cultivated, and formed into regular habits, and your manners must be polished. Without these attainments, you would not be able to command respect from inferiors, nor associate with your superiors with dignity and ease. Your present discipline is intended for your future advantage, and by close application to the different parts of learning, you will, if life be preserved, return at the vacation greatly improved. But you should recollect that it is of more importance to "grow in grace" than it is to acquire the most splendid human accomplishments. In your Father's house you have been taught, that the "fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;" and now you are at School you should not forget it. Have not your Parents in the nost solemn and affectionate manner entreated you to attend to the exercise of secret prayer; to read the Scriptures with the deepest seriousness; and to cherish those sacred impressions which you have received? Remember the "instruction of thy Father, and forsake not the law of thy Mother, for they shall be an ornament of grace to thy head, and chains about thy neck."

If you expect to enjoy all the religious advantages in your present situation, which you enjoyed at home, you may be disappointed. Your

Governess and her Assistants, may be endowed with the spirit of piety; but some of your companions may be entirely ignorant of its nature, and others may treat it with confirmed indifference. This may excite your astonishment. Having seen it assume such a holy and lovely form, under the paternal roof, and felt its power to a certain extent on your own mind, you may be at a loss to conceive how it is possible for any intelligent being to feel any other emotions than those of reverence or attachment, when it is the subject either of contemplation or conversation. But this surprize will decrease as you become acquainted with their characters. Some, you will soon perceive, have had no pious instructions from their Parents; and others are too volatile in their disposition, to regulate their conduct by the sacred maxims which have been given them. In the midst of such society, you are more likely to receive injury than to do good, as evil communications usually corrupt those who are virtuously disposed. Your religious convictions are in danger of being stifled; and without great watchfulness and prayer, the vows which you have uttered in secret will be violated; and when you retire from the place where you have sur

vived the extinction of your devotional feelings, you may go, in the bitterness of your soul.

To prevent these evils, I would advise you to be very particular in the choice of a female companion. On this much of your future happiness depends. Be affable and polite to all; but re serve the ardour of your attachment, 'till you have found one whose taste, whose sentiments, and whose habits are favourable to religion. This will necessarily require much minute observation, on the manners and the dispositions of those around you; and the exercise of no ordinary degree of patience; for whilst minds of an inferior order soon discover their real character, those of sterling worth are more slow in their developement. When you have found "a kindred spirit," with whom you can take sweet counsel, do not indulge the romantic notion that she is perfect, as this will diminish the strength of your affection, when any infirmities appear, and may probably dissolve a union of more consequence to your felicity than you are aware.

-“'Tis Friendship gives the flower

Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume,
And we are weeds without it."

If you are so favoured as to find one, whose prevailing habits and dispositions are congenial with

your own, it will be necessary to observe some degree of caution in your usual deportment towards the rest of your associates, as an exclusive attention to her interests, and an unvarying preference of her society, may excite a general feeling of dislike against you. And even if you

can obtain such a companion, do not imagine like the once "blissful pair," that you live where no danger dwells. Many powerful temptations will assail you, which will require the greatest fortitude to resist. It will be insinuated, that religion will make you melancholy; and this insinuation may probably receive some confirmation from the occasional feelings of your own mind. At times the powers of the world to come" awaken emotions of terror, and produce an awful apprehension respecting your final destiny, unattended by those consolatory promises of Mercy, which impart "the joy which is unspeakable." In this state of mental dejection, when fear is the predominant passion, and its corresponding image is impressed on the countenance, the assertion may appear to be founded on experience. But this is an illusion, and if you reflect on the obvious design of these sensations, it will instantaneously vanish. In the economy of divine grace, it is wisely ordained, that the voice

of terror SHALL PRECEDE the voice of peace. You must feel the wound before you will apply to the healing virtue of the cross. You must be roused from your spiritual lethargy, to survey the extent of your moral danger, before you will be impelled to propose the question, in comparison with which every other sinks into insignificance, "What must I do to be saved?"

"Come then, a still small whisper in your ear,
She has no hope, who never had a fear."

Under these peculiar emotions, in which all personal religion has its origin, but which no spirit can sustain; it may be suggested, that a more cautious and diligent attention to the exercises of secret and public devotion will afford relief. But you must guard against a mistake which may

turn the means of deliverance into the strong holds of bondage.

possess no inherent rows of the heart.

The mere forms of religion

power to mitigate the sorThey are only the waters of Siloam, whose efficacy depends on the descent of the invisible Agent. They are as "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord," and not the "Messenger of the covenant," healing the sick within the walls of his sacred temple. They are the sign posts