leading laconic queftions, which may put him into the way of discover ing the truth.

On the prefent occafion; having for fome time contemplated the rifing fun, and made your pupil obferve the hills and other neighbouring objects on that fide, permitting him the while to talk about them without interruption, ftand filent a few moments and affect a profound meditation. You may then addrefs him thus: " I am thinking that, when the fun fet "last night, it went down yonder "beyond us: whereas, this morn❝ing, you fee, he is rifen on the " oppofite fide of the plain, here,

66

before us. What can be the "meaning of this?" Say nothing more; and, if he ask you any thing about it, divert his attention, for the prefent, by talking of fomething else. Leave him to reflect on it himself, and be affured he will think of your obfervation.

To accustom a child to give attention to objects, and to make fenfible truths appear ftriking to his imagination, it is neceffary to keep him fome time in fufpence before they are explained or difcovered to him. If he fhould not fufficiently comprehend the nature of the prefent queftion by the means propofed, it may be rendered ftill more obvious, by diverfifying the terms of it. If he cannot comprehend in what manner the fun proceeds from its fetting to its rifing, he knows at least how it proceeds from its rifing to its fetting; he hath ocular demonftration of this. Explain the firft queftion, then, by the fecond, and if your pupil be not extremely dull indeed, the analogy is too obvious to escape him.

Such is our first lecture in cofmography." Vol. ii. p. 8.

"I have already observed, that the duties of their sex are more eafily known than practifed. The first thing they fhould learn, is to be in love with their duty from a principle of intereft; which is the only means to render it easy. Every ftation and every age has its peculiar duties. We are easily acquainted with them, provided we do but love them. Respect your condition as a woman, and whatever ftation providence thinks fit to allot you, you will always be a woman of virtue. The effential point is to be what nature formed us; we are always too propense to be what the world would with us.

Researches into abstract and fpeculative truths, the principles and axioms of fciences, in fhort, whatever tends to generalize our ideas, is not the proper province of women; their ftudies fhould be relative to points of practice; it belongs to them to apply thofe principles which men have difcovered; and it is their part to make obfervations, which direct men to the eftablishment of general principles. All the ideas of women, which have not an immediate tendency to points of duty, fhould be directed to the ftudy of men, and to the attainments of thofe agreeable accomplifhments which have tafte for their object; for as to works of genius, they are beyond their capacity: neither have they fufficient precifion or power of attention to fucdeed in fciences which require accuracy: and as to phyfical knowledge, it belongs to thofe only who are most active, moft inquifitive; who comprehend the greatest variety of objects; in fhort, it be longs to those who have the ftrongeft powers, and who exercise them moft, to judge of the relations be

tween

of nature.

tween fenfible beings and the laws A woman who is naturally weak, and does not carry her ideas to any great extent, knows how to judge and make a proper eftimate of thofe movements which fhe fets to work, in order to aid her weakness; and these movements are the paffions of men. The mechanifm fhe employs is much more powerful than ours; for all her leyers move the human heart. She must have the skill to incline us to do every thing which her fex will not enable her to do of herself, and which is neceffary or agreeable to her; therefore the ought to ftudy the mind of man thoroughly, not the mind of man in general, abftractedly, but the difpofition of the men about her, the difpofition of those men to whom she is subject, either by the laws of her country, or by the force of opinion. She fhould learn to penetrate into their real fentiments from their converfations, their actions, their looks and geftures. She should also have the art, by her own converfation, actions, looks and gestures, to communicate thofe fentiments which are agreeable to them, without seeming to intend it. Men will argue more philofophically about the human heart; but women will read the heart of man better than they. It belongs to women, if I may be allowed the expreffion, to form an experimental morality, and to reduce the study of man to a fyftem. Women have moft wit, men have most genius; women obferve, men reafon; from the concurrence of both we derive the cleareft light and the most perfect knowledge, which the human mind is, of itself, capable of attaining in one word, from hence we acquire the most in

timate acquaintance both with ourfelves and others, of which our nature is capable; and it is thus that art has a conftant tendency to perfect thofe endowments which nature has bestowed.

The world is the book of women; if they do not read well it is their own fault, or fome paffion blinds them. Nevertheless, a true mistress of a family is not lefs a reclufe in her own houfe, than a nun in her convent. Therefore, before a young virgin is married, we ought to act with regard to her, as they do, or at leaft ought to do, towards those who are to be confined in nunneries; that is, we fhould fhew them the pleasures they are to quit, before we fuffer them to renounce them, left the false idea of pleasures to which they are ftrangers, fhould mislead their minds, and interrupt the felicity of their retirement. In France, young ladies live in nunneries, and wives go abroad in the world. Among the ancients it was juft the reverfe; the maidens, as I have obferved, were indulged with entertainments and public festivals; but wives lived retired. This custom was more rational, and had a better tendency to preferve morals. A kind of coquetry is allowed to young girls who are unmarried; their grand concern is to amufe themselves. But wives have other employment at home, and they are no longer in pursuit of hufbands; but fuch a reformation would not be for their intereft, and unhappily they lead the fashion. Mothers, however, make companions of your daughters! cultivate in them a juft understanding and an honeft heart, and then hide nothing from them which a chafte eye may view with

out

out offence. Balls, entertainments, public fights, even theatres; every thing which, feen improperly, delights indifcreet youth, may without danger be prefented to the eye of prudence. The more they are converfant with thefe tumultuous pleafures, the fooner they will be difgufted with them.

