Let me beseech you to watch over your _temper_ with studious care. Few things are more unhappy in a young person of either sex, than an irritable, irascible temper. It betrays into a thousand indiscretions. It poisons social intercourse. It alienates friends. It destroys the comfort of the individual who indulges it; and it interferes with the comfort of all with whom he converses. I have known this infirmity to cast a cloud over the whole course of many persons who were otherwise fitted to adorn and bless society. Watch and pray against it with the utmost diligence. "He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city." "Be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath." Learn "by soft answers to turn away wrath," both in yourselves and others. Be not ready to take offence, or to consider any one as "an offender for a word." Never regard an honest difference of opinion from yourself as a personal affront. Surely the indulgence of such a spirit is as unreasonable as it is unhappy. Guard with the utmost vigilance against a jealous, suspicious temper. Ill nature, peevishness, and a disposition to take every thing by an unfavourable handle, and to indulge in satire and sarcasm, are revolting in every human being, but especially in the female sex. I have never known such a temper to be indulged without diminishing both the respectability and happiness of its possessor. Let a mild, amiable, conciliatory spirit reign in all your intercourse. Be ever kind, tender hearted, and forgiving, even as you hope to obtain forgiveness from the God of all grace. Let the spirit of benevolence, and a desire to please, shine in your countenances, and be manifest in your deportment in all companies; at home and on journies; in the public hotel, and in the parlour of a friend; towards servants, as well as towards your equals or superiors. In a word, in temper as well as in conduct, "Whatsoever ye would that others should do unto you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets."