University of Virginia Library

TO MRS. SMITH.

Although the scenes in which I have been engaged
for six weeks past, have been very different from
those which you describe, I have been amused and
entertained by your account. Though I cannot say

that I am charmed with your hero's personal accomplishments,
as you describe them, yet you find

I think our ladies ought to be cautious of foreigners.
I am almost led to suspect a spy in every
strange character. It is much too easy a matter for
a man, if he has property, to get introduced into
company in this country of the best kind, and that
without recommendations. The entertainment you
describe was really very curious.

and I am sure this was of that kind.

You may mix in these scenes, and sometimes
join in the society; but neither your habits, your
inclination, nor your natural disposition are formed
for them. By nature you have a grave and thoughtful
cast of temper, by habit you have been trained
to more rational and durable pleasures, and by inclination
you delight more in them. The frivolity
of the present day has been much increased by our
foreign connexions. I pray Heaven to preserve us
from that dissoluteness of manners, which is the bane
of society, and the destroyer of domestic happiness.
I think, with the poet,

You complain that there is, in the rising generation,
a want of principle. This is a melancholy
truth. I am no friend of bigotry; yet I think the
freedom of inquiry, and the general toleration of religious
sentiments, have been, like all other good
things, perverted, and, under that shelter, deism, and
even atheism, have found refuge. Let us, for one
moment, reflect as rational creatures, upon our "being,
end, and aim," and we shall feel our dependence,
we shall be convinced of our frailty, and satisfied that
we must look beyond this transitory scene for a happiness
large as our wishes, and boundless as our desires.
True, genuine religion is calm in its inquiries,
deliberate in its resolves, and steady in its conduct;
is open to light and conviction, and labors for improvement.
It studies to promote love and union
in civil and in religious society. It approves virtue,
and the truths which promote it, and, as the Scripture
expresses it, "is peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated."
It is the anchor of our hope, the ornament
of youth, the comfort of age; our support in affliction
and adversity, and the solace of that solemn hour,
which we must all experience. Train up, my dear
daughter, your children, to a sober and serious sense
of the duty which they owe to the Supreme Being.
Impress their infant minds with a respect for the
Sabbath. This is too much neglected by the rising
generation. Accustom them to a constant attendance
upon public worship, and enforce it by your
own example and precept, as often as you can with
any convenience attend. It is a duty, for which we
are accountable to the Supreme Being.

My pen has again taken a serious turn. I shall
not apologize for it. Your own letter led to these
reflections; and I am sure they flow from a heart
anxiously solicitous for the happiness of you and
yours. That they may make a due impression, is
the ardent and affectionate wish of