ed in writing to a friend. Happy am I in having
frequent opportunities of exhibiting my sentiments to you,
and in return receiving yours, which palliates in some
degree, the sorrow our separation occasions.----The glaring
absurdities of the dress of the Boston ladies, occupied the
greatest part of my two last letters. It is but just to say
something of their more laudable qualities; amongst which,
maternal affection deservedly claims precedence.--The
barbarous customs of Europe, in this particular, have not as
yet, and I hope never will be, practised here. Mothers in
this country are so much attached to their tender offspring,
as to forego all the pleasures of life (or rather what are
so termed in Europe) in attending to their nurture, from
which they derive the most superlative of all enjoyments,
the heart-felt satisfaction of having done their duty to
their God and country, in giving robust, healthy and
virtuous citizens to the State. The effeminacy of exotic
fashion has not at present extended its pernicious influence
so far as to induce them to commit the rearing of their
children to mercenary nurses, who are sometimes the very
dregs of a people; and whose vicious habits of taking a drop
of the _good creature to drown sorrow_, does not promise
redundancy of health and vigour to those suckled by them--on
the contrary, children thus unnaturally thrown from the arms
of a parent into those of a nurse, are, almost without
exception, weak and puny; of irrascible tempers and vicious
inclinations.--Nor does the attention of the ladies expire
with the infancy of their children--they still are unwearied
in instructing them as they increase in years, and
assiduously endeavour to inculcate principles of virtue into
their young minds at a time when they are most liable to
make a deep impression--to accomplish which, they never fail
to teach them the catechism, Lord's prayer, &c. &c. all of
which they oblige them to learn, because they are perfectly
adapted to their comprehension, though many parts of the
catechism are altogether incomprehensible to most
adults.--Yet this is not strange to those who credit the
scriptures; nor does it appear the least inconsistent--for
there it says, "God hath chosen the foolish things of this
world to confound the wise."--Therefore, the wond