concurring circumstances may give them additional weight: and thus they may prove more effectual than the same things spoken in conversation. But, however this may prove, I cannot resist the desire of trying, in some degree, to be useful to you, on your setting out in a life of trial and difficulty; your success in which must determine your fate for ever.

Hitherto you have "thought as a child, and un"derstood as a child: but it is time to put away "childish things."-You are now in your fifteenth year, and must soon act for yourself; therefore it is high time to store your mind with those principles, which must direct your conduct, and fix your cha racter. If you desire to live in peace and honour, in favour with God and man, and to die in the glo. rious hope of rising from the grave to a life of endless happiness;-if these things appear worthy your ambition, you must set out in earnest in the pursuit of them. Virtue and happiness are not attained by chance, nor by a cold and languid approbation; they must be sought with ardour, attended to with diligence, and every assistance must be eagerly embraced that may enable you to obtain them. Consider, that good and evil are now before you; that if you do not heartily choose and love the one, you must undoubtedly be the wretched victim of the other. Your trial is now begun; you must either become one of the glorious children of God, who are to rejoice in his love for ever; or a child of destruction;-miserable in this life, and punished with eternal death hereafter. Surely, you will be impressed by so awful a situation! you will earnestly pray to be directed into that road of life, which leads to excellence and happiness; and, you will be thankful to every kind hand that is held out, to set you forward in your journey.

The first step must be to awaken your mind to a sense of the importance of the task before you, which is no less than to bring your frail nature to that degree of Christian perfection, which is to qualify it for immortality; and without which, it is necessarily incapable of happiness: for it is a truth.

never to be forgotten, that God has annexed happiness to virtue, and misery to vice, by the unchange-. able nature of things; and that, a wicked being (while he continues such) is in a natural incapacity of enjoying happiness, even with the concurrence of all those outward circumstances which in a virtuous mind would produce it.

As there are degrees of virtue and vice, so are there of reward and punishment, both here and hereafter: But, let not my dearest Niece aim only at escaping the dreadful doom of the wicked,-let your desires take a nobler flight, and aspire after those transcendent honours, and that brighter crown of glory which await those who have excelled in virtue; and, let the animating thought, that every secret effort to gain his favour, is noted by your allseeing Judge, who will, with infinite goodness, proportion your reward to your labours, excite every faculty of your soul to please and serve him. To this end, you must inform your understanding what you ought to believe and to do. You must correct and purify your heart; cherish and im-. prove all its good affections, and continually mortify and subdue those that are evil. You must form and govern your temper aud manners, according to the laws of benevolence and justice; and qualify yourself, by all meaus in your power, for an useful and agreeable member of society. All this, you see, is no light business, nor can it be performed without a sincere and earnest application of the mind, as to its great and constant object. When once you consider life, and the duties of life, in this manner, you will listen cagerly to the voice of instruction and admonition, and seize every opportunity of improvement; every useful hint will be laid up in your heart, and your chief delight will be in those persons, and those books, from which, learn true wisdom.

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The only sure foundation of human virtue is Religion, and the foundation and first principle of religion is in the belief of the one only God, and a just sense of his attributes. This, you will think,

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you have learned long since, and possess in common with almost every human creature in this enlightened age and nation; but, believe me, it is less common than you imagine, to believe in the true God; that is, to form such a notion of the Deity as is agreeable to truth, and consistent with those infinite perfections, which all profess to ascribe to him. To form worthy notions of the Supreme Being, as far as we are capable, is essential to true. religion and morality; for as it is our duty to imitate those qualities of the Divinity, which are imitable by us, so is it necessary we should know what they are, and fatal to mistake them. Can those who think of God with servile dread and terror, as of a gloomy tyrant, armed with almighty power to torment and destroy them, be said to believe in the true God?-in that God who, the Scriptures say, love? the kindest and best of Beings, who made all creatures in bountiful goodness, that he might communicate to them some portion of his own un-, alterable happiness!-who condescends to style himself our Father! and who pitieth us, as a father pitieth his own children!-Can those who expect to please God by cruelty to themselves, or to their fellow-creatures, by horrid punishments of their own bodies for the sin of their souls,or, by more horrid persecution of others for difference of opi nion, be called true believers? Have they not set up another god in their own minds, who rather resembles the worst of beings than the best?-Nor do those act on surer principles, who think to gain the favour of God by senseless enthusiasm and frantic raptures, more like the wild excesses of the most depraved human love, than that reasonable adoration, that holy reverential love, which is due to the pure and holy Father of the universe. Those like wise, who murmur against his Providence, and repine under the restraint of his commands, cannot firmly believe him infinitely wise and good. If we are not disposed to trust him for future events, to banish fruitless anxiety, and to believe that all things work together for good to those that love. Jim, surely we do not really believe in the God of

