Besides, it is surely a most valuable object, to relieve the wants of those who are the most helpless; who cannot so relieve us in return; but who render us their services, and exert themselves for our comfort. There is throughout society, a chain of mutual dependence; and a single link of this chain cannot be severed without introducing confusion and disorder; nay more, a single link cannot be misplaced, without occasioning anarchy, distrust, and that loss of peculiarity, and distinctness, which would threaten the entire subversion of the structure of society; that goodly edifice, which may be preserved by order, but which must crumble into ruins, where servants bear rule, and princes are governed, and the proprieties of station are not well defined and observed. In this chain we shall find, that the highest link is resting for its integrity upon the lowest, and upon every intermediate one, and so on in inverse proportion. Thus the master depends upon his servants for many comforts, for obedience, for the supply of his daily wants, and for his domestic peace; while on the contrary, the servant waits upon his master for regular food, for constant protection, for adequate remuneration, for kindness of behaviour, for succour in sickness and distress, and for support in old age and infirmity. It is only by keeping in view these relative duties, that the peace and good order of society can be preserved: be it then the duty of the superior to be zealous in doing his part; and then may he be inflexible in requiring the full

and willing service of inferiors: be it also the duty of the parent to instruct the young in these offices of justice and good feeling; and while she requires on the part of domestics, rigid attention to the wants of her offspring, let her be equally immovable in enforcing their kind conduct to servants, and equally just in suppressing the first indications of tyrannical propensity. Where this principle is wanting, and where no attention is paid to the wants, comfort, and feelings of attendants, because they are inferiors, and because they may not possess an equal share of cultivation and refinement, a similar conduct will, in process of time, influence our intercourse with others, who may chance to differ from ourselves, or to be deficient in some of our supposed valuable qualities. Hence it must be carefully inculcated, that a certain order of social feeling, should be exercised towards those who are not placed by Providence in the same situation with ourselves; and that we should be even more attentive to their necessities. Example also, will be here of the first consequence. If the heads of families be kind towards their servants, so will be in all probability, their children; but if they be austere, capricious, morose, often unjust, tyrannical, vindictive, and careless of their feelings; the same principles will actuate the bosom of their offspring, and will convert the puny arm of infancy, into the cruel sceptre of despotic power.

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CHAP. XXI.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

THE time will necessarily arrive, when the child, hitherto confined to the society of its own family, will long to taste the enjoyment of that of others: indeed this measure is necessary to the complete formation of the character. But the greatest care is required in the application of this necessity; since the impressions now received are abiding; and remain to influence the conduct, to direct the judgment, and to guide the heart. The child which is confined to its own nursery, will frame for itself, the notion of a microcosm, wherein all its ideas and social feelings, will be confined to the narrow sphere of its nearest relations; and it will not there have learned to extend its pity, its compassion, its benevolence, its sense of duty, its active exertions, to all those with whom it may stand connected; it will not have been taught to expand the self-denying virtues to all men; it will not have been taught, that it should go about doing good; but even this little world of action of its own creation, peopled by its dearest relatives, and animated by its peculiar feelings and passions, will be narrowed by the

cheerless gloom of selfishness, and circumscribed by the thick darkness of anti-social feeling. The principle of benevolence will be sparingly employed, and will be bounded by the narrow limit of relative connexion, instead of animating, (though in very different degrees,) as it should animate, and vivifying, as it should vivify, every thought and action, however extensively, however remotely these may be connected with society. In simple truth, every act ought to be influenced in some measure by the consideration of others.

In order that the principle may be thus applied, the individual must be carried out of himself, and his relations, into exterior society, where alone it can reach its perfect maturity. But this path is beset with snares and dangers: happy is that child who has a parent for its guide: for while it is called upon to proceed along a narrow and a slippery road, with flowery, but precipitous banks on either side, and while one false step may prove ruinous to its immortal welfare: when the faculties of imitation and curiosity are so busily engaged; when the influence of companions is so great, and requires to be so deliberately and wisely estimated when the attractions from the centre of virtue are so numerous and so powerful; when conformity with the world is to be avoided, shunned, and deprecated as one of the greatest evils; and when to be imbued with its maxims, to catch its manners, and to imbibe its habits of thinking, and feeling, and acting, would be most seriously prejudicial to the character: it becomes

a most important duty, and a primary effort of maternal solicitude, to communicate a knowledge of its dangers, to watch its influence upon the mind, to be cautious in the administration of its stimuli, to be circumspect in her choice of companions, to be diligent in detecting the snares which attend the footsteps of the heedless and the unwary, and to guide their feet into the way of truth. The light of divine revelation, of the "wondrous things which are contained in the law of God, and in the knowledge of his will, can alone direct and guide us through the labyrinths of society, and counteract the imitative tendency which man possesses, to acquire the manners, to assume the habits, to exercise the dispositions, to be influenced by the same spirit, to believe the same doctrines, to think the same thoughts, to form the same opinions, to be guided by the same maxims, to be governed by similar motives, and in general to be amalgamated with those around him, and to be made like them.

Hence the very great importance of the parent's selecting good companions for her children. Indeed so powerful is the influence of those, with whom the young are associated, that she must be on her guard against intercourse with that society, contact with which is not likely to inform the understanding, or improve the heart; her object will be to select as companions for her family, those who fear God, and love and serve him in sincerity. But this object is not to be obtained invariably, even by the most rigid choice: yet,