attempt of every individual must infallibly secure success. It may indeed be difficult to restrain the occasional sallies of temper; but where there is, in the more dispassionate moments, a settled desire to preserve domestic union, the transient violence of passion will not often produce a permanent rupture. 28. It is another most excellent rule, to avoid a gross famil. iarity, even where the connection is most intimate. The human heart is so constituted as to love respect. It would indeed be nonatural in very intimate friends to behave to each other with stisness; but there is a delicacy of manners and a flattering de. ference, that tend to preserve that degree of esteem, which is necessary to support affection, and which is lost in contempt, when it deviates into excessive familiarity. 29. An habitual politeness of manners will prevent even indifference from degenerating to hatred. It will refine, exalt and perpetuate affection. our behavior among 30. But the best and most efficacious rule is, that we should not think our moral and religious duties are only to be practis ed in public, and in the sight of those fr om whose applause we expect the gratification of our vanity, a mbition or avarice : but that we should be equally attentive to those who can only pay us by reciprocal kve. 31. We must shew the sincerity of our principles and professions by acting consistent with them, not only in the legis lature, in the field, in the pulpit, at the bar, or in any public assembly, but at the fire-side. SELF-TORMENTING. 1. "DON'T meddle with that gan, Billy," said a careful mother; "if it should go of, it would kill you." "Well! but may off, even if it isn't "It is not charged, mother," says Wil 2. Don't laugh at the old lady. Two thi apprehensions of the evils and mischiefs as well grounded as her's were in this case 3. There are many unavoidable evils in comes us as men and christians, to bear wit there is a certain period assigned to us all, a "O dear the barrel I think rds of our fears and of this life, are just life, which it beh fortitude; and nd yet dreaded by most of us, wherein we must conflict with death, and finally lose connection with all things beneath the sun. These things are beyond our utmost power to resist, or sagacity to evade. 4. It is our wisest part, therefore, to prepare to encounter them in such a manner as shall do honor to our profession, and manifest a perfect conformity to that directory on which our profession stands. But why need we anticipate unavoidable evils, and "feel a thousand deaths in fearing one?" 5. Why need a woman be everlastingly burying her children, in her imagination, and spend her whole time in a faneied course of bereavement, because they are mortal, and must die some time or other? A divine teacher says, "sufficient for the day is the evil thereof;" but we put new and unnecessary gall in all the bitter cups we have to drink in life, by artfully mixing, sipping, and smelling before hand; like the squeamish patient, who, by viewing and thinking of his physic, brings a greater distress and burden on his stomach, before he takes it, than the physic itself could ever have done. I 6. I would have people be more careful of fire-arms than they are but I don't take a gun-barrel, unconnected with powder and lock, to be more dangerous than a broomstick. 7. Sergeant Tremble and his wife, during a time of general health, feel as easy and secure as if their children were im mortal. Now and then a neighbor drops off with a consumption, or an apoplexy; but that makes no impression, as all their children are plump and bearty. 8. If there are no cancers, dysenteries, small-pox, bladders in the throat, and such like things to be heard of, they almost bid defiance to death; but the moment information was given that a child six miles off, had the throat distemper, all comfort bade adieu to the house; and the misery then endured from dreadful apprehensions, lest the disease should enter the fa mily, is unspeakable. 9. The old sergeant thought that when the wind blew from that quarter, he could smell the infection, and therefore ordered the children to keep house, and drink wormwood and rum as a preservative against contagion. As for Mrs. Tremble, her mind was in a state of never-ceasing agitation at that time: a specimen of the common situation of the family is as follows: 10. Susy, your eyes look heavy, you don't feel a sore throat, do you? Husband, i heard Tommy cough in the bed-room just now. I'm afraid the distemper is beginning in his vitals, let us get up and light a candle. You don't begin to feel any sore on your tongue or your mouth, do you, my dear little chicken? It seems to me Molly did not eat her breakfast with so good a stomach this morning as she used to do. I'm in distress for fear she has got the distemper coming on. 11. The house was one day a perfect Bedlam; for having heard that rue and rum was an excellent guard in the present danger, the good lady dispensed the catholicon so liberally among her children one morning, that not a soul of them could eat all day; Tom vomited heartily; Sue looked as red as fire, and Molly as pale as death. 12. O! what terrors and heart achings, till the force of the medicine was over! To be short, the child that had the distemper died; and no other child was heard of in those parts to have it; so that tranquility and security was restored to Mr. Tremble's family, and their children regarded as formerly, proof against mortality. 