mercy and truth. If we wish to avoid all remembrance of him, all communion with him, as much as we dare, surely we do not believe him to be the source of joy and comfort, the dispenser of all good,

How lamentable it is, that so few hearts should feel the pleasures of real piety! that prayer and thanksgiving should be performed, as they too ofteu are, not with joy, and love, and gratitude; but, with cold indifference, melancholy dejection, or secret horror! It is true, we are all such frail and sinful creatures, that we justly fear to have of fended our gracious Father; but let us remember the coudition of his forgiveness; If you have sinned," sin no more." He is ready to receive you whenever you sincerely turn to him:-and He is ready to assist you, when you do but desire to obey him. Let your devotion, then, be the language of filial love and gratitude; confide to this kindest of Fathers every want and every wish of your heart:-but submit them all to his will, and freely offer him the disposal of yourself, and of all your affairs." Thank him for his benefits, and even for his punishments, convinced that these also are benefits, aud mercifully designed for your good. Implore his direction in all difficulties; his assistance in all trials; his comfort and support in sickness or afflic tion; his restraining grace in time of prosperity and joy. Do not persist in desiring what his Providence denies you; but be assured it is not good for you. Refuse not any thing he allots you, but embrace it as the best and properest for you. Can you do less to your heavenly Father than what your duty to an earthly one requires?—If you were to ask permis sion of your father to do, or to have any thing you. desire, and he should refuse it to you, would you obstinately persist in setting your heart upon it, notwithstanding his prohibition? would you not rather say, My father is wiser than I am; he loves me, and would not deny my request, if it were fit to be granted; I will, therefore, banish the thought, and cheerfully acquiesce in his will?-How much rather should this be said of our heavenly Father

hose wisdom cannot be mistaken, and whose boun tiful kindness is infinite!-Love Him, therefore, in the same manner you love your earthly parents, but in a much higher degree, in the highest your na ture is capable of. Forget not to dedicate yourself to his service every day; to implore his forgiveness of your faults, and his protection from evil, every night: and this not merely in formal words, unac. companied by any act of the mind, but "in spirit and in truth;" in grateful love, and humble adoration. Nor let these stated periods of worship be your only communication with him; accustom yourself to think often of him, in all your waking hours; to contemplate his wisdom and power, in the works of his hands;-to acknowledge his good. ness in every object of use or of pleasure;-to delight in giving him praise in your inmost heart, in the midst of every innocent gratification,-in the liveliest hour of social enjoyment. You cannot conceive, if you have not experienced, how much such silent acts of gratitude and love will enhance every pleasure; nor what sweet serenity and cheerfulness such reflections will diffuse over your mind. On the other hand, when you are suffering pain or sorrow, when you are confined to an unpleasant situation, or engaged in a painful duty, how will it support and animate you, to refer yourself to your Almighty Father!-to be assured that He knows your state and your intentions; that no effort of virtue is lost in his sight, nor the least of your actions or sufferings disregarded or forgotten!--that his hand is ever over you, to ward off every real evil, which is not the effect of your own ill-conduct, and to relieve every suffering that is not ufeful to your future well-being.

You see, my dear, that true devotion is not a melancholy sentiment that depresses the spirits, and excludes the ideas of pleasure, which youth is fond of: on the contrary, there is nothing so friendly to joy, so productive of true pleasure, so peculiarly suited to the warmth and innocence of a youthful heart. Do not, therefore, think it too soon to turn your mind to God; but offer him the first fruits of