have quicker feelings of native delicacy, and a ftronger sense of shame, no inconfiderable supports to virtue. And they are subjected, in a peculiar degree, to viciffitudes of health adapted to awaken serious thought, and to fet before them the profpect and the confequences of dissolution. The steady glow of piety excited in the mind of the wife has, in numberlefs inftances, diffused itself through the breast of the husband. And in no inftances has it diffused itself through his breast, without adding to the warmth of connubial affection.

But never let it be forgotten that female example, if it be thus capable of befriending the cause of religion and the interests of moral rectitude, is equally capable of proving itself one of the most dangerous of their foes. We are all prone to copy a model, though a faulty model, which is continually before us. When the perfons by whom it is exhibited are indifferent to us, we yet conform to it imperceptibly;

when

when they are esteemed and loved, we are enfnared into imitation even with open eyes. She who, at prefent, appears to regard piety of heart as a matter but of secondary importance, knows not whether she shall not have to answer at the day of retribution for having betrayed her husband into a neglect of his eternal welfare. She who sets the pattern of flighting one Chriftian ordinance, of difobeying one Christian precept, contributes not only to lead her husband into the fame fault, but likewise to weaken his attachment to every other Christian ordinance, and to impair the sense which he entertains, be it more or less ftrong, of the obligation and importance of the other precepts of the Gospel. If you are incapable of being, in the most important points, a beneficial companion to your husband, beware at least of being a noxious affociate. If you are unable to throw any weight into the scale of his virtues, at least beware that the oppofite scale be not loaded with failings borrowed from yourself.

But,

But, whatever be the influence which the amiable virtues of a wife may obtain over her husband; let not the consciousness of it ever lead her to feek opportunities of displaying it, nor to cherish a wish to intrude into those departments which belong not to her jurisdiction. Content with the province which reason and revelation have affigned to her, and fedulous to fulfil, with cheerful alacrity, the duties which they prescribe; let her equally guard against defiring to poffefs undue weight over her husband's conduct, and against exercising amiss that which properly belongs to her. Let her remember too that the juft regard, which has been acquired by artless attractions, may be loft by unwarrantable and teasing competition,

The love of power, congenial to the human breast, reveals itself in the two fexes under different forms, but with equal force. Hence have arifen the open endeavours fometimes difcernible on the part of wives

of

of turbulent paffions, and the oblique machinations visible among others of a cunning turn of mind, to carry favourite points against the will of their husbands. If we may give credit to the writers of comedy, and to the weekly or diurnal editors of periodical papers, at the end of the last century and early in the prefent, for accurate obferv ation and just description of the manners of their contemporaries; the grand resource, at that period, of a lady whofe husband was cruel enough to deny her any thing on which she had set her heart, from a London journey to a piece of brocade, was to fall into an hyfteric. The reign of fits and vapours feems now to be closed. Let not the difpofitions, by which it was introduced and upheld, be found to furvive its fall. Let it ever be remembered, that she who by teasing, by wheedling, by finesse under any shape whatever, feeks to weary or to deceive her husband into confent or acquiefcence, acts no lefs plainly in oppofition to her duty of fcriptural obedience, than

fhe would have done had fhe driven him into compliance by the menaces and weapons of an Amazon.

"I beseech you," faid St. Paul to his Ephefian converts, "that ye walk worthy "the vocation wherewith ye are called "with all lowlinefs and meekness, with

;

long-fuffering, forbearing one another in "love; endeavouring to keep the unity of "the spirit in the bond of peace (u)." This earneft and affectionate advice, though originally referring to the general condition and manner of life to which Chriftians are called, has a propriety fingularly appofite when applied to the state of marriage. Let every married woman regard the admonition as though it had been pronounced by the Apostle specially for her fake.

To preserve unimpaired the affections of her affociate, to convince him, that in his

(x) Ephef. iv. 1-3.

judge