love you; I hope and believe there is no love lost on either side. Love will make you desirous to please and oblige us, and love will prompt us to do every thing in our power to oblige and please you; and so I hope we shall go on loving and pleasing as long as we live. We often think of Monday se'nnight, when we hope to come and see your exhibition. I promise myself that your part will do you credit, and give us satisfaction. I could like to come over and read the Elegy with you once more; but I know I shall not be able, and I believe it will not be necessary. I doubt not but you will do it very well, especially if you can get the better of your diffidence and trepidation. But I had much rather see you a little timid, than see you assuming and affected, as some young people are. I could wish you to have just so much feeling when you begin, as might intimate a respect for the company; and then that you should enter into the spirit of the poem, so as in a manner to forget every body present, till you have done. There is a great beauty in the cadence and melody of the verse, if you can hit it off without overdoing it. If you understand and can feel the subject, you will express it properly.

I hope the Elegy will likewise lead you to some profitable reflections for your own use, and which may excite your thankfulness to the Lord. To him you owe your capacity, and to him likewise you are indebted for the advantages you have of cultivation. It is possible, that among the children we meet half naked in the streets, there may be some who might have been amiable and admired in life, if they had been favoured with the helps which the good providence of God has afforded you. But they grew up, poor things, in ignorance and wickedness, after the example of those among whom they live. And though you would not have been like these, yet it is

probable you would not have been, as you now may, and I hope will be, if the Lord had not sent you to us. Though you were deprived of your own parents when you were very young, perhaps no child, in such a case, has had less cause to feel the loss; because the Lord not only made us willing to take care of you, but gave us immediately on our receiving you, a tender affection for you, as if you had been our own; and from that time your welfare has been a very principal object with us. You have been guarded against the follies and vanities which might otherwise have taken an early possession of your mind; and you have been acquainted with the means of grace, and the blessed Gospel. I trust the Lord has a gracious design to lead you to himself, by all these favourable circumstances in which he has placed you; for, without this, every thing you can learn or attain, would be but of little worth. I wish, indeed, to see you possessed of every accomplishment you can acquire at school; but nothing will satisfy me for you but the grace of God.

I am your very affectionate.

LETTER XVIII.

July 29, 1783.

MY DEAR GREat Girl,

YOU seem to take it for granted, that I must always write first; and you see I very readily submit, in hopes that when your great and many important businesses will permit, you will at least oblige me with an answer: for it will give your mamma and me, and your cousin, pleasure to know that you are well.

While you were a little girl, we used, when you came home from N, to place you with your back against the wall, by the fire place in the parlour, and compare you with your former marks, that we might notice how much taller you grew from one half year to another. According to present appearances, you are likely to be sufficiently tall, and to shoot up apace. I need not measure, for I

can perceive by a glance of the eye, that you are growing every time you return to us. But I am watching your growth in another sense with more attention-I wish I could say with more satisfaction. I wish to see you outgrow a certain childishness, which once looked very pretty in you, but is by no means so pleasing in a person of your years, and of your size; I think I may add, of your sense too, for I know the Lord has given you a good measure of understanding and natural abilities; so that with a proper degree of attention and application, you are very capable of every attainment suitable to your sex and your situation in life. I love to call you my dear child, and shall probably call you so as long as I live, because there is something to me in the sound of the word child, expressive of the tenderness and affection I feel for you; but I would not always have you a child in the common sense of the word. I hope you will not think I am angry with you, and I hope you will not be angry with me, for giving you this hint. I love to see you cheerful, and a little occasional volatility in a young person favoured with health and full of spirits, is very tolerable; but then I would have you remember, that it is high time that a measure of thought, and steadiness, and attention, should begin to mark your general deportment. Your dear mamma, at your age, was capable of superintending the affairs of the family, and was actually called to it; and you

'are now old enough, if you will do yourself justice, to take a great deal of care off from her hands when you are at home; you have it in your own power to shorten the term of your living away from us. I am glad that though you like your school very well, yet you like home better; and I am sure we shall be glad when we can think it no longer necessary to keep you abroad, for we love your company, and it is principally for your own sake that we are constrained to part with you. But they say, a word to the wise is enough, and therefore I shall add no more in this strain.

You heard several of my sermons on Mary and Martha. Last Sunday night, I finished the subject by speaking on "One thing is needful"-a sentence which I pray the Lord to write upon your heart. Many things are necessary in their places; but one thing is absolutely needful. It is right that you should be diligent at school, obedient and obliging to your governess and teachers, and endeavour, by a kind and gentle behaviour, to gain the esteem of your school-fellows and of the whole family: a regard to the one thing needful is very consistent with all this. But though you were beloved by every body that knows you, you cannot be happy except you know and love the Lord. The one thing needful, therefore, is to seek him, and his favour, which is better than life; and if you seek him, he will be found of you. You are a sinner, and need forgiveness; you have many wants, which he only can supply; you are growing up in a world which is full of sins, snares, troubles, and dangers. Will you not cry to him then, "My Father, thou art the

guide of my youth!" You have encouragement to seek him, for he himself both invites and commands you to do it; and if obligations and gratitude can prevail, there is no friend like him, whose mercies

are new every morning, and who died upon the cross to redeem us from misery. I commend you to his blessing.

Your cousin is much as she was; she sends her love to you. I believe she loves you dearly, and I believe you love her. I hope you will both love each other as long as you live upon this earth; and that afterwards you will meet in the kingdom of love, and be happy together in heaven for ever. Mamma sends her best love. Believe me to be often thinking of you, and praying for you, and always desirous to show my love in deed and in truth.

Your affectionate.

LETTER XIX.

October 16, 1783.

MY DEAR CHILD,

I HOPE you will now be able to rest yourself; for you have had a sad hurrying time since Midsummer. So much visiting and running about has, I hope, given you a right relish for the retirement and regularity of school. What a pretty place you are in, and what a pretty time of life it is with you, if you can but think so, before trouble and care have received commission to disturb you.

I could wish that all my letters might afford you both pleasure and profit: I would make you smile some. times, and always endeavour to do you good. At present I must write a little upon the subject of temper. I do not think your temper a bad one. mamma and I are always ready to give you a good character, and it pleases us that we can say you are,

Your