But I hear the clamour arifing against me! What girl is capable of refifting fuch dangerous examples? They have no fooner feen the world, than their heads are turned with every object; not one of them will refolve to quit it. Perhaps this may be the cafe; but before you have fhewn them this deceitful picture, have you prepared them to view it without emotion? Have you acquainted them before hand with the objects it reprefents? Have you defcribed them fuch as they really are? Have you armed them against the illufions of vanity? Have you inculcated into their tender minds a relifh for true pleafures, which are not to be found in thefe tumultuous scenes? What meafures, what precautions have you fed to preferve them from that falfe tafte which misleads them? So far from having oppofed any principles against the prevalence of public prejudices, you have rather nourished them. You have previously made them enamoured with thofe frivolous amufements they meet with. You make them more in love with them, by affording them an opportunity of devoting themfelves to them. Young girls, at their firft entrance into the world, have feldom any other governefs than their mother, who is often more filly than they, and who can not fhew them objects in any other light, than fuch in which they be

hold them themfelves. Her example, more efficacious than reafon itself, juftifies them in their own eyes; and the authority of a mother is an unanfwerable plea for a daughter. When I propofe that a mother should introduce her daughter to the world, it is upon the fuppofition that he will reprefent it to her fuch as it is.

The evil begins ftill earlier. Convents are, in fact, fchools of coquetry; not of that honeft coquetry of which I have just spoken, but of that which produces all the extravagancies in women, and makes them the most ridiculous of all coquettes. When they quit the convents, to enter all at once into mixed affemblies, young girls find themselves where they could wish. They have been educated for fuch fociety, and is it to be wondered that they are fond of it? I am cautious of advancing what I am going to fay, for I fear I should mistake a prejudice for an observation; but it seems to me that, generally fpeaking, in proteftant countries, women have ftronger attachments to their families, make more amiable wives and more tender mothers than in catholic countries; and if this be the cafe, there is no doubt but that the difference in part arifes from the education at convents.

To love a tranquil and domeftic life, we ought to be well acquainted with it; we should have experienced the fweets of it from our infancy. It is in the house of our parents that we must contract a relifh for our own family, and every woman, who has not been educated by her mother, will not choose to bring up her own children. Unhappily private education is banished from great cities. Society is

become

ed and right reverend author first labours to fet in a juft light the true office and operations of the Holy Spirit, and the true fcripture-idea of inspiration. This point eftablished, he fets up to fcorn and ridicule the falfe and pretended schemes of methodists and other fanatics.

This work, like all others of the fame author, is full of uncommon refearches, conducted by a remarkable spirit of fagacity and penetration; an extreme fubtilty and refinement appears in all his reafonings, which are fometimes very fatisfactory, as being drawn from a profound erudition, and a perfect knowledge of the ideas of the times and countries, where the facred books were written, of the occafion of writing them, and of the connection between the old and the new teftament. Where his reafonings carry lefs conviction, they are, nevertheless, and from the fame caufe, always agreeable and entertaining. This order is not fo exact as to prevent his difcuffing feveral points, which are but flightly connected with his principal fubject. His ftile is original and animated, but abrupt and unequal. Few books abound with more lively fallies of wit and humour, for which the author has uncommon abilities, and which he fometimes finds it difficult to restrain, fuffering them now and then to degenerate into too great a degree of carelessness and freedom. We fubjoin as a fpecimen of his manner in the ferious and the ludicrous, the fifth chapter

of his first book.

"We may observe that the Miniftry of the first preachers of the Gospel confifted of thefe two parts; 1. The temporary and occafional instructions of thofe Chriftians

whom they had brought to the knowledge of, and faith in, Jefus, the Meffiah; 2. and the care of

compofing a WRITTEN RULE for the direction of the Church throughout all ages. Now it being granted, becaufe, by the hiftory of the Acts of the Apoftles, it may be proved, that they were divinely inspired in the discharge of the temporary part; it must be very strong evidence, indeed, which can induce an unprejudiced man to fufpect, that they were left to themselves in the execution of the other. Their preaching could only profit their contemporaries: For, instructions conveyed to future ages by Tradition, are foon loft and forgotten; or, what is worse, polluted and corrupted with fables. It is reasonable therefore to think, that the Church was provided with a WRITTEN RULE. The good providence of God hath indeed made this provifion. And the Scriptures of the New Teftament have been received by all the Faithful, as divine Oracles, as the infpired dictates of the Holy Spirit, till Superftition extending the notion of infpiration to an extravagant height, over-cautious believers joined with libertines, (who had taken advantage of that folly) to deny or bring in question all inspiration whatfoever. For extremes beget each other; and when thus begotten, they are fuffered, in order to preferve the ballance of the moral Syftem, as frequently to fupport as to deftroy one another; that, while they fubfift, each may defeat the mifchiefs which the other threatens; and when they fall, both of them may fall together.

I fhall therefore take upon me to expofe the extravagance of either folly; and then endeavour to fettle

the