13. Mrs. Foresight keeps her mind in a continual state of distress and uneasiness, from a prospect of awful disasters that she is forewarned of by dreams, signs and omens. This, by the way, is affronting behavior to common sense, and implies a greater reflection upon some of the divine perfections, than some well meaning people are aware of. 14. The good woman looked exceedingly melancholy at breakfast, one day last week, and appeared to have lost her appetite. After some enquiry into the cause of so mournful a visage, we were given to understand that she foresaw the death of some one in the family; having had warning in the night by a certain noise that she never knew fail; and then she went en to tell how just such a thing happened, before the death of her father, mother, and sister, &c. 15. I endeavored to argue her out of this whimsical, gloomy state of mind, but in vain; she insisted upon it, that though the noise lasted scarce a minute, it began like the dying shriek of an infant, and went on like the tumbling clods upon a coffin, and ended in the ringing of the bell. 16. The poor woman wept bitterly for the loss of the child that was to die; however, she found afterwards occasion for uneasiness on another account. The cat, unluckily shut up in the buttery, and dissatisfied with so long confinement, gave rth that dying shriek, which first produced the good woman's consternation; and then by some sudden effort to get out at a grate at the upper part of the room, overset a large pewter platter; the platter in its way overset a large wooden bowl full of milk; and both together in their way knocked down a white stone dish of salmon, which came with them into a great brass kettle that stood upon the floor. 17. The noise of the cat might easily be taken for that of a child, and the sound of a salmon upon a board, for that of a clod; and any mortal may be excused for thinking that a pewter platter, and a great earthen dish, broken in fifty pieces, both tumbling into a brass k tle, sound like a bell. HISTORY OF COLUMBUS. 1. EV VERY circumstance relating to the discovery and settlement of America, is an interesting object of enquiry. Yet it is presumed, from the present state of literature in this country, that many persons are but slightly acquainted with the character of that man whose extraordinary genius led him to the discovery of the continent, and w.ose singular suffer sings ought to excite the indignation of the world. 2. The Spanish historians, who treat of the discovery and settlement of South America, are very little known in the United States; and Dr. Robertson's history of that country, which, as is usual in works of that judicious writer, contains all that is valuable on the subject, is not yet reprinted in Amer ica, and therefore cannot be supposed to be in the hands of American readers in general; and perhaps no other writer in the English language, has given a sufficient account of the life of Columbus, to enable them to gain a competent knowledge of the history of the discovery of America. 3. Christopher Columbus was born in the Republic of Genoa, about the year 1447; at a time when the navigation of Europe as scarcely extended beyond the limits of the Medi terranean. 4. The mariner's compass had been invented, and in common use, for more than a century; yet, with the help of this sure guide, prompted by the most ardent spirit of discovery, encouraged by the patronage of princes, the mariners of those days rarely ventured from the sight of land. 5. They acquired great applause by sailing along the coast of Africa and discovering some of the neighboring islands and after pushing their researches with the greatest industry and perseverance for more than half a century, the Portu guese, who were the most fortunate and enterprising, extended their discoveries southward no farther than the equator. 6. The rich commodities of the east, had, for several ages, been brought into Europe by the way of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean; and it had now become the object of the Por tuguese, to find a passage to India by sailing round the southern extremity of Africa, and then taking an eastern course. 7. This great object engaged the general attention of mankind, and drew into the Portuguese service adventurers from every maritime nation of Europe. Every year added to their experience in navigation, and seemed to promise a reward to their industry. 8. The prospect, however, of arriving in the Indies, was extremely distant; fifty years perseverance in the same track, had bro't them only to the equator, and it was very probable that as many more would elapse before they could accomplish their purpose. But Columbus, by an uncommon exertion of genius, formed a design no less astonishing to the age in which he lived, than beneficial to posterity. 9. This design was to sail to India by taking a western direction. By the accounts of travellers who had visited India, that country seemed almost without limits on the east; and by attending to the spherical figure of the earth, Columbus drew this conclusion, that the Atlantic ocean must be bounded on the west either by India itself, or by some great continent not far distant from it. 10. This extraordinary man, who was now about twentyseven years of age, appears to have united in his character every trait, and to have possessed every talent requisite to form and execute the greatest enterprises. 11. He was early educated in all the useful sciences that were taught in that day. He had made great proficiency in geography, astronomy and drawing, as they were necessary to his favorite pursuit of navigation. He had now been a number of years in the service of the Portuguese, and had acquired all the experience that their voyages and discoveries could afford. 12. His courage and perseverance had been put to the severest test, and the exercise of every amiable and heroic virtue rendered him universally known and respected. He had married a Portuguese lady, by whom he had two sons, Diego and Ferdinand; the younger of whom is the historian of his life. 13. Such was the situation of Columbus, when he formed nd thoroughly digested a plan, which in its operation and |