happy. Conscious of which, now that we commemorate this first inftance of redeeming love, let us ftudy the disposition, which the nativity peculiarly recommends, humility I mean; perfectly satisfied, that the humble mind is the happy one; and that in proportion as our self-esteem and vanity decay, our peace and ferenity will encrease, together with our confidence in God, and our grateful acknowledgments to the Redeemer

I am, Sir,

Yours, &c.

M.

NUMBER LXXIII.

O think you are a father: foft indulgence
Becomes that name; tho' nature give you pow'r
To bind her duty, 'tis with filken cords :
Command her, then, as you command yourself ;
She is as much a part of you, as are

Your appetite and will: and thefe you force not,
But gently bend, and make them pliant to your reafon.
DRYDEN.

To the Author of the VISITOR.

SIR,

S have been fo kind as to admit my you

As friend's narrative into your paper, and

f

have given one grateful Magdalen leave to tell

her

her fad ftory: I flatter myself that you will not refufe the like favour to another. Unskilled in the ways of writing, I am unable to polish what I pen; nothing but the artleffness of my tale, and my fincere wish to warn, and to profit my unhappy fifters in forrow and fhame, can apologize for me. I have often heard and read of light houfes and beacons erected for the use of failors, to direct them in their voyages, and to preferve them from fands, and shelves, and rocks. And as I have fatally shipwrecked myself, my hearty defire is, to hold up a light to warn and direct others from those rocks and fands to which I owe my ruin.

I am that person, Sir, of whom Sally Mthe grateful Magdalen, speaks in her first letter, as a comfortable instance of the bleffings of the Magdalen charity; my reception into which, has, under God, faved a poor mother's life, who before was haftening to the grave, beneath a load of anguish and mifery. Bleffed, for ever bleffed be the day, on which I first heard of that humane provifion for fuch wretched outcasts as myfelf: bleffed, for ever bleffed be the hour, on which I entered those doors of mercy, of comfort, and peace! Oh, Sir, believe me, when I fay that had it not been for this house of refuge, moft probably my miferable existence on earth had been long fince ended, and my fate irrecoverably fealed in the regions of punishment:

the

the grey hairs of my widowed mother had been brought down with forrow to the grave; each of us ftrangers to that divine mercy, which now fills our hearts with the most chearing hope.

error.

I am one of thofe who can verify the poet's remark, with respect to our fex,- that one falfe ftep entirely damns our fame." Since to one falfe ftep I owe the long chain of calamities, which were linked together from that unhappy But at the fame time that I avow my own fault; I cannot but say that the severity of my father occafioned my worft diftrefs, and rendered my ruin irretrievable. Surely there is fome medium between the implacability of unforgivenefs, and the too eafy lenity, which invites to offend. Surely there are wife parents. who can difcern the happy mean betwixt the severe rule, which terrifies; and the weak indulgence which produces contempt. Unhappily for me, my dear father was a ftranger to this medium. He had very high notions of the parental authority, and was continually extolling to the fkies those understanding states, as he called them, which gave into the hands of the parent unlimited power over the child, even the power of life and death. He had not the leaft idea of governing by love: he thought fear the best fecurity of duty, and would conftantly complain that the notorious difobedience of children, and their faucy pertnefs (as he ftiled it, though others

would.

would have named it only a becoming familiarity) arose from a relaxation of the parentak authority; and if parents were fo mad, (he would continue) as to give the reins out of their own into the hands of their children, they must not be furprized, if their children drove themselves' into ruin, and their parents into the deepest gulph of forrow.

Conftantly accustomed to these lessons, never allowed to enter into his prefence but with the most reverential courtefy; never permitted to speak to him, but with the folemn appellation of, Sir; very rarely indulged in any of those pleasures which were agreeable to my fex and age; and if indulged, fure to fuffer for it, by fo ftrict a fcrutiny into my conduct, as no child's conduct perhaps would bear; as well as by fuch remonftrances and tasks, as (I am sorry to say it) rendered my father of all objects the moft fearful and unpleafing to me; I grew up to my fixteenth year (fatal æra of my forrows) inheriting strong paffions from both my parents; and with little hopes of properly gratifying that, which in lively young girls, of my age, is generally moft predominant. My mother, whom I tenderly loved, and with the juftest reafon, was no less afraid of my father than myfelf: fhe lived under an iron-rule indeed; but had fenfe enough, and meeknefs enough, to difcern and conform herself to my father's temper, fo

that

that fhe feldom contradicted him; and proved but a forry advocate for her daughter, when under the harrow, as was almoft every day the. cafe. And as fhe was a breeding woman, her attention was a good deal taken up by the little ones, as nursing was my most agreeable entertainment. But this alone was not fufficient: I was led therefore to frequent the kitchen upon all occafions; and the converfations of the fervants became most agreeable to me. For they would often flatter my vanity, and speak well of my perfon; and one of the maids in particular gave me information of many things, which ferved to haften my ruin, by enflaming my defires, already fufficiently warm.

I should have told you, Sir, that my father, originally bred to the law, but neither qualified for, nor fond of his profeffion, had given over all attention to it, and settled himself in a village not many miles from London; having a fufficient fortune to live in decent retirement. We kept two maids, and a man, who was a kind of Scrub, footman, butler, gardener, all things by turns, and nothing well. In the parish church, the most public place I frequented, a gentleman of pleafing appearance one Sunday attracted my notice; attracted it the rather, because I quickly perceived, with no small fatisfaction, that I had attracted his. He was a lod

ger