It was now many years since he had made this delightful spot his residence. He had married early in life a lady of engaging manners, and captivating beauty, who was amiable, sensible, and pious, and whose mind was a pattern of every female excellence, combined with a taste and judgment that had been properly directed by a suitable education; who had been taught to esteem no farther all the acquirements and qualities of which the human mind is capable than as they might be conducive to enable us to excel in the duties of the Christian religion, and cause us more fully to experience "the blessings of the truth." These parents had reared up all their family except Alida, their youngest child, who at this time was placed at a boarding-school, at the village of ----, where she was taught, in addition to the different studies belonging to a Christian education, the French and Italian languages. Their elder daughters had married, and were settled at some distance from them, and their two sons were engaged in mercantile business in New-York. It was their principal endeavour, as their thoughts often revolved in anxious solicitude for the welfare and future happiness of their children, to unite their efforts to persuade them, and inculcate in their minds all that was praiseworthy, by the immediate influence of their own example, considering that the precepts which they taught them, however wise and good, would avail but little unassisted by the aid of example. "Le mauvais usage que nous faisons de la vie, la dérègle, et la rend malheureuse." It was their first care to exercise the minds of their children, in all the important moral and religious duties; to be careful in due time to regulate their natural propensities; to render their dispositions mild and tractable; to inspire them with the love, respect, and implicit obedience due to parents, blended with a genuine affection for relations and friends. "To endeavour to form their first ideas on principles of rectitude, being conscious of the infinite importance of first impressions, and beginning early to adhere to a proper system of education, that was principally the result of their own reflections and particular observations." Their children were assembled annually to celebrate the birthday of their father, together with other social friends and acquaintances, consisting chiefly of those whose beneficent feelings were in accordance with their own, in testifying their gratitude to their Creator for daily benefits, blended with a thankful cheerfulness, which is the offspring of moral excellence. O, Thou enthroned where perfect day, In brightest beams of glory, play Around thy radiant throne; Where angels strike celestial lyres, And seraphs glow with sacred fires, Address'd to thee alone.