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. Do we find in these young persons the characters, which the holy Scriptures lay down as the only satisfactory evidences of a safe state? Do we not on the other hand discover the specified marks of a state of alienation from God? Can the blindest partiality persuade itself that _they_ are loving, or striving "to love God with all their hearts, and minds, and souls, and strength?" Are _they_ "seeking first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness?" Are _they_ "working out their salvation with fear and trembling?" Are _they_ "clothed with humility?" Are _they_ not, on the contrary, supremely given up to self-indulgence? Are _they_ not at least "lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God?" Are the offices of Religion _their_ solace or _their_ task? Do _they_ not come to these sacred services with reluctance, continue in them by constraint, and quit them with gladness? And of how many of _these_ persons may it not be affirmed in the spirit of the prophet's language: "The harp, and the viol, the tabret and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands?" Are not the youth of one sex often actually committing, and still more often wishing for the opportunity to commit, those sins of which the Scripture says expressly, "that they which do such things _shall not_ inherit the kingdom of God?" Are not the youth of the other mainly intent on the gratification of vanity; and looking for their