ability and the opportunities which they poffefs of benefiting, in any of the methods which have been pointed out, the families of the workmen employed by their hufbands. If a woman has herself the superintendence and management of the shop, let industry, punctuality, accuracy in keeping accounts, the scrupulousness of honefty shewing itself in a steady abhorrence of every manœuvre to impofe on the customer, and all other virtues of a commercial character which are reducible to practice in her situation, distinguish her condu&t (¿). If

her

(i) It is faid, by those who have fufficient opportunities of ascertaining the fact, to be no unfrequent practice among the wives of feveral defcriptions of fhopkeepers in London, knowingly to demand from perfons who call to purchase articles for ready money, a price, when the husband is not prefent, greater than that which he would have afked. This overplus, if the article be bought, the wife conceals, and appropriates to her own use. If the customer demurs at the demand, and the hufband chances to enter; the wife profefles to have been miftaken, and apologises for the error. Thus detection is avoided. It is fcarcely neceffary to fay, that the whole of the proceeding is grofs dishonesty and falsehood on the part of the wife. If the husband has led her into temptation, by withholding from

her

her occupation be fuch as to occafion young women to be placed under her roof as affiftants in her business, or for the purpose of acquiring the knowledge of it; let her behave to them with the kindness of a friend, and watch over their principles and moral behaviour with the folicitude of a mother.

her an equitable supply of money for her proper expences, he also deserves great blame. Does fhe then attempt to justify herself on this plea? As reasonably might fhe allege it in defence of forgery.

CHAP. XIV.

Of all

ON PARENTAL DUTIES.

Fall the duties incumbent on mankind, there are none which recommend themfelves more powerfully to natural reason than those of the parent. The high estimation in which the Scriptures hold them is evident, from a variety of precepts, reflections, allufions, comparisons, and incidents, in the Old and New Teftaments. The obligations which reft on the father and the mother, in many points the fame, are, in fome few refpects, different. Thus, for example, the task of making a reasonable provifion for the future wants of children. belongs, in common cafes, to the father. "If any," faith St. Paul," provide not for “his own, and especially for those of his "own house, he hath denied the faith, and

"is worse than an infidel (k);" he disobeys one of the cleareft injunctions of Chriftianity, and omits to discharge an office, which Pagans in general would have been afhamed of neglecting. That these words of the Apostle include parents, is a truth which will not be queftioned. They are now quoted not for the sake of inculcating the particular obligation to which they relate, but for the fake of an inference which they furnish. They enable us to conclude, with certainty, what would have been the language of St. Paul, had he been led exprefsly to deliver his fentiments concerning mothers regardless of maternal duties.

In the former part of this work, when the education of young women and their introduction into general fociety were the fubjects under difcuffion, several of the most important topics of parental duty, being infeparably connected with thofe fubjects, were illuftrated and enforced. It remains now to fubjoin some detached remarks, which could (k) 1 Tim. v. 8.

not

not hitherto be commodiously stated. Like the preceding, they relate to points which will prefs on the attention of a mother, whether sharing with a husband the duties of a parent, or called by his death to the more arduous office of fulfilling them alone.

The first of the parental duties which nature points out to the mother is to be herself the nurse of her own offspring.. In fome inftances, however, the parent is not endued with the powers of conftitution requisite for the discharge of it. In others, the discharge of it would be attended with a risk to her own health greater than she ought to encounter when it can be avoided. In every such case the general obligation ceases. The disappointment, which will be felt by maternal tenderness, ought to be borne without repining; and without indulging apprehenfions refpecting the welfare of the infant, which experience has proved to be needlefs. But fpontaneously to tranf fer to a stranger, as modern example dic

tates,