to undertake his neighbour's, which he muft always manage with lefs knowledge, conveniency, and fuccefs. If, therefore, the low estimation of these virtues be well founded, it must be owing, not to their inferior importance, but to fome defect or impurity in the motive. And indeed it cannot be denied, but that it is in the power of affociation, fo to unite our children's intereft with our own, as that we shall often pursue both from the fame motive, place both in the fame object, and with as little fense of duty in one purfuit as in the other. Where this is the cafe, the judgment above ftated is not far from the truth. And fo often as we find a folicitous care of a man's own family, in a total absence or extreme penury of every other virtue, or interfering with other duties, or directing its operation solely to the temporal happiness of the children, placing that happiness in amusement and indulgence whilst they are young, or in advancement of fortune when they grow up, there is reason to believe that this is the cafe. In this way the common opinion concerning these duties may be accounted for and defended. If we look to the fubject of them, we perceive them to be indifpenfable: if we regard the motive, we find them often not very meritorious. Where

fore,

fore, although a man seldom rifes high in our esteem, who has nothing to recommend him befide the care of his own family, yet we always condemn the neglect of this duty with the utmoft severity; both by reason of the manifeft and immediate mischief which we fee arifing from this neglect, and because it argues a want not only of parental affection, but of those moral principles, which ought to come in aid of that affection, where it is wanting. And if, on the other hand, our praise and esteem of these duties be not proportioned to the good they produce, or to the indignation with which we refent the abfence of them, it is for this reason, that virtue is the most valuable, not where it produces the most good, but where it is the most wanted; which is not the cafe here; becaufe its place is often fupplied by inftincts, or involuntary affociations. Nevertheless, the offices of a parent may be discharged from a confcioufnefs of their obligation, as well as other duties; and a sense of this obligation is sometimes neceffary to affift the stimulus of parental affection; efpecially in ftations of life, in which the wants of a family cannot be fupplied without the continual hard labour of the father, nor without his refraining from many indulgencies and recreaticns,

5

creations, which unmarried men of like condition are able to purchase. Where the parental affection is fufficiently ftrong, or has fewer difficulties to furmount, a principle of duty may ftill be wanted to direct and regulate its exertions; for otherwife, it is apt to spend and wafte itself in a womanish fondness for the perfon of the child; an improvident attention to his prefent cafe and gratification; a pernicious facility and compliance with his humours; an excessive and fuperfluous care to provide the externals of happiness, with little or no attention to the internal fources of virtue and fatisfaction. Univerfally, wherever a parent's conduct is prompted or directed by a sense of duty, there is so much virtue.

Having premised thus much concerning the place which parental duties hold in the fcale of human virtues, we proceed to state and explain the duties themselves.

. When moralifts tell us, that parents are bound to do all they can for their children, they tell us more than is true; for, at that rate, every expence which might have been spared, and every profit omitted, which might have been made, would be criminal.

The duty of parents has its limits, like other

duties;

duties; and admits, if not of perfect precifion, at least of rules definite enough for application.

These rules may be explained under the feveral heads of maintenance, education, and a reasonable provifion for the child's happiness in reSpect of outward condition.

I. Maintenance.

The wants of children make it neceffary that fome perfon maintain them; and, as no one has a right to burthen others by his act, it follows, that the parents are bound to undertake this charge themselves. Befide this plain inference, the affection of parents to their children, if it be instinctive, and the provifion which nature has prepared in the perfon of the mother for the fuftentation of the infant, concerning the existence and design of which there can be no doubt, are manifeft indications of the divine will.

From hence we learn the guilt of those, who run away from their families, or (what is much the fame), in confequence of idleness or drunkennefs, throw them upon a parish; or who leave them deftitute at their death, when, by diligence and frugality, they might have laid up a provifion for their fupport: alfo of thofe, who refufe or neglect the care of their baftard offspring,

abandon

abandoning them to a condition in which they muft either perish or become burthenfome to others; for the duty of maintenance, like the reafon upon which it is founded, extends to baftards, as well as to legitimate children.

The Chriftian fcriptures, although they concern themselves little with maxims of prudence or œconomy, and much lefs authorize worldly mindedness or avarice, have yet declared in explicit terms their judgment of the obligation of this duty: "If any provide not for his own, efpecially for those of his own household, he "hath denied the faith, and is worfe than an "infidel" (1 Tim. v. 8.); he hath difgraced the Christian profeffion, and fallen fhort in a duty which even infidels acknowledge.

II. Education.

Education, in the most extensive sense of the word, may comprehend every preparation that is made in our youth for the fequel of our lives: and in this fenfe I use it.

Some fuch preparation is necessary for children of all conditions, because, without it they must be miferable, and probably will be vicious, when they grow up, either from want of the means of fubfiftence, or from want of rational and inoffenfive occupation. In civilized life, every