Beware of gaming. It makes a man wild, and unsettled; impatient of an honest calling, or of moderate, lawful gain. It is a vice that seldom goes alone; debauchery of all kinds commonly accompany it.

Be respectful to all; familiar with few. Be careful with whom you consort; and much more careful with whom you become intimate. By conversing with learned, wise, and sober persons, you will gain learning and wisdom, and improve yourself in virtue and goodness.

Consider before you speak. Do not talk at random, or at a venture. Let your words be few, and to the purpose. Be more ready to hear than to talk. Accustom yourself to speak leisurely and deliberately; this will be a means of making you speak warily and considerately.

Beware of lying; it is displeasing to God, and offensive to man; and always, in the end, turns to the reproach or disadvantage of him who uses it. Believe not hastily strange news and stories; and do not report them, though at second hand : for if they prove untrue, (and commonly strange stories prove so,) they will bring an imputation of levity upon him who reports them, and possibly some disadvantage to others.

Take care that you promise nothing but what is just, and lawful, and in your power to perform; and when you have so promised, be true to your word. Breach of promises and lying are much of the same nature; they commonly go together; and they are arguments of a weak and unmanly mind.

Be grateful to your benefactors, especially to those who, under God, were instrumental for your good, in your late sickness, and return thanks to them: to your father, who spared no cost for your recovery; to your doctor, who was exceedingly diligent about you; to those

who attended you in your sickness; and to those who, together with your father, often prayed to God for your recovery, and for a blessing upon this affliction, whose names you shall, in due time, particularly know. But, above all, be grateful to Almighty God, who not only provided and blessed the means, but saved and delivered you, above means, and when means failed.

I shall conclude with one advice more, without the observance of which my labour in writing this long epistle will probably be fruitless: be not wise in your own conceit. Self-conceit is the unhappy error, and often the ruin, of young persons. They are usually rash, giddy, and inconsiderate; and yet extremely confident in that which they have least reason to trust, namely, their own understanding: which renders them réserved to those who are most willing and able to advise them; impatient of reproof; fond of flattery; and incapable of good and wise counsel, till their follies have reduced them to extreme straits and inconveniences. Suspect, therefore, your own judgment; advise often with your father, especially in all things of moment; be glad of his counsel, and be contented and willing to follow it, and to guide your life according to it, at least till ripeness of age, observation, and experience, have enabled you better to advise yourself. This is an easy, ready, and cheap way of attaining wisdom, and avoiding infinite inconveniences.

If I find that my directions are dutifully observed by you, I shall be ready, from time to time, freely to advise and direct you; and I shall have great assurance that God has blessed this visitation to you. But, on the other hand, if I find that you neglect my counsels; that you make light of them; and that you pursue those

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courses which will certainly be bitterness in the end; I shall pray for you, I shall be sorry for you: but I shall not easily be persuaded to give you any more advice.or counsel.

The Almighty has not been wanting to you in admonition and correction, in mercy and deliverance; neither has your father been wanting to you in education and counsel, in care and expense. That God may bless all to you, is the prayer

of
Your loving father,

Matthew Hale.

LETTER V.

Dr. Doddridge to a young lady, preparing for a voyage to the East Indies.

Madam,

Northampton, Feb. 14, 1730.

Though I have not the happiness of a personal acquaintance with you, your good mother informed me at large of your character and circumstances; and it is by her desire that I use a freedom in addressing you, which would not otherwise be pardonable in one who is a stranger. She is tenderly solicitous, that whithersoever you go, the gracious presence of a heavenly Parent, and a pious sense of duty to him, may always accompany you. And as she knows you must resign some of those religious advantages, which you have long enjoyed, she has been urgent with me to put something into your hand, which may be reviewed whenever you please; and which, by the Divine blessing, may be useful to you, as being peculiarly suited to your present circumstances.

On my part, madam, I undertake the task with a

great deal of cheerfulness; not only to oblige her, who is my valuable friend, but with some encouraging hope, that it may be serviceable to you. I have had many anxious thoughts about you, since your mother and I talked of you; so that you and your affairs are grown very familiar to my mind, and I begin to enter into them with something of a brother's affection.

I hope this concern will sufficiently justify a plainness, which, in such a case, becomes almost unavoidable; and I persuade myself, madam, that when you consider it as proceeding from such a principle, you will not be offended, though I tell you that I almost tremble to think of the variety of dangers to which you are going to be exposed. I am young myself: yet I have already learned by too frequent experience, that, in the morning of life, we naturally delude ourselves with pleasing dreams; we fix our eyes on what is most delightful in a distant prospect; but either entirely overlook what is dangerous and threatening, or at most bestow only a transient glance upon it. You think, no doubt, with a great deal of pleasure, of seeing a variety of new objects in a fine country, vastly different from our own; especially of meeting a brother, whom you have never yet seen, but who, at so remote a distance, has expressed the tenderest regard for you. And you are charmed with the prospect of meeting him, in a place where he knows not any superior; of sharing with him in his plenty and magnificence; and of being treated by all about you with the respect due to a governor's sister. I own there is something very splendid and striking in such a view, and I heartily congratulate you upon it. But let me entreat you, madam, to consider that it is possible you may never reach the country which is to be the scene of so many entertainments. There are unknown hazards

in a voyage to the Indies. Before you have performed half of it, some unexpected event may put a period to these hopes, and to your life. Or, if you reach

it is certain that dangers will attend you there; dangers which will be so much the greater as you are the less sensible of them. Our India governors live in a kind of princely grandeur and magnificence; so that you will really need almost as much wisdom and goodness as if you were going to court. You will see a great deal of vanity and pomp, and no doubt a great deal of luxury too, if not in the governor himself, (of whom I hear a very respectable character,) yet in some of his retinue. You will hear a great deal of flattery, the shame of our sex, and the ruin of yours; and the dangers, which conceal the sharpest and the most fatal stings, are those which will accost you with the softest air and the most smiling countenance.

When I consider these things, I am very solicitous with regard to the end of them; and I plainly confess, I cannot but think, that, humanly speaking, there is a great deal of reason to fear lest the lovely flower, which is now opening with so much beauty and fragrancy, should be blasted by too warm a sun, and wither in that luxurious soil to which it will be transplanted. Or, in plainer terms, I fear, (what God forbid!) that the impression of a religious education will wear off from your mind; and the vain allurements of an insnaring world will possess themselves of your heart, till, by insensible degrees, your virtue may be endangered, and your soul ruined. I say not these things, madam, to dissuade you from the voyage. But I represent the case in all its dangerous circumstances, as far as I apprehend them, that you may be awakened to a proper care in providing against them. And here it is evident, that your only security is