H́nh ảnh trang
PDF
ePub

by having every thing done for them by the fervants, they have become filly and helpless. O mamma, what a terrible thing is this; will you teach me how to do every thing for myself? Yes, my dear, I will with all my heart, &c. &c.

Thus I initiated my Alathea in the hiftory of nature, and in general politics, beginning with her at five years old, and her fister soon after became a novice in the fame Icience. I found one day Alathea in tears for the lofs of one of her garters; I condoled with her, but told her, that one of my own garters was worn through, fo that I wanted one as well as herself, but that I was bufy making another in its stead. I took out of my pocket a worfted garter half wrought upon quills, and began to knit, faying, it should not be long before I cured my misfortune. O mamma, will you teach me to make garters? I fet Alathea immediately to work; and in the course of a day or two, I teach her to knit in this fimple manner; and in the course of a fortnight or three weeks, fhe comes in tranfports with a pair of garters of her own handy-work. She then proposes to work a pair for me in return for my having taught her the art, and then a pair for her fifter Ifabella; all goes on charmingly; the habits of industry and independence are established; fhe is as playful and happy as ever, but she never tires in the intervals. Bye and bye Isabella imitates her example; and I fee the fruits of my fyf. tem forming in the tree that I had planted. In this way I trained my daughters to all feminine employments; and at the fame time continually cultivated their understandings, and regulated the ftrength of their imaginations.

Alathea feeing the cook one day puzzled about the affairs of the kitchen, and coming to confult me, was furprised to find me looking into a book, and turning over the pages, instead of returning an answer. O mamma! why don't you tell poor Mary what he is to do? I am locking here, my dear, to be able to inftruct her. I

[ocr errors]

wrote out a recipe from the book; and having given it to the maid, away fhe goes, and all is right again. Alathea, after some very interesting filence and beautiful expreffion of countenance, looks at me with pleafing aftonishment, and says, O my dear mamma! will you teach me to help poor Mary, when you are out of the way, and papa has company to dinner. Yes, my dear Alathea; but this will take a long time; for you must learn both to read and to write before you can do this. Then her little foul is all on fire to learn, and I begin, without delay, to initiate her in the ufe of letters, teaching her as I go along, by illuftrations fuited to her infantine capacity, the reafon as well as the mechanism of language, as far as the could understand them; and fhe is the happiest of students, because the fees the reward of her ftudies at a distance, yet certainly attainable, while the road, to it is eafy and delightful.

[ocr errors]

My girls had a play-fellow or two of the clergyman's daughters in the neighbourhood, and they used to admire the ingenuity of Eugenius, who amufed himself with a turning-lathe, and made, most of the little trays and other utenfils that were used in the family.

Seeing fo many convenient things made out of fhapelefs maffes, Alathea, looking steadily at the moon one evening on a walk with us, fhe turned to Eugenius, and having kissed his hand, looked up with timid an xiety, and faid, my dear papa, will you tell me who turned the moon? Yes, Alathea, I can tell you, that at once, it was the great papa of the whole world, that turned the moon; and every thing in the world is the workmanship of his hands.

Here the converfation ended. Alathea became immediately thoughtful, but foon after ran off to her play, and I heard no more of her query till next morning, when, fitting at cur work, after the leffon of the day was over, Alathea looked tenderly and fignificantly at me for fome time, and said, my dear mamma! what a strange thing that was my papa told me yesterday about the moon,

I durft not answer him; for I thought he was faying a thing that was impoflible; and you know papa always tells me, that nobody should ever joke about God.

My dearest Alathea, what your papa told you yefterday is not only not impoffible, but one of the few things that one can know to a certainty. If you was to find a wooden trencher, a tray, or an egg-cup in the ground, would not you know that it had not grown there, but been placed there by fomebody, and that it had been turned in a turning-lathe out of a piece of wood. Yes, mamma. Then my, dear Alathea, the world was originally like a fhapeless piece of wood, and the great þapa of the world turned every thing in a lathe of his own to answer the good purposes of his children and his creatures; and we are all his children and his creatures, men, women, children, horfes, cows, fheep, and dogs, and every thing that lives or moves, or has any kind of being.

