ss (says he) caused the angels to fall; the desire of
knowledge in excess caused man to fall; but in charity is no excess,
neither can men nor angels come into danger by it."

A GIRL who has docility will seldom be found to want understanding
enough for all the purposes of a social, a happy, and an useful life.
And when we behold the tender hope of fond and anxious love, blasted by
disappointment, the defect will as often be discovered to proceed from
the neglect or the error of cultivation, as from the natural temper; and
those who lament the evil, will sometimes be found to have occasioned
it.

IT is as injudicious for parents to set out with too sanguine a
dependence on the merit of their children, as it is for them to be
discouraged at every repulse. When their wishes are defeated in this or
that particular instance, where they had treasured up some darling
expectation, this is so far from being a reason for relaxing their
attention, that it ought to be an additional motive for redoubling it.
Those who hope to do a great deal, must not expect to do every thing. If
they know any thing of the malignity of sin, the blindness of prejudice,
or the corruption of the human heart, they will also know, that that
heart will always remain, after the very best possible education, full
of infirmity and imperfection. Extraordinary allowances, therefore, must
be made for the weakness of nature in this its weakest state. After much
is done, much will remain to do, and much, very much, will still be left
undone. For this regulation of the passions and affections cannot be
the work of education alone, without the concurrence of divine grace
operating on the heart. Why then should parents repine, if their efforts
are not always crowned with immediate success? They should consider,
that they are not educating cherubims and seraphims, but men and women;
creatures, who at their best estate are altogether vanity: how little
then can be expected from them in the weakness and imbecillity of
infancy! I have dwelt on this part of the subject the longer, because I
am certain that many, who have set out with a warm and active zeal, have
cooled on the very first discouragement, and have afterwards almost
totally remitted their vigilance, through a criminal kind of despair.

GREAT allowances must be made for a profusion of gaiety, loquacity, and
even indiscretion in children, that there may be animation enough left
to supply an active and usefu