ng beauty, who was amiable, sensible, and pious, and whose mind
was a pattern of every female excellence, combined with a taste and
judgment that had been properly directed by a suitable education; who
had been taught to esteem no farther all the acquirements and qualities
of which the human mind is capable than as they might be conducive to
enable us to excel in the duties of the Christian religion, and cause us
more fully to experience "the blessings of the truth."

These parents had reared up all their family except Alida, their
youngest child, who at this time was placed at a boarding-school, at the
village of ----, where she was taught, in addition to the different
studies belonging to a Christian education, the French and Italian
languages.

Their elder daughters had married, and were settled at some distance
from them, and their two sons were engaged in mercantile business in
New-York. It was their principal endeavour, as their thoughts often
revolved in anxious solicitude for the welfare and future happiness of
their children, to unite their efforts to persuade them, and inculcate
in their minds all that was praiseworthy, by the immediate influence of
their own example, considering that the precepts which they taught them,
however wise and good, would avail but little unassisted by the aid of
example.

"Le mauvais usage que nous faisons de la vie, la deregle, et la rend
malheureuse."

It was their first care to exercise the minds of their children, in all
the important moral and religious duties; to be careful in due time to
regulate their natural propensities; to render their dispositions mild
and tractable; to inspire them with the love, respect, and implicit
obedience due to parents, blended with a genuine affection for relations
and friends.

"To endeavour to form their first ideas on principles of rectitude,
being conscious of the infinite importance of first impressions, and
beginning early to adhere to a proper system of education, that was
principally the result of their own reflections and particular
observations."

Their children were assembled annually to celebrate the birthday of
their father, together with other social friends and acquaintances,
consisting chiefly of those whose beneficent feelings were in accordance
with their own, in testifying their gratitude to their Creator for daily
benefits, blended with a thankful cheerfulness, which is the offspring
of moral excellence.

O, Thou