any defire of celebrity in the female heart; yet I would awaken it to adjust fenfibility to honeft fame: I would call on women to reflect that our religion has not only made them heirs to a bleffed immortality hereafter, but has greatly raised them in the feale of being here, by lifting them to an importance in fociety unknown to the most polished ages of antiquity. The re ligion of Chrift has even bestowed a degree of renown bon the fex beyond what any other religion ever did. Perhaps there! are hardly fo many virtuous women (for I reject the long catalogue whom their vices have transferred from oblivion to infamy) named in all the pages of Greek of Roman Hiftory, as are handed down to eternal fame, in a few of those short chapters with which the great Apostle to: the Gentiles has concluded his epiftles to his converts. Of devout and honour"able women," the facred fcriptures record not a few." Some of the most affecting fcenes, the most interesting-trans

actions, and the moft touching converfations which are recorded of the Saviour of the world, paffed with women. They are the first remarked as having "minif

tered to him of their fubftance. Theirs was the praife of not abandoning their despised Redeemer when he was led to execution, and under all the hopeless circumftances of his ignominious death; they appear to have been the last attending at his tomb, and the firft on the morning when he arofe from it. Theirs was the privilege of receiving the earliest confolation from their rifen Lord; theirs was the honour of being first commiflioned to announce his glorious refurrection to the world. And even to furnish heroic confeffors, devoted faints, and unfhrinking martyrs to the Church of Chrift, has not been the exclufive honour of the bolder fex.

*

CONVERSATION.-Hints fuggefted on the fubject. On the tempers and difpofitions

to be introduced in it.-Errors to be avoided. Vanity under various shapes the cause of thofe errors.

THE fexes will naturally defire to appear to each other, fuch as each believes the other will beft like; their conversation will act reciprocally; and each fex will appear more or lefs rational as they perceive it will more or lefs recommend them to the other. It is therefore to be regretted, that many men, even of diftinguished fenfe and learning, are fo apt to confider the fociety of ladies, as a scene in which they are rather to reft their understandings, than to exercise them; while ladies, in return, are too much addicted to making their court by lending themselves to this fpirit

of

of trifling; they often avoid making ufe of what abilities they have; and affect to talk below their natural and acquired powers of mind; confidering it as a tacit and welcome flattery to the understanding of men, ment to renounce the exercife of their own.

Now fince taste and principles thus mutually operate; men, by keeping up converfation to its proper ftandard, would not only call into exercife the powers of mind which women actually poffefs; but would even awaken in them new energies which they do not know they poffefs; and men of fenfe would find their account în doing this, for their own talents would be more highly rated by companions who were better able to appreciate them. And, on the other hand, if young women found it did not often recommend them in the eyes of thofe whom they might wish to pleafe, to be frivolous and fuperficial, they would become more fedulous in correcting their own habits. Whenever fashionable women indicate a relish for inftructive conversation,

men

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men will not be apt to hazard what is vain, or unprofitable; much lefs will they ever prefume to bring forward what is, loofe or corrupt, where fome fignal has not been previously given, that it will be acceptable, or at least that it will be pardoned. vance of Ladies commonly bring into company minds already too much relaxed by petty pursuits, rather than overftrained by in tenfe application. The littleness of the employments in which they are ufually engaged, does not fo exhauft their, fpirits as to make them ftand in need of that relaxation from company which fevere ap plication or overwhelming bufinefs makes requifite for ftudious or public men. The due confideration of this circumstance might ferve to bring the fexes more nearly on a level in fociety; and each might meet the other half way; for that degree of lively and eafy converfation which is a neceflary refreshment to the learned and the bufy, would not decreafe in pleafantnefs by being made of fo rational a caft as would fomewhat raife the minds of women, who

yet

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