whereas your wife caused her table literally to groan with the fat of the land, partaking after dinner of a glass of wine, ale, or cider, which acting as an anodyne, stupifying both mental and physical energies, from which she recovers after a short nap of one or two hours, instead of, Lucretia-like, spending the same time at the spinningwheel, or superintending her servants in the kitchen, who have been either gormandizing or else filling up the swill barrel, when not engaged in carrying off some pilfered article to a drunken father or mother, or poor dear relatives, too lazy to earn their own bread. Also your wife denies her sons, between the ages of five and twelve, to play out-doors, without shoes or stockings on, while mine (when the season will permit, and not at school, or otherwise properly employed) are along some part of the rill which passes both our dwellings, barefooted, with their trousers rolled up to their knees, carrying stones and sods to form a little dam, whereby to erect a micic forge, during which amusements I not unfrequently secretly steal a supervision, in order to detect and correct any foul language (if used).

"At an early hour in the evening all return home each, one properly cleaning himself, and after partaking of a bowl of bread, or mush and milk, are called round the family altar in worship to Almighty God, after which all retire to their respective places of rest during the remainder of the night, without any distribution of cakes or candies. And now, dear brother, I have affectionately and frankly answered your questions of this morning, wherein you asked for the cause of your constant decrease in property while I increased, and in order that you may hereafter more fully appreciate what I have just intended to convey, I close by mentioning to you an anecdote between a yankee sailor and a quaker. The former asked the latter for a new hat and what would be its price, the quaker replied, "$4.' The sailor rejoined by saying that was beyond its value and insisted on a reduction, but this was positively refused on the part of the quaker by saying, Friend, as I live I cannot let thee have it less. The sailor shrewdly replied, then haul in your sails as to extravagancy; upon which the quaker very goodnaturedly handed him the hat, saying, Friend, thee are welcome to the hat, as no one before has ever detected

what I really meant when I said, As I live I cannot afford it less.' Therefore, you and your family haul in your sails as to extravagance, and you will prosper equally with mine."

The careless, unguarded, and indifferent manner in which many parents daily express themselves before their children, has too often proved a source of deep affliction, for the speeches of men are generally like themselves; and not only from the fact that we are the beings of imitation and progression, but our very nature as children, believe what we see and hear in our parents, to be correct; hence fathers and mothers should be very guarded in all speeches, as heads of their family, and not quiet their consciences by an inexcusable opiate, that they merely spoke in a jest, and having alluded not only to speeches of foul and open vulgarity as indulged by the canaille of our land, but also too often by those considered as accomplished and refined in all their manners when enjoying the fashionable circle of equals in property, or superiors in every other rank or situation in life, but in presence of their servants or inferiors, (if the latter they have) cowardly as well as ungentlemanly or unladylike; descend to language base and obscene, little thinking that although their children are not present, still a contaminating and blighting influencec, as to morality, would reach their children, through a further unavoidable course with those very servants with whom an unchaste intimacy had placed them on equal rank with themselves.

Neither time, place, or disposition, prompts me to mention many of the foul speeches which parents too often indulge in before their children, or by refusing their personal, well-timed, chaste familiarities during seasons alloted for amusements, and thereby force them to mingle with low and ignorant servants; or else under a false pretence of getting rid of hinderances or annoyances by innocent prattle, thrust their children into the street, there to associate with others of the meanest order, whose speeches (to say nothing of idleness,) contaminate the very atmosphere they breathe; and much as we find to condemn in many practices of Southerners, still, to their credit, it must be acknowledged they are in many

respects superior to Northerners, in an early and proper training of their children.

Hence, their kitchens are at a distance from their dwellings, and as their climate denies the congregating of many children in one room, they spare no pains or money to place their offspring at home, under the auspices of teachers, who are not only learned and moral, but religious, for such are the beauties which spring from religion, that even irreligious parents prefer a moral instead of an immoral teacher to instruct their children.

In speaking of private or select schools, I wish not to be understood as yielding an unqualified assent, particularly where geographical barriers do not exist as to climate, as they always must more or less injure the general wheel of common district schools, which nursery will, under its proper head, receive further notice.

I have already intimated that a proper regard for myself, and a decent respect for the feelings of my readers, forbid even a partial detail of obscenities in speech, practiced by many fathers before their children, and (to the dishonor of their sex,) not a few mothers, which not only tend directly to poison the future growth of their offspring, but contaminate, by its contagious principles, more or less, the whole circle of society.

