country. Is it likely that this poor workwoman should be equally punctual the next time her services are required? or need we ask how the law of love has operated here?
The habit of keeping strict accounts with regard to the expenditure of money, is good in all circumstances of life; but it is never so imperative a duty, as when we have the property of others committed to our care. Unfaithfulness in the keeping and management of money which belongs to others, has perhaps been the cause of more flagrant disaster and disgrace, than any other species of moral delinquency which has stained the character of man, or woman either. Yet, how easily may this occur, without an extreme of scrupulous care, which the young cannot too soon, or too earnestly learn to practise. Even in the collecting of subscriptions for two different purposes, small sums, by some slight irregularity, may become mixed; and integrity is sacrificed, if the minutest fraction be eventually placed to the wrong account.
I cannot for an instant suppose that a Christian woman, under any circumstances, even the most difficult and perplexing, could be under the slightest temptation to appropriate to her own use, for a month, a week, a day, or an hour, the minutest item of what she had collected for another purpose, trusting to her own future resources for its reimbursement; because this would be a species of dishonesty, which, if once admitted as a principle of conduct, would be liable to terminate in the most fearful and disastrous consequences. It is the privilege of the daughters of England, that they have learned a code of purer morals, than to admit even such a thought, presented under the form of an available means of escape from difficulty, or attainment of gratification. Still it is well to fortify the mind, as far as we are able, against temptation of
