referve, delicacy of manners, and even delicacy of fentiment, are in extreme danger of being worn away by living in habits of familiar intercourfe with a crowd of officers; among whom it is to be expected that there will be fome who are abfolutely improper, and more who are very undefirable affociates. Duty and affection may in certain cases render it neceffary, that a married lady fhould ftand the brunt of these temptations. But the confequent danger should excite her to unwearied and univerfal circumfpection; and warn her to cultivate with unremitting vigilance thofe habits of privacy, and of ufeful and methodical employment, without which female diffidence, purity of heart, and a capacity for the enjoyment and the communication of domestic happiness, will scarcely be found to furvive. The wife of a manufacturer, or of a perfon engaged in any branch of trade pro ductive of confiderable gain, is likewife fubjected by her own fituation and that of her husband to moral duties and trials, which require to be briefly noticed. If her husband has raised himself by fuccefs in his bufinefs to a state of affluence and credit much fuperior to that which he originally poffeffed, and in particular if he has thus raised himself from very low beginnings; his wife is not unfrequently puffed up with the pride which he is fometimes found to contract during the period of his elevation; looks down with the contemptuous infolence of profperity on her former acquaintances and friends; frowns into filence the hopes and the requests of poor relations; and would gladly confign to oblivion every circumftance, which calls to mind the condition from which fhe has been exalted. She becomes ambitious to difplay her newly acquired wealth in the parade of dress, in coftlyfurniture, in luxurious entertainments. Ever apprehensive of being treated by her late equals or fuperiors with a lefs degree of respect than the now conceives to be her due, fhe perpetually finds, or fuppofes that fhe she finds, what she is taking fuch pains to discover. If from the operation of abfurd and arrogant prejudices, which, though far lefs prevalent in modern times than heretofore, are not yet wholly extinguished, she is occafionally treated by ladies of superior rank and fortune with the fupercilious airs reserved to be exhibited towards thofe who have recently emerged into opulence; inftead of proving by her conduct the justice of the Scriptural admonition that "before "honour is humility (b)," the fails not to convince them that her pride is equal to their own. Though she may control the effervefcence of her wrath, and break not forth into turbulence and outrage; she broods in fecret over the affront, and gratifies her malevolence with every thing which truth or falsehood can fuggeft to the detriment and difparagement of the offending party. The difgracefulness and the guilt of these unchriftian tempers appear in the (h) Proverbs, xv. 33. AA 3 deepest deepest colours of deformity, when contrafted with the behaviour of those women who are feen to retain, after the largest acceffions of riches and confequence, the unaffuming manners, the meeknefs of difpofition, the fame principles, the fame attachments, by which they were originally diftinguished. When a large manufactory collects together, as is the cafe in cotton mills and fome other inftances, a number of women and children within its walls; or draws a concourfe of poor families into its immediate vicinity, by the employment which it affords to the different parts of them; let the wife of the owner continually bear in mind that to their toil her opulence is owing. Let her remember that the obligations between the labourer and his employer are reciprocal. With cordial activity let her unite with her husband, in all ways compatible with the offices of her fex, to promote the comfort and welfare of his de pendents pendents by liberal charity adapted to their respective wants, and by all other means which perfonal inspection and inquiry may indicate as conducive to the preservation of their health, and the improvement of their moral and religious character. The affemblage of multitudes is highly unfavourable to virtue. The conftant occupations: of children in a manufactory may eafily be pushed to an extreme, that will leave neither time nor inclination for the acquifition of those principles of rectitude, which, if not impreffed during childhood, are rarely gained afterwards. If fuch occupations are carried on in the contaminated atmosphere of crowded rooms, they fap the conftitution in the years destined according to the course of nature for its complete establishment. These are evils which every person, who has an intereft in a manufactory, is bound by the strongest ties of duty to prevent; or, if they exist already, to remove. A fimilar obligation refts on the wives of tradesmen in general, in proportion to the ability A A 4 |