macies the nearest friends have the least suspicion of each other's truth. After-circumstances can bring forth no unexpected development of character on either side; nor can there be the wounded feeling, which falsehood, however unpremeditated or unconsciously practised, never fails to produce. Again, there would be the strength of natural ties to mingle with this bond the recollections of childhood, the oft-repeated forgiveness, the gratitude to which allusion has already been made—all these would blend together in a union the most sacred, and the most secure, which perhaps is ever found on earth.
Nor do I scruple to call this union the most secure, because it is the only intimacy in which everything can with propriety be told. There are private histories belonging to every family, which, though they operate powerfully upon individual happiness, ought never to be named beyond the home-circle; and there are points of difference in character, and mutual misapprehensions, with instances of wounded feeling, and subjects of reproof and correction, which never can be so freely touched upon, even in the most perfect union of conjugal affection. On this subject, however, I have already spoken so fully in another work,[1] that little room is left for farther notice here: I will, therefore, only allude to some of the causes which I believe most frequently operate against young persons choosing their confidants at home, and especially for the communication of their religious feelings, or impressions.
It is a melancholy thought, that the want of consistency in the private and domestic habits of religious professors, may possibly be the means of inducing young persons to seek their spiritual advisers amongst those with whom they are less intimately acquainted, and of whom they have consequently formed a higher estimate; while, on the other
