mpetition between a sick family
and a new brooch, the brooch was sure to carry the day. This would not
have been the case, had they been habituated to visit themselves the
abodes of penury and woe. Their flexible young hearts would have been
wrought upon by the actual sight of miseries, the impression of which
was feeble when it reached their ears at a distance, surrounded as they
were with all the softnesses and accommodations of luxurious life.
"They would do what they could. They hoped it was not so bad as was
represented." They fell into the usual way of pacifying their
consciences by their regrets; and brought themselves to believe that
their sympathy with the suffering was an atonement for their not
relieving it.

I observed with concern, during my visit, how little the Christian
temper seemed to be considered as a part of the Christian religion. This
appeared in the daily concerns of this high professor. An opinion
contradicted, a person of different religious views commended, the
smallest opposition to her will, the intrusion of an unseasonable
visitor, even an imperfection in the dressing of some dish at table:
such trifles not only discomposed her, but the discomposure was
manifested with a vehemence which she was not aware was a fault; nor did
she seem at all sensible that her religion was ever to be resorted to
but on great occasions, forgetting that great occasions but rarely occur
in common life, and that these small passes, at which the enemy is
perpetually entering, the true Christian will vigilantly guard.

I observed in Mrs. Ranby one striking inconsistency. While she
considered it as forming a complete line of separation from the world,
that she and her daughters abstained from public places, she had no
objection to their indemnifying themselves for this forbearance, by
devoting so monstrous a disproportion of their time to that very
amusement which constitutes so principal a part of diversion abroad. The
time which is redeemed from what is wrong, is of little value, if not
dedicated to what is right; and it is not enough that the doctrines of
the gospel furnish a subject for discussion, if they do not furnish a
principle of action.

One of the most obvious defects which struck me in this and two or three
other families, whom I afterward visited, was the want of
companionableness in the daughters. They did not seem to form a part of
the family compact; but made a kind of distinct branch of themselv