health of those whom she best loves. It would be but a sorry compliment for the dyspeptick husband to murmur forth, like him of Eden, his sad extenuation, "the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, gave me and I did eat;" or for the more indignant guest, when seeking his physician, to exclaim, "the serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."

It was formerly too much the custom to press, among the pledges of hospitality, the draught that inebriates. More light, and a better creed, have modified this practice. But still it is not extinct. If it be asked, why the christian inhabitants of a most christian land should choose as the interpreter of their hospitality an usage more dangerous than the sword of Damocles, there is no better answer than "because it is the fashion." The cup will not, indeed, mark him who partakes, with its immediate poison; but may it not foster what shall rankle in his veins, with fatal contagion, threatening not only the body, but the soul?

When philosophers have inquired how woman, whose happiness and safety are so deeply involved in the purity of those around, could thus dare to trouble the fountains of temperance and of virtue, the only reply has been, "it is the fashion." Holy men, the guardians of God's altar, have demanded, why she hath been thus faithless to her

trust. And she hath answered, "it is the fashion." But when the garniture is stripped from all earthly things, when that dread assembly is convened, where none will dare to plead the omnipotence of fashion, when a voice from the Throne of the Eternal questions of the plaguespot upon the soul of the guest, the brother, the husband, or the child, what shall the answer be?

LETTER XIX.

RESPECT TO AGE.

IT is one proof of a good education, and of refinement of feeling, to respect antiquity. Sometimes it seems the dictate of unsophisticated nature. We venerate a column which has withstood the ravages of time. We contemplate with reverence the ivy-crowned castle, through which the winds of centuries make melancholy musick. We gather with care the fragments of the early history of nations, which, however mouldering or disjointed, have escaped the shipwreck of time. There are some who spare no expense in collecting coins and relics, which rust has penetrated, or change of customs rendered valueless, save as they have within them the voice of other years. Why, then, should we regard with indifference the living remnants of a former age, through whose experience we might both be enriched and made better?

The sympathy of a kind heart prompts respect to the aged. Their early and dear friends have departed. They stand alone, with heads whitened

and vigour diminished. They have escaped the deluge that overwhelmed their cotemporaries. But they have not passed unscathed through the water-floods of time. Tender and marked attentions are due to those weary voyagers. They ought not to be left as the denizens of some solitary isle, where love never visits, and which the gay vessels newly launched on the sea of life, pass by, with flaunting streamers, and regard not. The tribute of reverence which is their due, adds as much to the honour of him who pays, as to the happiness of those who receive it.

Respect to Age, is best impressed on children by the example of their parents, who should daily exhibit a transcript of the reverent deportment they require them to evince. If their own parents are living, they have the best of all possible opportunities to teach that kind observance of word, look, and manner, that assiduity to promote comfort, that tenderness in concealing infirmity, that skill to anticipate the unspoken wish, that zeal to repay some small part of the countless debt incurred in life's earliest years, which they themselves would desire to receive, should they live to become old.

How often do we see disrespect to parents, visited with evils in this life. We might infer it from the language of the fifth commandment, which, in promising a reward to those who

honour their parents, implies that the punishment of those who withhold that honour will be equally palpable. The natural progress of events leads also to such a result. From a principle of imitation, the child frames his manners on the model which his parents sanction. Their mode of treatment to their own parents is perpetuated in him. The neglect or reverence which their daily conduct exhibits, becomes incorporated with his own habits and character; baleful dispositions reproduce themselves: so that what is counted as a judgment, may be but the spontaneous action of a bitter root, bearing its own fruit. Yet it is not surprising that the Almighty, who has not utterly disjoined the thread of retribution from the web of this brief life, should punish, visibly and fearfully, the sin of disobedience to parents. Without dwelling, at this time, on so heinous a dereliction of a most sacred duty, let us turn to the interesting subject of reverence to age.

The universal opinion of those who scrutinize the state of society in our country, is, that in the treatment of the aged, there is a diminution of respect. Even the authority of parents, and teachers, seems to be borne with uneasiness, and to be early shaken off. Those, whose memory comprises two generations, assert, that in these points, without doubt, the former days were better than these.