The harmony that subsists among the virtues, is worthy of our highest admiration; nor can it be too often contemplated, or too deeply impressed. Filial duty prepares the mind for divine obedience; and filial love and gratitude open the heart to all the benevolent affections. Where the idea of duty either to GOD or parent is associated with slavish fear, unmixed with love and gratitude, it will produce a train of gloomy and discordant passions, which will render obedience an irksome and hateful task. It is then a painful yoke from which the mind will emancipate itself as soon as possible. But where notions of filial duty and divine obedience are early and firmly associated with the ideas of esteem, complacency, and delight; where a sense of received benefits has awakened a correspondent gratitude, and a consciousness of weakness has inspired humility, while the happiness in which the heart rejoices is looked on as the gift of goodness

and of love, all the best affections of the soul must inevitably be called forth.

To

It has been remarked by Mrs. More,* "that filial obedience is not the character of the age; and that not only sons but daughters have adopted something of that spirit of independence, and disdain of control, which characterize the times." the discussion of the rights of man this evil is in a subsequent passage attributed. But with all due deference to such respectable authority, I think the evil complained of may fairly be traced to a more natural and a more obvious source. Children surrounded from the cradle with all that can stimulate pride and vanity, encouraged to entertain a conceit of their own consequence, and to look down with disdain on all who are in an inferior situation in life; their appetites pampered, pampered, their wills uncontrolled, their inclinations perverted, their de

* See Strictures on Female Education.

sires inflamed, and their ideas of happiness associated with the gratification of their appetites and passions, cannot be expected to entertain notions of duty or obedience. In the passions and habits influenced by such circumstances, they will have more powerful incentives to the spirit of insubordination, than a respect for the rights of their fellow-creatures could possibly produce. The basis of filial obedience, and of every other virtue, will be very insecure if it be narrowed into party-prejudice. Let us endeavour to form it of materials less perishable. By impressing children with a proper sense of their own weakness, by inspiring them with gratitude and love toward all those from whom they receive assistance and protection, and by teaching them from infancy habits of submission to the dictates of superior age and wisdom, a foundation will certainly be laid for filial obedience, independent of any political creed; and if, in the cultivation of the understanding, care be taken not to destroy

what has been done for the cultivation of the heart, by an improper application of the stimulants of envy and vanity, we have reason to hope that the superstructure will be agreeable to our wishes.

LETTER VII.

ASSOCIATIONS DESTRUCTIVE OF BENEVOLENCE.

Pernicious Effects of Partiality-Of Ridicule.Of Contempt for the Female Character.

THE disposition to benevolence is sown and nourished in the grateful soil of family affection. Where children are educated upon sensible principles, so that their wills are not perpetually clashing with each other, mutual affection must naturally spring from sympathy in each other's joys, and the pleasure derived from each other's society. But this affection is too often nipped in the bud by the canker of parental partiality.

Children are so far conscious of their rights, as to feel that they have an equal