he too, doubtless, had companions and friends, and if he did not experience unkindness and ingratitude at their hands, childhood was the only time of his life in which he was free from these injuries. 29. He, doubtless, knows them full well; and there is one thing in which the sympathy of our Savior differs from that of every other friend-he judges not from the magnitude of the cause of sorrow, but from the real effect of that cause upon the heart which suffers it. If a child is agitated by a trifling cause, he looks at the greatness of the agitation and suffering, not at the insignificance of the cause. But it is not so with men:-they judge from external cir cumstances. LESSON LXVII. Humorous Description of the Custom of Whitewashing.— FRANCIS HOPKINSON. 1. WHEN a young couple are about to enter into the matrimonial state, a never-failing article in the marriage treaty is, that the lady shall have and enjoy the free and unmolested exercise of the rights of whitewashing, with all its ceremonials, privileges and appurtenances. 2. A young woman would forego the most advantageous connexion, and even disappoint the warmest wish of her heart, rather than resign the invaluable right. You would wonder what this privilege of whitewashing is:—I will endeavor to give you some idea of the ceremony, as I have seen it performed. 3. There is no season of the year, in which the lady may not claim her privilege, if she pleases; but the latter end of May is most generally fixed upon for the purpose. The attentive husband may judge by certain prognostics when the storm is nigh at hand. 4. When the lady is unusually fretful, finds fault with the servants, is discontented with the children, and complains much of the filthiness of every thing about her-these are signs which ought not to be neglected; yet they are not decisive, as they sometimes come and go off again without producing any further effect. 3. But if, when the husband rises in the morning, he should observe in the yard a wheelbarrow with a quantity of lime in it, or should see certain buckets with lime dissolved in water, there is then no time to be lost; he immediately locks up the apartment or closet where his papers or his private property are kept, and putting the key in his pocket, betakes himself to flight: for a husband, however beloved, becomes a perfect nuisance during this season of female rage; his authority is superseded, his commission is suspended, and the very scullion, who cleans the brasses in the kitchen, becomes of more consideration and importance than him. He has nothing for it but to abdicate, and run from an evil which he can neither prevent nor mollify. 6. The husband gone, the ceremony begins. The walls are in a few minutes stripped of their furniture; paintings, prints and looking-glasses lie in a huddled heap about the floors; the curtains are torn from the testers, the beds crammed into the windows; chairs and tables, bedsteads and cradles crowd the yard; and the garden fence bends beneath the weight of carpets, blankets, cloth cloaks, old coats and ragged breeches. 7. Here may be seen the lumber of the kitchen, forming a dark and confused mass; for the foreground of the picture, gridirons and frying pans, rusty shovels and broken tongs, spits and pots, and the fractured remains of rushbottomed chairs. There, a closet has disgorged its bowels, cracked tumblers, broken wine-glasses, phials of forgotten physic, papers of unknown powders, seeds and dried herbs, handfuls of old corks, tops of teapots and stoppers of departed decanters;—from the rag hole in the garret to the rat hole in the cellar, no place escapes unrummaged. 8. It would seem as if the day of general doom was come, and the utensils of the house were dragged forth to judgment. In this tempest the words of Lear naturally present themselves, and might, with some alteration, be made strictly applicable: "Let the great gods That keeps this dreadful pudder o'er our heads, Unwhipp'd of Justice! Close pent-up Guilt, Raise your concealing continents, and ask 9. This ceremony completed, and the house thoroughly evacuated, the next operation is to smear the, walls and ceilings of every room and closet with brushes dipped in a solution of lime, called whitewash; to pour buckets of water over every floor, and scratch all the partitions and wainscots with rough brushes wet with soap-suds, and dipped in stone-cutter's sand. 10. The windows by no means escape the general deluge. A servant scrambles out upon the pent-house, at the risk of her neck, and with a mug in her hand and a bucket within reach, she dashes away innumerable gallons of water against the glass panes, to the great annoyance of passengers in the street. 11. I have been told, that an action at law was once brought against one of these water-nymphs, by a person who had a new suit of clothes spoiled by this operation; but, after a long argument, it was determined by the whole court, that the action would not lie, inasmuch as the defendant was in the exercise of a legal right, and not answerable for the consequences; and so the poor gentleman was doubly non-suited; for he lost not only his suit of clothes but his suit at law. 12. These smearings and scratchings, washings and dashings, being duly performed, the next ceremony is to cleanse and replace the distracted furniture. You may have seen a house-raising, or a ship-launch, when all the hands within reach are collected together; recollect, if you can, the hurry, bustle, confusion and noise of such a scene, and you will have some idea of this cleaning match. 