around us appears to have equally with ourselves, is a poffeffion of the value of which we are moft likely to be ignorant or regardless. Such a poffeffion is time. Men, who are stimulated to intellectual exertions by the concurrence of various motives, either unknown to the female fex, or known only in an inferior degree; men, to whom business is in one shape or in another continually presenting itself; whom the capacity of attaining to profeffional honour and emolument, and the attractions of the field of literature, of which, until of late years, they have almost enjoyed a monopoly, might tempt to cultivate their understandings, and to apply their talents to purposes of utility; frequently confign themselves to a laborious life of amusement; a life which, even if all their modes of amusement had been in themselves irreproachable, would not have been moreuseful and respectable than an equal period of obftinate inactivity. Devoting their mornings to the billiard-room, and their evenings to the gaming-table; occupied in fuperintending the training of race-horses,

and in witneffing, with unfeeling delight, their exertions on the courfe; or employed in the unremitting pursuit and destruction of various parts of the animal world; they live without reflection on the great objects of human existence, neither benefited by its progress, nor preparing for its termination. A picture fimilar to this in its outline and compofition, though differing in the particular objects prefented to the eye of the fpectator, might be drawn from female life. Gay, elegant, and accomplished, but thoughtless, immerfed in trifles, and hurrying with impatience, never fatisfied, from one scene of diverfion to another; how many women are feen floating down the ftream of life, like bubbles on which the fun paints a thousand gaudy colours; and like bubbles vanishing, fooner or later, one after another, and leaving no trace of usefulness behind! The fcriptural censure of those who are "lovers of pleasure more "than lovers of God (0)," a cenfure, the

(0) 2 Tim. iii. 4.-See also fome of the preceding and of the fubfequent verses.

proper

proper force of which may be estimated by attending to the other characters included in the fame catalogue by the Apostle, pertains not to those persons only who indulge themselves in gratifications in their own nature criminal. It belongs in due proportion to all who facrifice duty to pleasure; to all who elevate amusements above the rank which they ought to hold in the mind of a Chriftian; to all who addict themfelves to the pursuit of entertainment with an ardour, or to an extent, which fo intrudes on their attention and their time, as to prevent them from improving their underftandings, cultivating holiness and benevolence of heart, and discharging the relative duties of life, with diligence and fidelity; to all, in fhort, who, whatever may be the nature of their amusements, follow them, or any one of them, to excefs. So difpofed is the human mind to open itself to pleafurable impreffions, that at all times until age or forrow has dried up the fources of enjoyment, and above all other times, du

ring the fufceptibility of youth, excess is to be apprehended. What has delighted us once, we feel affured will delight us again. And though the trial fhould terminate in disappointment, or repetition should convert fatisfaction into weariness; we seek to fill up the void, not by fearching after pleasures of a higher nature, but by eagerly catching at gratifications fimilar to that, the delufive nature of which we have fo lately experienced. The very circumftance of an amusement being innocent, renders its attractions the more likely to acquire unreafonable power over the unfufpecting breast of innocence. It excites no alarm: it has no features of deformity: the time which it occupies is speedily gone, and leaves no disagreeable recollection. It may be long before a young woman is led to discern, in her own cafe, that an action individually blameless may, by frequency, become criminal; and to perceive the deficiency of what fhe has done in the line of improvement and utility by confidering what she might have done.

Among

Among the unhappy effects which attend an immoderate and confirmed thirst for amusements, this is one of the most lamentable; that the malady is fitly ranked among the mental disorders most difficult to cure. Like the dropfy, it is diftinguished by a burning defire for the indulgences most adverfe to the diminution of the complaint; a defire fo intense as scarcely to permit the sufferer to advert to any other object. The mind, unaccustomed to ferious reflection, foftened and enfeebled by relaxing habits, turns with difguft from argument and intelligence, clings to the trifles in which it has long delighted, and is almost incapable for a time of either seeking or of receiving gratification from better pursuits. The self-denial, the painful efforts, requifite to break the fhackles of habit, are fully known to those only by whom the shackles of habit have been broken. Let every woman beware of being imperceptibly betrayed. into fetters from which, without such selfdenial, fuch painful efforts, the cannot be