vexations of life: it is even a useful handmaid to religion, although some narrowminded people may feel offended at the assertion.-Offended, because they never availed themselves of her services. Especially is it an antidote against that insipidity of character-that trifling insignificance, which tends to bring our sex into disesteem and contempt; which incapacitates them from sustaining a part in rational or instructive conversation, and which renders old age worse than uninteresting.

Would those who have the superintendance of youth, endeavour to give them a just estimate of the advantages resulting from those things they attempt to teach, instead of enforcing them as tasks, their labours would more frequently be crowned with success, and the most scrupulous mother might banish all apprehensions as to the domestic habits of a daughter so instructed. If a young woman has once been rendered domestic upon principle, there is little reason to fear, that when pursuits of a more elevated nature solicit a portion of her attention, they should destroy those habits which are so congenial to the

female character, and which form, as it were, a part of her nature. The mind that is trained to an accurate estimate of the importance of objects, will duly apportion the time requisite to the pursuit of each. This is a most essential lesson in education, and should be sedulously instilled by parental example as well as by precept. It should enforce this important truth, that even duty is no longer such than while it occupies its appropriate time and place. The moment that one duty encroaches on another, it degenerates into a fault.

Let mothers then, we repeat, who are so jealous of the time which is devoted to objects which themselves are not qualified to appreciate, take especial care that it be not squandered on pursuits still more inimical to domestic proficiency; on that species of expensive show and dissipation by which it is so often suffered to glide away, producing effects directly contrary to individual or social advantage. Were a sense of the high importance and value of time carefully impressed upon the young mind in early life, neither reading, nor any less worthy pursuit, would

be suffered to encroach upon other useful and necessary occupations.

Let it be remembered, that it will not suffice to qualify daughters exclusively for wedlock. It is the lot, or the choice, of some to remain single; and a judicious mother will endeavour to prepare them also for a life of celibacy, and to furnish them with resources for solitary hours. She will not accustom them to think the marriage state essential to happiness, or that alone for which all their acquirements are intended to prepare them. They are sometimes called to services of a different nature, and it is honourable that these should be cheerfully and zealously performed. The all wise Disposer has something for every one to do, the single as well as the married; and in times like the present, when individual activity is so much required, persons who are unencumbered by domestic concerns, are especially called upon to go and work in God's vineyard; nor are they in numberless honourable instances called upon in vain. There never was a period since the apostolic days when that assertion was more strikingly exemplified, "that she who is unmarried

careth for the things of the Lord, how she

may serve the Lord."

Let it then be the en

make their daughters

deavour of parents to

good women; and thus, whether married or single, they will prove ornaments and blessings to society.

CHAPTER VIII.

PARTIALITY.

"Bless me, even me also, O my Father!"
GENESIS, xxvii. 34.

THAT children of the same family, who stand in an equal relation, should not equally share in the affections of their parents, is a lamentable instance of the perversity of human nature. When these prejudices are entertained during infancy, before the subjects of them can have done either good or harm, they must be the effect of caprice, and are a species of injustice which admits of no defence. Our Creator, our fellow-creatures, and the lower orders of creation, unite to condemn it. Well will it be if those who indulge it should ultimately join in the general censure, and with sentiments of that deep