together, whether good or bad, without diftinction. Accustom them to fecrecy in regard to fuch things as duty forbids them to reveal. Entruft them at times with a secret; and let the manner of their procedure with it be the rule of the greater or fmaller degree of confidence with which you fhall afterwards honour them. Train them thirdly as early as poffible, to diligence, to method, and to industry in their affairs. Represent to them how just and reasonable it is, that every one should make the best use of his talents, of his abilities, of his time and of his property; and how unjust it would be, to require the affiftance of fo many other perfons, without granting them all poffible service and help in return. Shew them how intimately all mankind are connected together; how much one man has need of another; and how advantageous it is for each in particular, and for all in general, that they ftrive with focial ardour to promote their mutual welfare. Teach them how much a man facilitates his business by method and regularity; how much efteem and confidence it procures him from others; how richly unabated induftry at last repays him; what an excellent means application is for preserving us from fins and +follies and from the infupportable burden of a languid mind; and how pure, how great the pleafure of the industrious man, when he reflects on the work he has duly finished, on the difficulties he has overcome in the progrefs of it, and on the utility he has procured by it to himself and to others. Would you deeply impress these maxims on your children, and at the fame time go before them with your example; would you keep them conftantly employed in fome ufeful occupation, as much as their age and their powers allow; teach them to adapt every particular to its proper time, and fee that all they have to do and to provide for be done and provided for with due precision: the love of order and diligence will by this means become natural to them; they cannot thenceforward be other than orderly and diligent; they will not in future regard the affairs of their calling as a grievous burden, and poftpone them to every fleeting amusement; and thus they will be far more fecurely preferved from indigence and penury, and rendered far more useful members of fociety, than by your leaving them never fo great riches, with contrary difpofitions. Fourthly, be very careful to bring them up to humility and modefty, which are fo becoming in all men, and especially in children and young perfons, and at the fame time are fo neceffary for the advancement of their perfection and happiness. Praise them not on account of fuch privileges as they have not themfelves acquired, but are indebted for merely to their birth or station; and allow not others to infpire them with high notions of their descent, or of their opulence. Teach them to confider all fuch as honour and extol them on these accounts accounts as base flatterers, or as ignorant and selfinterested people, who either think quite differently from what they speak or are endeavouring by this means to serve their own private ends. Shew them how little real value these outward distinctions have, how eafily they may be loft; how much they oblige their poffeffor to an eminently good and generally useful conduct; and how defpicable they render him, if he either mifapply them or be ftill lefs virtuous and useful than another, who has neither fo many means nor fo many incitements to it. Neither however muft you plume yourselves on fuch diftinctions; defpife not the poor and needy, and honour only wisdom and virtue and integrity, whether environed by the glare of profperity, or accompanied with want and mifery. Give them a modeft opinion likewife of their natural or acquired endowments, difpofitions, abilities and virtues. Teach them how ignorant and feeble man is in himfelf; how dependent he is in all respects on the will of the great author of nature; how foon, by a hundred accidents, he may be hurled down from the dangerous height to which he has climbed. Teach them, how imperfect and infignificant the greatest human knowledge and virtue is; how likewife in this refpect the major part is obtained from inftruction, from education, from outward circumstances, and all ultimately from the providence of the Almighty. Shew them how far they are excelled in all thefe matters by fo many others, who probably probably have had fewer helps and encouragements; and how much they have ftill to do, for becoming fo wife and good as they may and fhould become. Exercise them in meeknefs, principally whenever they think themselves affronted, or when they have not met with that refpect and honour to which they imagine they have a right to pretend. Remind them now of their own infirmities and failings, of their deficiency of all pofitive merit, of the great candour they themselves ftand in need of from others, of the inconfideratenefs with which most men speak and act. Make them comprehend, how liable we are, even without any bad intention, without being of a malicious difpofition, merely from imprudence and indifcretion, to fay or do fomething that shall displease another, and is fufceptible of a very bad interpretation; and ever beware of rendering their little differences of importance, by your taking too great a part in them, and treating them as things that highly deferve attention, or that bring your own honour in question. Exercise them much rather, on all occafions, in placability and magnanimity. Instead of addreffing them, as it but too frequently happens, in fuch terms as thefe "This is what you should never put up with, you fhould not let that pass unrequited, unfriendly behaviour fhould be returned with the like" - much rather let this be your advice: "You fhould be above regarding fuch trifles; they are not worth your notice, much less your uneasiness; think your felf felf happy if you are wifer and better than another; and pity fuch as are lefs wife and good than you, but hate them not."- In this manner let not your children live long in disagreement with each other or with other persons. Shew them rather how irksome and unpleasant fuch a fituation is, and of how much fatisfaction and benefit it deprives them. When any diffention has arifen, bring them together, and represent to them how infignificant the ground of their disagreement is, and how eafily they might have seen that themselves, if they had more deeply investigated the matter, and not have taken it up in fo much hafte. Abfolutely forbid them all revenge, even when the object of it is only an animal or fome inanimate thing; and teach them, as foon as they are able to comprehend it, that only the fentiment of guilt and weakness fuggefts revenge; but that conscious innocence and power are displayed in magnanimity. Endeavour to inspire them fifthly with a fincere affection and hearty good-will towards all mankind, without distinction of rank, of religion, of country, or of outward fortune. Teach them to regard all men as their brethren, the small as well as the great, the poor as well as the rich; to treat man as man, that is, as a rational and immortal creature, and his outward circumftances as accidental objects. Impress upon them deeply the natural equality of all men, that they may not be dazzled by the glare of power, of rank, or riches; that they may not be betrayed |