them from gaining comfortable situations in life, which, for want of education they connot attain. Such persons prove the authenticity of these lines,

"Learn your manners before you grow old, For learning is better than silver or gold. Silver or gold may vanish away,

But once you get learning 'twill never decay."

I would ask from whence arise the msieries of a large majority of the human family; especially amongst the poorer class, whose turbulent passions, whose unconquered hearts, whose impetuous desires, whose irritable prejudices, whose immovable ignorance, matur'd by many years growth, is like a mighty torrent, sweeping all before it, that cannot be extinguished but by a gallows, nor confined but by a prison. Who can calculate the miseries such characters endure from the darts of adversity in this life, and unutterable woe in the next, for the want of the shield of cultivation, to repel the innovation of wayward appetite, or religion to bear them with magnanimity, with resignation to the will of heaven.

How often does it happen that the children who had indulgent, but alas, injudi cious parents, while they survived they seemed to make fair appearances for indi

vidual prosperity and national utility, but alas, all these appearances were blasted in the bud; the parent dies, the mind is immature, the morals are loose, education has not taken root, the reins of the appetite are loosened to the domination of unhallowed pleasure, and these for want of cultivation, for the want of having the seeds of virtue planted in their juvenile minds, tho' they once promised fair to be the supporters, became the pests of civil society. If we look from individual families to individual nations, we shall see lamentable demonstrations of this speculative reasoning: we will see ignorance produce intestine. commotion, civil wars, anarchy and confusion; while ignorant demagogues unresistably, like so many woodland monsters, hurry forward to seize their prey; with the impetuosity of lions they rush, with drawn swords, to spill the hearts blood, and cut to pieces their own fellow creatures. The ground is drenched with blood; the atmosphere reverberates with weeping widows' and wretched orphans' cries. But we will admit, for the sake of illustration, that some parents leave their children large fortunes, will they not be a good substitute for learning? I answer in the negative. Can the licentious gratifications of the wicked produce permanent happiness, pure intel

lectual felicity; then the ox at his stall, the lion while foaming or roaring over his mangled prey, may enjoy intellectual happiness. The supposition is the first born of absurdities: the fact is, riotious indulgence debilitates and destroys both body and ou F; while purity and virtue preserves both, unsullied and divine. Another fatal effect of the injudicious conduct of parents to their children is, the propensity they feel to gratify them in all their juvenile desires; this produces always dreadful consequences in the rising generation; for when their passions have been yielded too, and they had their own way while in a state of minority, they seek for the same indul. gence when arrived to years of maturity; whence there are so many tyrants in what are called christian countries; hence so many demagogues are at all times, in all places, and upon all occasions, ready to produce intestine commotion, in order to have an oportunity to gratify the malevolent propensity they feel to subjugate others. to their imperious will. This dstroys soeial intercourse and the harmony of individuals, families, and nations. It is this fatal propensity that strews the path of life with briars and thorns, that otherwise would be carpeted with roses. All these scenes of public calamity which are daily

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transacted on the theatre of war in Europe, which we cannot even hear related without a tear of commisseration succeeded by astonishment and horror, is the effect of unbridled passions, uncontrouled desire, and impetuous folly. Can any duty be of greater weight to families, and of more importance to society than the duty of parents to their children? No! because in the virtue and information of the rising generation, the prosperity, nay the very existance of society depends. Should not, therefore, parents, guardians and teachers, be more ready to make presents of useful books to their children than the luxuries and vanities of life; which not only tend to nour ish and consolidate pride, vanity and self consequence, but to wean them from those natural affections which are even observable among the lower order of animals. When I look around me and see parents dressing their female children in the obscene and scandalous fashions imported from abroad, I am ashamed, I am confounded. Such parents, be they professors of religion or not, take the most effectual steps to ruin the virtue, and establish the vanity and foolish pride of their children. Instead of bringing them up in idleness, and as it were to serve as useless pictures, parents were to inure them to the pursuits

of domestic economy, iu the neat apparel of modesty and prudence, and by example as well as precept lead them in the paths of rectitude, it would come as natural to them as vice now does; for “man is an imitative animal," says Mr. Jefferson, in his notes on Virginia.

Was ever a reformation so much wanted in adults as well as children, as at present? Infidelity prospers, while weeping religion walks disrobed away: obscene fashions prevail, while modest virtue hides her blushing and indignant face. But many parents will very calmly excuse themselves for indulging their children, in these or words to like effect: "They are young and must be gratified, when they grow old they will know better themselves." Can any reason be more preposterous and futile. Lycurgus, the celebrated Spartan law-giver, looked upon the education of children as the most important care of a legislature. His grand principle was that children belonged more to the state than to their parents; and therefore he would not have them brought up according to their humours and fancies, but would have the state entrusted with the general care of their education, in order to have them formed upon legitimate principles, which might inspire them betimes with the love of their country