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wrote out a recipê from the book; and having given it to the maid, away fhe goes, and all is right again. Alathea, after fome very interefting filence and beautiful expreffion of countenance, looks at me with pleafing aftonishment, and fays, 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 car 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 use 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 happieft of ftudents, because the fees the reward of her studies at a distance, yet certainly attainable, while the road to it is eafy and delightful.

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 shapelefs maffes, Alathea, looking fteadily at the moon one evening on a walk with us, fhe turned to Eugenius, and having kiffed 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 faid, 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 papa 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 inftantly 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 son 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 distinguished 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 Samuel 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 fhe 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 tendernefs prevailed over human fears, and Mr. Welley 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 represents 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 circumftance 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 live⚫ly 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 impresJ fion, like Count Zinzendorf, of his defignation to fome extraordinary work. This impreffion received addi⚫tional 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 fome 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 manuscript confisting of several sheets, and which is ftill In being. I know not what became of the Ghost of

Epworth unless, confidered as the prelude to the noise Mr. John Wesley made on a more ample stage, it ceafed to speak when he began to act.”

"The dawn of Mr. Wefley's public miffion," continues Mr. Badcock, "was clouded with Myfticifmthat fpecies of it which affects filence and folitude; a certain inexplicable introverfion of the mind, which abfracts the paffions from all fenfible objects, and, as the French Quietists exprefs it, perfects itfelf by an abforption of the will and intellect, and all the faculties Into the Deity." In this "palpable obfcure" the excellent Fenelon led himfelf when he forfook the fhades of Pindus, to wander in queft of "pure love" with Madam Guyon! Mr. Welley purfued, for a while, the fame ignis fatuus with Mr. William Law, and the Ghost of De Renty. A ftate, however, fo torpid and ignoble, ill fuited the active genius of this fingular man, His elaftic mind gained ftrength by compreffion; thence burfing glorious, he paffed (as he himself fomewhere fays) the immenfe chafm, upborne on an eagle's wings."

The reading of the writings of this Mr. William Law, the celebrated author of "Chriftian Perfection," and of "A Serious Addrefs to the Chriftian World," contributed, moreover, to lead Mr. John Wesley, and his brother Charles, with a few of their young fellowftudents, into a more than common ftrictnefs of religious life. They received the facrament of the Lord's Supper every week; obferved all the faits of the church; vifited the prifons; rofe at four in the morning; and refrained from all amufements. From the exact me thod in which they difpofed of every hour, they ac quired the appellation of Methodils, by which their followers have been ever fince diftinguished.

But a more particular account of the origin of this fect, we fhall give from a celebrated publication: "The Method fts," favs the editor of this work, "form a very confiderable clafs, principally of the lower, peo