felves, but your wives ARE yourselves: "NO MAN ever yet hated his own flesh:"but many a MONSTER has done fo. I difdain to notice those miscreants who can have recourse to blows, but those who can indulge in a churlishness of behaviour-a sharpness of language-an unkindness of looks, would do well to confider how far they are complying with a divine command -"Husbands, love your wives, and be not "bitter against them." The honour of ATTENTION.-Nothing is fo intolerable to a female as neglect; and upon what principle can a man justify indifference, omiffions of obfervance, and heedless manners towards a WIFE? Has he not chofen her?-Has he not declared his preference? Is fhe not the chief relation he poffeffes on earth? The honour of CONFIDENCE, not proceeding without their knowledge and advice.-In -In many cafes their opinion may be preferable to your own. Their judgment may be less clouded by interest: they ftand back from the object, you are too near-they are cool and calm; you, by being in the scene, are ruffled, and inflamed. An eminent minifter of the gospel, a few years ago, declared to the world, that he had never in any particular business acted contrary to the suggestions of his wife, without having reafon afterwards to repent of it. I believe there are many who are restrained from fimilar acknowledgments only by a want of candour. Some husbands never confult, or even inform their wives; and their wives have often to learn from others things in which perhaps they are most deeply concerned. The honour of MAINTENANCE, providing for them, and enabling them to appear becoming their rank and fituation in life.What can we think of the man who squanders away his fubftance upon his lewd or his drunken appetites, reduces his wife to a drudge, and suffers her with her babes to ftruggle with the hardships of penury, unable to procure a fufficiency of food, or raiment?" If any provide not for his own, " and especially for those of his own house, " he hath denied the faith, and is worse than 66 an infidel." The honour of BENEVOLENCE, enabling her to do good.-Every man fhould devote a proportion of his property to charitable uses, and he should not by his distribution of the whole, draw towards himself all the regards of the relieved and obliged. His wife should command a share of the means and of the honour.-Husbands! give your wives these proofs of regard which reason and revelation demand for them, and we fhall foon hear lefs of your complaints. Obferve, 2dly, the motives by which this duty is enforced. They are three. The firft is taken from the natural condition of the sex. "SHE IS THE WEAKER VESSEL." If this be mentioned as a reafon to excite a becoming behaviour towards the wife, there can be nothing in the expreffion degrading, nothing that tends to dimi nifh the honour we are bound to fhew them -nothing that is not adapted when properly confidered to promote it. No invidious comparisons are here justified between the powers of the mind. Whether there would be any disparity, were females placed in the fame circumstances-indulged with the fame advantages-and allowed to feel the fame motives with their brethren, it would be needless to determine. They have taken good care often to prove, that the difference is not fo vast as fome male-monopolifts are willing to fuppofe.-The reference is obvious and ftriking. Nature is always wise. It gives more ftrength where it is necessaryand lefs, where other qualities fuperfede it. F Milton has finely expreffed the difference in the original pair: "For contemplation he and valour form'd, Her bodily ftrength is inferior, her constitution less firm and vigorous, her frame more tender, her temper more yielding, her circumstances more generally depreffing. A rofe, a lily, allows of no rough ufages. Tenderness demands gentleness: delicacy, care; pliancy, props. Has a condition fewer resources, and is there much in it of the afflictive, and humbling? The more does it need fuccour, and the more necessary is every assistance to maintain and increase the confequence of it, especially where fo much depends upon the respectability of the character who fills it.-Where is the man who is not alive to all this ?--Where is the husband who reflecting on her peculiar circumstances would not be difpofed by every poffible means to promote the dignity, and the fatisfaction of a wife?-What is the language of these circumftances?_" Honour 66 us; deal kindly with us. From many of "the opportunities, and means by which you procure favourable notice we are ex"cluded. Doomed to the fhades, few of "the high places of the earth are open to 3 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 us. Alternately we are adored, and oppreffed. From our flaves, you become our tyrants: you feel our beauty, and "avail yourselves of our weakness. You complain of our inferiority, but none of your behaviour bids us rise. Sensibility "has given us a thousand feelings which nature has kindly denied you.-Always un"der restraints, we have little liberty of "choice-Providence feems to have been more attentive to enable us to confer happiness, than to enjoy it.-Every condition " has for us fresh mortifications; every re"lation new forrows. We enter focial "bonds; it is a system of perpetual facrifice. "We cannot give life to others, without hazarding our own. We have fufferings " which you do not share, cannot fhare."If spared, years, and decays invade our charms, and much of the ardour produc"ed by attraction departs with it. We may "die.-The grave covers us, and we are foon forgotten: foon are the days of your 66 66 66 66 mourning ended, foon is our lofs repair“ed: dismissed even from your speech, our "name is to be heard no more-a fucceffor 66 may dislike it--Our children. Though "the duties which we have discharged inva"riably, be the most important and necef |