ent with being immersed in the bustle
of life, might revive his languid piety; and that the religious
impressions of both might derive new force and tenderness from the
animating sympathies of conjugal affection. Can a more pleasing image be
presented to a considerate mind, than that of a couple, happy in each
other and in the pledges of their mutual love, uniting in an act of
grateful adoration to the author of all their mercies; recommending each
other, and the objects of their common care, to the divine protection;
and repressing the solicitude of conjugal and parental tenderness by a
confiding hope, that, through all the changes of this uncertain life,
the Disposer of all things will assuredly cause all to work together for
the good of them that love and put their trust in him; and that, after
this uncertain state shall have passed away, they shall be admitted to a
joint participation of never ending happiness. It is surely no mean or
ignoble office which we would allot to the female sex, when we would
thus commit to them the charge of maintaining in lively exercise
whatever emotions most dignify and adorn human nature; when we would
make them as it were the medium of our intercourse with the heavenly
world, the faithful repositories of the religious principle, for the
benefit both of the present and of the rising generation. Must it not
then excite our grief and indignation, when we behold mothers, forgetful
at once of their own peculiar duties, and of the high office which
Providence designed their daughters to fulfil; exciting, instead of
endeavoring to moderate in them, the natural sanguineness and
inconsiderateness of youth; hurrying them night after night to the
resorts of dissipation; thus teaching them to despise the _common_
comforts of the family circle; and, instead of striving to raise their
views, and to direct their affections to their true object, acting as if
with the express design studiously to extinguish every spark of a
devotional spirit, and to kindle in its stead an excessive love of
pleasure, and, perhaps, a principle of extravagant vanity, and ardent
emulation!

_Innocent young women! Good hearted young men!_ Wherein does this
_goodness of heart_ and this _innocence_ appear? Remember that we are
fallen creatures, born in sin, and naturally depraved. Christianity
recognises no _innocence_ or _goodness of heart_, but in the remission
of sin, and in the effects of the operation of divine grace.