Add to this the hurry and noise of the World, which does generally so busy and pre-ingage us, that we have little time and less inclination to stand still and reflect on our own Minds. Those impertinent Amusements which have seiz’d us, keep their hold so well and so constantly buz about our Ears, that we cannot attend to the Dictates of our Reason, nor to the soft whispers and winning persuasives of the divine Spirit, by whose assistance were we dispos’d to make use of it, we might shake off these Follies and regain our Freedom. But alas! to complete our misfortunes, by a continual application to Vanity and Folly, we quite spoil the contexture and frame of our Minds, so loosen and dissipate, that nothing solid and substantial will stay in them. By an habitual inadvertency we render our selves incapable of any serious and improveing thought, till our minds themselves become as light and frothy as those things they are conversant about. To all which if we further add the great industry that bad people use to corrupt the good, and that unaccountable back wardness that appears in too many good persons, to stand up for and propagate the Piety they profess; (so strangely are things transposed, that Vertue puts on the blushes which belong to Vice, and Vice insults with the authority of Vertue!) and we have a pretty fair account of the Causes of our non-improvement. When a poor Young Lady is taught to value her self on nothing but her Cloaths, and to think she’s very fine when well accoutred; When she hears say, that ’tis Wisdom enough for her to know how to dress her self, that she may become amiable in his eyes, to whom it appertains to be knowing and learned; who can blame her if she lay out her Industry and Money on such Accomplishments, and sometimes extends it farther than her misinformer desires she should? When she sees the vain and the gay, making Parade in the World and attended with the Courtship and admiration of the gazing herd, no wonder that her tender Eyes are dazled with the Pageantry, and wanting Judgment to pass a due Estimate on them and their Admirers, longs to be such a fine and celebrated thing as they? What tho’ she be sometimes told of another World, she has however a more lively perception of this, and may well think, that if her Instructors were in earnest when they tell her of _hereafter_, they would not be so busied and concerned about what happens _here_. She is it may be, taught the Principles and Duties of Religion, but not Acquainted with the Reasons and Grounds of them; being told ’tis enough for her to believe, to examine why, and wherefore, belongs not to her. And therefore, though her Piety may be tall and spreading, yet because it wants foundation and Root, the first rude Temptation overthrows and blasts it, or perhaps the short liv’d Gourd decays and withers of its own accord. But why should she be blamed for setting no great value on her Soul, whose noblest Faculty her Understanding