Alathea leaps upon my knee, kiffes me again and again; and laughing in tears, cries out, O mamma! this is charming. Then papa is my brother, and you are my fifter, and my grandpapa made the moon and every thing else.

I now instantly take her off from the continuance of this converfation, as being quite above her capacity, and gently lead her to the workmanship and occupations of the day, leaving the impreffion to produce its beneficial effects hereafter.--Thus, Mr. Editor, have I given you a flight sketch of the commencement of my plan of female education, which, if you do not forbid, fhall be followed out in fome of your future papers, with a description of the more interefting, though not more important period of education which is to follow; and I remain, Sir, with efteem for your undertaking, your fincere well-wisher,

SOPHIA.

The continuance of this interesting sketch is earnestly intreated. Edit.

Memoirs of the Reverend Mr. John Wesley. JOHN WESLEY, one of the most extraordinary characters that ever exifted, whether we confider him as a various and voluminous writer, a zealous and indefatigable preacher, or the founder of the most numerous fect in the Chriftian world, was the fon of the Reverend Samuel Wesley, rector of Epworth in the isle of Axholme, in Lincolnshire, and was born in that village in the year 1703. His very infancy was diftinguished by an extraordinary incident. The parfonage house at Epworth was burnt to the ground, and the flames had fpread with such rapidity that few things of value could be faved. His mother, in a letter to her fon SaImuel Wesley then on the foundation at Westminster fchool, thanks God that no lives were loft, although for fome time, they gave up Poor Jacky, as the expreffes herself; for his father had twice attempted to refcue the child, but was beaten back by the flames. Finding all his efforts ineffectual, he refigned him to divine providence.' But parental tenderness prevailed over human fears, and Mr. Wesley once more attempt. ed to fave his child. By fome means equally unex pected and unaccountable, the boy got round to a window in the front of the house, and was taken out, by one man's leaping on the fhoulders of another, and thus getting within his reach. Immediately on his rescue from this very perilous fituation, the roof fell in.This extraordinary escape explains a certain device, in a print of Mr. John Wefley, engraved by Vertue, in the year 1745, from a painting by Williams. It reprefents a houfe in flames, with this motto from the prophet, "Is he not a brand plucked out of the burn"ing?" Many have fuppofed this device to be merely emblematical of his spiritual deliverance. But from

this circumstance it is apparent, that it has a primary as well as a fecundary meaning: It is real as well as allufive. This fire happened when Mr. Wefley was about fix years old.

In the year 1713, he was entered a scholar at the charter-house in London, where he continued seven years under the tuition of the celebrated Dr. Walker, and of the Rev. Andrew Tooke, author of "The Pantheon." Being elected to Lincoln college, Oxford, he became a fellow of that college about the year 1725, took the degree of Master of Arts in 1726, and was joint tutor with the Rev. Dr. Hutchins, the rector. He difcovered, very early, an elegant turn for poetry : Some of his gayer poetical effufions are proofs of a liveTy fancy, and a fine claffical tafte; and fome tranfla tions from the Latin poets, while at college, are allowed to have great merit. He had early a strong impreffion, like Count Zinzendorf, of his defignation to some extraordinary work. This impreffion received additional force from fome domeftic incidents; all which his active fancy turned to his own account. His wonderful preservation, already noticed, naturally tended to cherish the idea of his being defigned by providence to accomplish fome purpose or other, that was out of the ordinary courfe of human events. The late Rev. Samuel Badcock, in a letter inferted in the Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, No. XX. fays, "There were some strange phænomena perceived at the parsonage at Epworth, and fome uncommon noises heard there from time to time, which he was very curious in examining into, and very particular in relating. I have little doubt that he confidered himself the chief object of this wonderful vifitation. Indeed his father's credulity was in fome degree affected by it; fince he collected all the evidences that tended to confirm the ftory, arranged them with fcrupulous exactness, in a manufcript confifting of several sheets, and which is still In being. I know not what became of the Ghost of

« TrướcTiếp tục »