Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

has placed them, as the protectors of the happiness and virtue of others?

"In some instances it has been in our power to trace this debasement of life through all its stages; in many we have seen it in its results, and extending alike to the other parts of the family. They are detached from all habitual duties: the salutary feeling of home is lost. One circumstance must be added further to this outline; we mean the detachment from religious habits, which attends residence abroad. The means of public worship exist to our countrymen but in few places, and these under circumstances the least propitious to such duties. Days speedily become all alike: English families removed from out of the sphere of these proper duties, common to every people, and from all opportunities of public worship or religious example, incur a risk which is very serious in kind, especially to those still young and unformed in character.

"All the objections we have already stated, apply with two-fold force to the female part of families so circumstanced. The detach

ment from former habits is here more complete, and the mode of life is one yet more at variance with the peculiar duties and graces We shall be censured as old

of the sex. fashioned monitors, if we talk of the worthy knowledge which belong to the vocation of the English housewife;' but it can never be out of season to speak of those endearing domestic qualities, which refuse foreign nurture, even under the warmest suns and fairest skies, and can no where be so well fostered as in the tranquillity of home. The objects and motives which best give guidance to conduct are wanting abroad; and their place is too often usurped by others, of harmful tendency to the reserve and delicacy of the female character. It has too frequently occurred to us to see young Englishwomen, who, living at home, would have been the ministers of innocent cheerfulness to their own families, and of charity and consolation to the poor around, become, when transplanted to a foreign town, either insignificant idlers, or, yet more, bold and unfeminine, and too prodigal of their favour to

the doubtful society which so often surrounds them.

“The return of a family to their native seat is not always a replacement of things as they were before. Habits are altered, ties and associations broken; a vague desire of further changes supplants often the tranquil feelings of a domestic life, and interferes with its duties. Restlessness is a quality which propagates itself; and this is no less true with regard to families than to individuals.

"The importance of speaking foreign languages, and especially French, early and well, is the argument we perpetually hear urged for residence on the Continent. By some process of reasoning, to us not very intelligible, it has been made to appear that the speaking of French is essential to female education; and that a young lady is barely presentable in society without this acquisition. It is fair and reasonable to rate the speaking French well as an accomplishment; but too much may be paid for this whistle.' This fashion of speaking foreign languages prevails most in the female education of the day,

where it may fairly be presumed to be the least needed, and where indeed it is often of very doubtful utility. Here it has even disputed the palm of precedence with music.

"It has been our especial object to show that the man who makes his natural soil his home, brings to himself more dignity and respect; to his family more peace and virtue; to his dependants more happiness; and to his country more usefulness; than he who with his family squanders, in an idle life elsewhere, the talents and the time which might have been employed well and honourably here."

The two relationships which remain to be considered are of a public nature. It is not necessary to repeat here, what may be found better stated in other places; and the awful responsibilities and duties of the ministerial office have been ably set forth very frequently.

A MINISTER of God's word in Christ's Church, is one who has a right to speak with authority in the name of his Master. The private Christian is indeed bound to disseminate, within his sphere, all the knowledge of

G

God's truth which he has been taught, and not to wrap up that knowledge in a napkin but he must not dogmatize; that is, teach as one having authority. His province is to read, and submit to the judgment of others his views of the right meaning of God's word. The father, however, and head of a family, stands towards his children and servants in a higher character than that of a mere private Christian. To these he must of necessity so far dogmatize, as to give explanations, which the tender years and inferior learning of those whom he addresses, precludes the possibility of their doing otherwise than receive on his authority. The ministers of Christ's Church, indeed, do not lose their dignity on entering the door of a lay brother, but still they are but "strangers within his gates." Whereas heads of families often seem to consider it improper in them to exercise their office of instructors, and leaders of worship, in their houses, in the presence of ministers; wherefore it seems to me to have come to pass, that in general the labours of ministers, on these occasions, are not so much owned and ho

« ElőzőTovább »