The next day, all the hours from breakfast to dinner were devoted to the harp. I had the vanity to think that this sacrifice of time was made in compliment to me, as I had professed to like music; till I found that all their mornings were spent in the same manner, and the only fruit of their education, which seemed to be used to any purpose was, that after their family devotions in the evening, they sung and played a hymn. This was almost the only sign they gave of intellectual or spiritual life. They attended morning prayers if they were dressed before the bell rang. One morning when they did not appear till late, they were reproved by their father; Mrs. Ranby said, "she should be more angry with them for their irregularity, were it not that Mr. Ranby obstinately persisted in reading a printed form which she was persuaded could not do any body much good." The poor man, who was really well disposed, very properly defended himself by saying, that he hoped his own heart went along with every word he read; and as to his family, he thought it much more beneficial for them to join in an excellent composition of a judicious divine, than to attend to any such crude rhapsody as he should be able to produce, whose education had not qualified him to lead the devotions of others. I had never heard him venture to make use of his understanding before; and I continued to find it much better than I had at first given him credit for. The lady observed, with some asperity, that where there were _gifts_ and _graces_, it superseded the necessity of learning. In vindication of my own good breeding, I should observe that in my little debates with Mrs. Ranby, to which I was always challenged by her, I never lost sight of that becoming example of the son of Cato, who, when about to deliver sentiments which might be thought too assuming in so young a man, introduced his admonitions with the modest preface, Remember what our _father_ oft has taught us. I, without quoting the son of the sage of Utica, constantly adduced the paternal authority for opinions which might savor too much of arrogance without such a sanction. I observed, in the course of my visit, that self-denial made no part of Mrs. Ranby's religious plan. She fancied, I believe that it savored of works, and of works she was evidently afraid. She talked as if activity were useless, and exertion unnecessary, and as if, like inanimate matter, we had nothing to do but sit still and be shone upon.