thought it wasting time to read the newspaper on a Monday, because she had so many other things to do. But on Sunday, alas! on Sunday-on that day which is God's, and not our own; it was a relief to find anything that might be done. And all together could not stay the weariness with which they turned their eyes towards the lagging timepiece, that seemed but to go the slower for their impatience to be rid of a day, which, though shortened at either hand, was still too long.

And yet these people, and thousands who do like them, are going, so they tell us, and take it but ill that we should doubt it, to that blessed dwellingplace where there is no employ but one ;-the very one of which they grow so weary here: where the utmost reach of happiness is no more but the completion and duration endless, of that which they are so little willing to begin; a rest from the agitating cares of time and sense, and a devoting of time, and thoughts, and powers, to the worship of the Deity; the contemplation of his works, and the performance of his will. This is a happiness that is not for us here; we cannot reach it if we would. But that we may taste of it; that we may cultivate a desire and a liking to it; an imperfect Sabbath has been at certain intervals appointed us, in which we are permitted, nay, commanded under all the penalties of disobedience, to take of the food on which our perfected spirits will eternally be fed, if the feast of heaven be preparing for us. The day comes round, and finds so little welcome, it is but an importunate intruder on our enjoyments, an interruption to our business. The food we are required tc take is so unpalatable, we are obliged to mix with it as much as possible of our weekly fare to enable

us to take it. So averse are we to this faint semblance of the eternal state, that not even the terrors of God's broken law can force us to partake of it. The aversion must be strong indeed, that will make us risk so much by disobedience, rather than make the sacrifice of a few brief hours. And to what is it we are so averse? Let us consider it well.

THERE are a great number of things that every body says for no reason that can be perceived, but because every body always has said them: and, whatever be the recommendation to these current opinions, or rather assertions, for opinion has little to do with them, it is certainly not their truth. There is not one in ten of the persons who talk on these universal topics, that has ever considered whether what it is customary to say, be true or not; and though they are matters of every-day experience, they seldom pause to compare their habits of talking with their actual observation on the subject. But observation, unfortunately, we most of us make none, till past the age at which it would most avail us. We take up our sentiments, and not seldom our very feelings, upon trust; and it is not till after many a hard rub and bitter pang, we come to perceive, that had we felt more justly, we need not have suffered. Perhaps this is an evil in some degree irremediable: there are many who cannot, and more who will not, think and judge on their own behalf. What they were taught in their youth they will believe in their age, and what they said at fifteen they

will go on saying at fifty; though the whole course and current of their observations, had they made any, would go to disprove it. But, if this is the case, and if it must be so, it is but of the more importance what habits of thinking and feeling young people receive on entering a world that will not change its course to meet their expectations, or show overmuch indulgence to their mistakes. If the mischief ended where we began to trace it, with the mistaken sentiments given forth in the talk of society, it would be small, and we would let it pass as a harmless fiction: but not unfrequently it goes to the dearest and tenderest interests of our bosoms, to the very vitals of our earthly happiness. It may indeed do worse; for it may assail our virtues and attaint our souls with sin, by giving a check to the benevolent affections, and inducing a morose and cynical habit of feeling towards our fellow-creatures, the very reverse of what Christianity enjoys.

These reflections, something long, as those may have thought who are in a hurry to know what they mean, were excited in my mind by a conversation I recently heard in a party of young ladies, and which I take as a pattern and semblance of twenty other conversations I have heard in twenty similar parties. Friendship was, as it very often is, the subject of the discussion, and though the words have escaped my memory, I can well recall the substance of the remarks. One lady boldly asserted, that there was no such thing as friendship in the world, where all was insincerity and selfishness. I looked, but saw not in her mirthful eye and unfurrowed cheeks any traces of the sorrow and ill usage, that I thought should alone have wrung from gentle lips so harsh a sentence, and I wondered where in twenty brief years, she could have learned so hard a lesson. Have

known it, she could not; therefore I concluded she had taken it upon trust from the poets, who are fain to tell all the ill they can of human nature, because it makes better poetry than the good.

The remark was taken up, as might be expected, by a young champion who thought, or said without thinking, that friendship was-I really cannot undertake to say what-but all the things that young ladies usually put into their themes at school: something very interminable, illimitable, and immutable. From this the discussion grew, and how it was, and what it was, went on to be discussed. I cannot pursue the thread of the discourse; but the amount of it was this: one thought friendship was the summer portion only of the blest; a flower for the brow of the prosperous, that the child of misfortune must never gather. Another thought, that all interest being destructive of its very essence, it could not be trusted unless there was an utter destitution of every thing that might recommend us to favour, or requite affection. This lady must have been brought to the depth of wretchedness ere she ever could be sure she had a friend. Some, I found, thought it was made up of a great deal of sensibility, vulgarly called jealousy; that was to take umbrage at every seeming slight, to the indescribable torment of either party. Some betrayed, if they did not exactly say it, that they thought friendship such an absolute unity, that it would be a less crime to worship two gods than to love two friends! Therefore to bring it to its perfection it was necessary that all beside should be despised and disregarded.

Others, very young, and of course soon to grow wiser, thought it consisted in the exact disclosure of your own concerns, and those of every body else with which you might chance to become acquainted;