the reigning mode, which, though it has had many panegyrists, appears to be defective, not only in a few particulars, but as a general system. There are indeed numberless honourable exceptions to an observation which will be thought severe; yet the author questions if it be not the natural and direct tendency of the prevailing and popular system, to excite and promote those very defects, which it ought to be the main end and object of Christian education to remove; whether, instead of directing this important engine to attack and destroy vanity, selfishness, and inconsideration, that triple alliance in league against female virtue; the combined powers of instruction are not sedulously confederated in confirming their strength and establishing their empire?

If indeed the material substance, if the body and limbs, with the organs and senses, be really the more valuable objects of attention, then there is little room for animadversion and improvement. But if the immaterialand immortal mind; if the heart, "out of which are the issues of life" be the main concern; if the great busines of education be to implant ideas, to communicate kno edge, to form a correct taste and a sound judgmen resist evil propensities, and above all, to seize t ourable season for infusing principles and habits; if education be a school to fit us fr

any

alive

life be a school to fit us for eternity; if such, 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 system.

Is it not a fundamental error to consider children as innocent beings, whose little weaknesses may perhaps want some correction, rather than as beings who bring into the world a corrupt nature and evil dispositions, which it should be the great end of education to rectify? This appears to be such a foundation truth, that if I were asked what quality is most important in an instructor of youth, I should not hesitate to reply, such a strong impression of the corruption of our nature, as should insure a disposition to counteract it; together with such a deep view and thorough knowledge of the human heart, as should be necessary for devoloping and controlling 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 usages, andevan. escent fashions, is not to know human nature: and where this prime knowledge is wanting, those natural evils which ought to be counteracted will be fostered.

Vanity, for instance, 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 considered as harmless weakness, which subtracts little from the value of a character; as a natural effervescence, which will subside of itself, when the first ferment of the youthful passions shall have done working. But those know little of the conformation of the human, and especially of the female heart, who fancy that vanity is ever exhausted, by the mere operation of time and events. Let those who maintain this opinion look into our places of public resort, and there be hold if the ghost of departed beauty is not to its last tting fond of haunting the scenes of its past pleasures; oul, unwilling (if I may borrow an allusion from tonic mythology) to quit the spot in which the oyed its former delights, still continues to hover me place, though the same pleasures are no

longer to be found there. Disappointments indeed may divert vanity into a new direction; prudence may prevent it from breaking out into excesses, and age may prove that it is "vexation of spirit ;" but neither disappointment, prudence, nor age can cure it; for they do not correct the principle. Nay, the very disappointment itself serves as a painful evidence of its protracted existence.

When

Since then there is a season when the youthful must cease to be young, and the beautiful to excite admira. tion; to grow old gracefully is perhaps one of the rarest and most valuable arts which can be taught to woman. It is for this sober season of life that education should lay up its rich resources. However disregarded they may hitherto have been, they will be wanted now. admirers fall away, and flatterers become mute, the mind will be driven to retire into it entertainment at home, it will upon the world with increa this, do we not seem to ed of ly, for the transient po im turer life we ought we are

power:

for a crowd, foits effects, for the wor you, depend

not for p Va

to a single v.

and if it find no en back again Yet forgetting ghters, exclusivewhen it is to manot educate them to live at home? res? for show, and ternity?

aid of selfishness) is vice, which is some; it is not to be at. indulged in opposition rmly to be controlled, g principle, at constant

as an active, a restless, war with all the Christian graces; which not only mixes itself with all our faults, but insinuates itself into all our virtues too; and will, if not checked effectually, rob our best actions of their reward. Vanity, if I may use the analogy, is, with respect to the other vices, what feeling is in regard to the other senses; it is not con. fined in its operation to the eye, or the car, or any single organ, but diffused through the whole being, alive