; but jealous of mischief, apt to
suspect danger, and prompt to extend relief. These are the symptoms by
which genuine regard will manifest itself in a wife or a mother, in the
case of the _bodily_ health of the object of her affections. And where
there is any real concern for the _spiritual_ interests of others, it is
characterized by the same infallible marks. That wretched quality, by
which the sacred name of charity is now so generally and so falsely
usurped, is no other than indifference; which, against the plainest
evidence, or at least where there is strong ground of apprehension, is
easily contented to believe that all goes well, because it has no
anxieties to allay, no fears to repress. It undergoes no alternation of
passions; it is not at one time flushed with hope, nor at another
chilled by disappointment.

To a considerate and feeling mind, there is something deeply afflicting,
in seeing the engaging cheerfulness and cloudless gaiety incident to
youth, welcomed as a sufficient indication of internal purity by the
delighted parents; who, knowing the deceitfulness of these flattering
appearances, should eagerly avail themselves of this period, when once
wasted never to be regained, of good humoured acquiescence and dutiful
docility: a period when the soft and ductile temper of the mind renders
it more easily susceptible of the impressions we desire; and when,
therefore, habits should be formed, which may assist our natural
weakness to resist the temptations to which we shall be exposed in the
commerce of maturer life. This is more especially affecting in the
female sex, because that sex seems, by the very constitution of its
nature, to be more favourably disposed than ours to the feelings and
offices of Religion; being thus fitted by the bounty of Providence, the
better to execute the important task which devolves on it, of the
education of our earliest youth. Doubtless, this more favourable
disposition to Religion in the female sex, was graciously designed also
to make women doubly valuable in the wedded state: and it seems to
afford to the married man the means of rendering an active share in the
business of life more compatible, than it would otherwise be, with the
liveliest devotional feelings; that when the husband should return to
his family, worn and harassed by worldly cares or professional labours,
the wife, habitually preserving a warmer and more unimpaired spirit of
devotion, than is perhaps consist