that hovered over the regions of death made the heart recoil from the falutary meditation; and when fickness brought the fubject to her view, her whole foul was involved in a tumult of horror and dismay. In every illness it became the business of her family and friends to devife methods of concealing from her the real danger. Every face was then dreft in forced smiles, and every tongue employed in the repeti tion of flattering falfhoods. To mention the death of any person in her presence became a fort of petit treafon in her family; and from the pains that were taken to conceal every event of this kind from her knowledge, it was eafy to conjecture how much was to be dreaded from the direful effect fuch information would infallibly produce. She might, indeed, be faid,

"To die a thousand deaths in fearing one." And had often fuffered much more from the apprehenfion, than fhe could have fuf

fered

fered from the reality, of the most agoni zing torture that ever attended the hour of diffolution..

Here we have an inftance, of a noble mind fubjected by means of early affociation to the most cruel, bondage. Let us now take a view of the confequences of impreffing the mind with more agreeable affociations on the fame fubject at the fame early period. zebrero or got ver

A friend of mine, on expreffing this ad. miration of the cheerfulness and compofure which a lady of his acquaintance had invariably fhewn on the threatened approach of death, was thus anfwered: "The for " titude you fo highly applaud, I indeed

acknowledge as the first and greatest of "bleffings; for to it. I owe the enjoyment "of all the mercies which a good Provi"dence has graciously mingled in the cup "of fuffering. But I take no merit to ' myfelf on its account. It is not, as you fuppofe, the magnanimous effort of rea

fon;

"fon; and however it may be supported

by that religious principle which in

fpires hope, and teaches refignation, "while I fee thofe who are my fuperiors "in every christian grace and virtue, ap"palled by the terrors of death, I cannot "to religion alone attribute my fuperior "fortitude. For that fortitude I am, un"der Gon, chiefly indebted to the judici"ous friend of my infancy, who made "the idea of death not only familiar but "pleafant to my imagination. The fud"den death of an elderly lady to whom I "was much attached, gave her an oppor"tunity, before I had attained my fixth year, of impreffing this fubject on my "mind in the most agreeable colours.

To this judicious management do I at"tribute much of that ferenity, which, on "the apprehended approach of death, has "ever poffeffed my mind. Had the idea "been first impreffed upon my imagination "with its ufual gloomy accompaniments,

"it is probable that it would still have been "there invefted in robes of terror; nor "would all the efforts of reafon, nor all the "arguments of religion, have been able in "these moments effectually to tranquillize

my foul. Nor is it only'in the hour of "real danger that I have experienced the << good effects of this freedom from the "flavish fear of death; it has faved me "from a thousand petty alarms, and foolifh apprehenfions, into which people of ftronger minds than I can boaft, are freૐ quently betrayed by the involuntary impulfe of terror. So much, my good "friend, do we all owe to early education."

I am afraid I must already have appeared tedious, from the various lights in which I have thought it neceffary to place a fubject that feems to me worthy of more attention than is generally bestowed upon it; but the conféquences of early impreffions are of too ferious a nature to be lightly difmiffed.

Philofophy

Philosophy had no fooner explained the optical defect of fquinting, than a reformation took place in every nursery, and the pofition of every cradle was carefully attended to. Is the mind, then, fo comparatively unimportant? Or are the impreffions made upon it by strong and powerful fenfation, to a certainty, lefs durable than those made upon the optick nerve? A very little reflection will convince us of the contrary. Adieu.

LETTER