Were we, indeed, only created to flutter our hour out and die–why let us then indulge ſenſibility, and laugh at the ſeverity of reaſon–Yet, alas! even then we ſhould want ſtrength of body and mind, and life would be loſt in feveriſh pleaſures or weariſome languor.
But the ſyſtem of education, which I earneſtly wiſh to ſee exploded, ſeems to preſuppoſe what ought never to be taken for granted, that virtue ſhields us from the caſualties of life; and that fortune, flipping off her bandage, will ſmile on a well-educated female, and bring in her hand an Emilius or a Telemachus. Whilſt, on the contrary, the reward which virtue promiſes to her votaries is confined, it is clear, to their own boſoms; and often muſt they contend with the moſt vexatious worldly cares, and bear with the vices and humours of relations for whom they can never feel a friendſhip.
There have been many women in the world who, inſtead of being ſupported by the reaſon and virtue of their fathers and brothers, have ſtrengthened their own minds by ſtruggling with their vices and follies; yet have never met with a hero, in the ſhape of a huſband; who, paying the debt that mankind owed them, might chance to bring back their reaſon to its natural dependent ſtate, and reſtore the uſurped prerogative, of riſing above opinion, to man.
Dr. Fordyce's ſermons have long made a part of a young woman's library; nay, girls at
