any inheritance which they may be enabled to bequeath them.

Children, whose parents are truly qualified, are highly privileged indeed. Let them ma

nifest a grateful sense of their advantages, by an affectionate and respectful deportment; let them "give honour to whom honour is so justly due." The value of a good education cannot be fully estimated by those who are receiving it, the benefit extends so far; it treasures up a stock of happiness, not only for the individuals themselves, but for others yet unborn. Yes, and the benefit of a good education is unlimited in its influence,-it extends to another state of existence.

Let not parents forget, that there is a respect due to the young, as well as to the old. It has a happy influence on the character when this is judiciously yielded it will make an ingenuous spirit solicitous to deserve it, and impel to praise-worthy actions. Are they not deserving of it, if they have made advances in wisdom and knowledge proportionate to their years and opportunities? There is no crime in the inexperience of youth, provided it does not assume a consequence to which it

is not entitled; nor should youth, or even inexperience, ever be mentioned in terms of contempt or reproach.

Were the above principles mutually acted upon, they would produce the happiest effects on domestic life: parents, worthy of respect, would more frequently be respected by their children; while children, feeling a due return, would more often endeavour to deserve it. Nor would their juvenile attempts experience the difficulties which their parents must encounter, in the late and arduous work of self-renovation: their advantages are greater, their obstacles fewer, the motives are equally weighty to impel them, and they have the promise of the same divine assistance. As it is expressly by their conduct at home that the character of parents must be estimated, so it is of little consequence in what repute their children are held abroad, among their gay and thoughtless companions. The grand question is, have their fathers and their mothers just occasion to approve and respect them? This is the best security for the permanent approbation of the wise and good. It is the dutiful and respectful child, whom we must select

for the kind neighbour, and the warm and disinterested friend. As our family finds us within-doors, so society will find us without, sooner or later, with whatever superficial gloss we may for the present conceal our real characters. What happy effects, in all the departments of life, may not be fairly anticipated, from the mutual respect of parents and children!

CHAP. III.

FAMILY HARMONY.

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for bre

thren to dwell together in unity!"

PSALM cxxxiii. 1.

THERE are few readers, whether parents or children, who need the aid of what has been already suggested, to prove that domestic happiness is in itself a most desirable object; although it is not every one who is skilled in the most effectual means for attaining it. Our ears are not unfrequently assailed by the mutual complaints of parents and children: what discordant and unnatural sounds ! Whence can they originate? Are the parties new acquaintances, who have yet to learn each other's tempers and dispositions ? This, however strange it may seem, is sometimes the case with children who are consigned

from the care of the nurse to that of the governess. Is it any wonder, if, when a young lady of sixteen returns to an almost strange home, there should not commence the most cordial understanding between herself and her mother; though with what view their mutual discontents should be made public, it is not easy to conjecture. Parents! can you expose the foibles of your family, without exciting some suspicion of your own mismanagement? Children! can you undermine the reputation of your parents, without in a degree sapping your own? your father and your mother! relatives, whose authority is protected by the divine sanction; frail mortals like yourselves, entitled to have the mantle of love cast over them by the hands of filial affection, instead of being exposed to the condemnation or the ridicule of a censorious world.

It is often too apparent on what terms families live together, although they judiciously abstain from direct complaint or accusation, by the uncordial manner in which they speak to, or of each other, leaving us to conjecture, if we please, that things are in reality worse than they appear. If the good opinion

C