Still I beg leave to particularize one kind of vulgarity which not only renders the person loathesome and disgusting to every good and virtuous man, but sinful in the sight of a pure and holy God, who has declared in unequivocal language, that he who indulges therein shall not be held guiltless. I shall allude to profane swearing, on which an eminent writer (believed to be Blair), has drawn something like the following picture :

"Few evil habits are of more pernicious consequence, or are overcome with more difficulty, than that very odious one of profane swearing and cursing.

"It cannot be expected that the force of moral principles should be very strong upon any one who is accustomed upon every trifling occasion, and frequently without any occasion at all, to slight the precept and the character of the Supreme Being.

"When we have lost any degree of respect for the Author of our existence and the concerns of futurity, and can bring the most awful appellations into our slightest

conversation, merely by way of embellishing our foolish and, perhaps, fallacious narratives, or to give a greater force to our little resentments, conscience will soon lose its influence upon our minds.

"Nothing but the fear of disgrace, or a dread of human laws, will restrain any person addicted to common swearing from the most detestable perjury.

"For if a man can be brought to trifle with the most sacred things in his common discourse, he cannot, surely, consider it of more consequence when his interest leads him to swear falsely for his own defence or emolument. "It is really astonishing how rootedly he afterwards adheres to it.

"People using only slight exclamations, and which seem hardly to carry the appearance of anything criminal, and so proceed on to others, until the most shocking oaths become familiar.

"And when once the habit is confirmed, rarely, if ever, is it eradicated, the swearer loses the ideas which are attached to the words he makes use of, therefore execrates his friend when he means to bless him, and calls God to witness his intention of doing things which he knows he has no thought of performing in reality.

"A young gentleman with whom I am intimately ⚫ acquainted, and who possesses many excellent qualifications, but who is unhappily in a declining state of health, and evidently tending rapidly to the chambers of death, has been from his childhood so addicted to the practice of profane swearing in his common conversation that, even now, I am frequently shocked by his profaning the name of that Being before whom he must probably soon be obliged to appear.

"It must be exceedingly painful to a sensible heart, feeling for the best interest of a valuable friend, and otherwise an excellent acquaintance, to observe the person he so highly regards confirmed in such a shocking habit, even while standing in the most awful situation in which is is possible for a human creature to be placed.

66 Almost every other vice affords its votaries some pretence of excuse, from its being productive of present pleasure, or affording a future prospect of advantage, but the profane swearer cannot even say he feels any satisfaction, that he hopes to meet with any benefit from the

foolish habit, for he is caught without any bait on the naked hook.

"Let them, then, who are addicted to this vice seriously consider how aggravating a guilt it is to offend the Deity continually, without having the least shadow of an excuse for so doing, and determine at once to regulate their conversation and conduct in such a manner as to ensure to themselves the permanent satisfaction which will result at the close of their life, from the reflection that they have erred no further from the rules of eternal justice than the common condition of humanity, in its present state, renders unavoidable, and that they endeavored, to the utmost of their power, to correct every error in their conduct when they have felt it condemned by the dictates of conscience."

Not a few who indulge in the sinful practice of profane swearing, (to say nothing of its folly grammatically considered, aided and assisted by the father of crimes and wicked transgressions) attempt to justify themselves that they mean no harm, and can produce many passages from Holy Writ where swearing was introduced by the pure and upright in spirit. In the consummation of certain contracts, and in exhortation by the greatest of all the Apostles, it is true God confirmed his covenant with Abraham by an oath, not that he feared his bare promise would be doubted by the faith of the patriarch, but the solemnity and vast importance of the contract pleased our Creator to show Abraham by two immutabilities, that his word should be fully established, and further deposed it as an example for that seed in future, to practice in all ecclesiastical matters, or courts of jurisprudence, and never in vain intended for one moment to license an oath on small and trifling occasions in the sanctioning of sudden unnecessary ejaculations, as "Gracious God,” “Good Heavens," or declarations too frequently made use of by children, such as "By Ginger," "By Gum," "By George," "I'll be dod darned," are by many supposed perfectly innocent, but unless promptly checked in children by their parents, will lead to open and shocking profanity of a higher order.

Reverential conversation, preaching the word of divine truth, or leading in religious worship, privileges the naming of God, or any of his attributes; heenc, Paul in