13. The misfortune is, that the sole object is to make things clean; it matters not how many useful, ornamental or valuable articles are mutilated, or suffer death under the operation; a mahogany chair and carved frame undergo the same discipline; they are to be made clean at all events; but their preservation is not worthy of attention. 14. For instance, a fine large engraving is laid flat upon the floor; smaller prints are piled upon it, and the superin cumbent weight cracks the glasses of the lower tier; but this is of no consequence. A valuable picture is placed leaning against the sharp corner of a table; others are made to lean against that, until the pressure of the whole forces the corner of the table through the canvass of the first. 15. The frame and glass of a fine print are to be cleansed; the spirit and oil used on this occasion are suffered to leak through and spoil the engraving; no matter, if the glass is clean, and the frame shine, it is sufficient; the rest is not worthy of consideration. An able mathematician has made an accurate calculation founded on long experience, and has discovered that the losses and destruction incident to two whitewashings are equal to one removal, and three removals equal to one fire. 16. The cleaning frolic over, matters begin to resume their pristine appearance. The storm abates, and all would be well again, but it is impossible that so great a convulsion in so small a community, should not produce some further effec's. For two or three weeks after the operation, the far ily are usually afflicted with sore throats or sore eyes, ccasioned by the caustic quality of the lime or with severe colds from the exhalations of wet floors or damp walls. 17. I know a gentleman who was fond of accounting for every thing in a philosophical way. He considers this, which I have called a custom, as a real periodical disease peculiar to the climate. His train of reasoning is ingenious and whimsical, but I am not at leisure to give you the detail. The result was, that he found the distemper to be in curable; but, after much study, he conceived he had discovered a method to divert the evil he could not subduc. 18. For this purpose he caused a small building, about twelve feet square, to be erected in his garden, and furnished with some ordinary chairs and tables; and a few prints of the cheapest sort were hung against the walls. His hope was that, when the whitewashing frenzy seized the females of his family, they might repair to this apartment, and scrub and smear and scour to their heart's content; and so spend the violence of the disease in this outpest, while he enjoyed himself in quiet at head-quarters. 19. But the experiment did not answer his expectation; it was impossible it should, since a principal part of the gratification consists in the lady's having an uncontrolled right to torment her husband at least once a year, and to turn him out of doors and take the reins of government into her own hands. 20. There is a much better contrivance than this of the philosopher, which is, to cover the walls of the house with paper: this is generally done; and, though it cannot abolish, it at least shortens, the period of female dominion. The paper is decorated with flowers of various fancies, and made so ornamental, that the women have admitted the fashion without perceiving the design. 21. There is also another alleviation of the husband's distress; he generally has the privilege of a small room or closet for his books and papers, the key of which he is allowed to keep. This is considered as a privileged place, and stands like the land of Goshen, amid the plagues of Egypt. 22. But then he must be extremely cautious, and ever on his guard; for should he inadvertently go abroad and leave the key in his door, the housemaid, who is always on the watch for such an opportunity, immedi tely enters in triumph with buckets, brooms and brushes; takes possession of the premises, and forthwith puts all his books and papers to rights-to his utter confusion, and sometimes serious detriment. LESSON LXVIII. Danger of Delay in Religion.-BUCKMINSTER 1. Ir has been most acutely and justly observed, that all resolutions to repent at a future time are necessarily insincere, and must be a mere deception; because they imply a preference of a man's present habits and conduct; they imply that he is really unwilling to change them, and that nothing but necessity would lead him to make any attempt of the kind. 2. But let us suppose the expected leisure for repentance to have arrived; the avaricious or fraudulent dealer to have attained that competency, which is to secure him from want; the profligate and debauched to have passed the slippery |