The influence of the Christian religion, it appears to me, begins to operate beneficially on our legislative assemblies, and it is to be hoped that it will in the end melt down in its crucible our whole people. That religion is the great fountain-head of republics. It teaches us that our Creator is our Father, and that we are all brethren. In some respects, there is a falling off from the practices of our fathers--for instance, family government is not what it once was. In former days we had infancy, youth and age, but by the present generation youth is struck out of human life altogether. A boy or a girl five years old, assumes the dress, the manners and the airs of a young gentleman or a young lady. Last January, at my room, in the Broadstreet Hotel, in New York, after hearing their youngest child read to me, (she was only about four years old) I inquired of her, if her sister never curled her hair? which hung in beautiful ringlets on her head. She replied, that “her sister Sarah would, within a few days, curl her hair, and then she was to have a beau!” The remark pleased me greatly, because it was so characteristic of these times. No sooner is the hippen laid aside, than the pantaloons, and the boots, and the cocked-up hat follow, as the dress of the boy--and the girl, is dressed like a young lady. Her locks are curled, and she looks around her for a beau! Of these things we mean not to complain, but we merely note them as a change effected in our manners, since the last age, whether for better or for worse, we do not say. The days of our fathers are gone by, and this generation assumes to be wiser than the former one was, but whether a better one, on the whole, is at best doubtful with me. We prefer Old Virginia, with her old principles to all her new fangled ideas. In some things she may be behind the age, but that does not convince me that she is the worse on that account. I prefer the principles of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Marshall and Upshur, to those of Aaron Burr and the spoilers. The former are pure gold, in my estimation, and the latter are mere dross. The sons, and the descendants generally of the Randolphs, the Lees, the Masons, and a long list of Pendletons and other revolutionary patriots are true to the principles of their ancesters and the republic. Long may such men and such principles shed a lustre on the Old Dominion. Rives and Archer represent Virginian interest and principles in the Senate of the United States. In the other house I am ignorant, wholly, as to their representatives, and so I say nothing of them. Gilmer was quite popular in the House, but he is no more. SUMMERS is a western Virginian--so western that he is exactly like an Ohioan in his manners and feelings. He lives on the Kenhawa, and truly and efficiently represents the people who send him to Congress.