I once heard a young lady exclaim, when asked to accompany her family on a boating excursion, “Can any thing be more tiresome than a family party?” Young as she was, she had already lost all taste for the simple pleasures of domestic life.  As she was intellectual and accomplished, she could still enjoy solitude; but her only ideas of pleasure as connected with a party were those of admiration and excitement.  We may trace the same feelings in the complaints perpetually heard of the stupidity of parties,—­complaints generally proceeding from those who are too much accustomed to attention and admiration to be contented with the unexciting pleasures of rational conversation, the exercise of kindly feelings, and the indulgence of social habits—­all in their way productive of contentment to those who have preserved their mind in a state of freshness and simplicity.  Any greater excitement than that produced by the above means cannot surely be profitable to those who only seek in society for so much pleasure as will afford them relaxation; those who engage in an arduous conflict with ever-watchful enemies both within and without ought carefully to avoid having their weapons of defence unstrung.  I know that at present you would shrink from the idea of making pleasure your professed pursuit, from the idea of engaging in it for any other purpose but the one above stated—­that of necessary relaxation; I should not otherwise have addressed you as I do now.  Your only danger at present is, that you may, I should hope indeed unconsciously, acquire the habit of requiring excitement during your hours of relaxation.

In opposition to all that I have said, you will probably be often told that excitement, instead of being prejudicial, is favourable to the health of both mind and body; and this in some respects is true:  the whole mental and physical constitution benefit by, and acquire new energy from, nay, they seem to develop hidden forces on occasions of natural excitement; but natural it ought to be, coming in the providential course of the events of life, and neither considered as an essential part of daily food, nor inspiring distaste for simple, ordinary nourishment.  I fear much, on the other hand, any excitement that we choose for ourselves; that only is quite safe which is dispensed to us by the hand of the Great Physician of souls:  he alone knows the exact state of our moral constitution, and the exact species of discipline it requires from hour to hour.

You will wonder, perhaps, that throughout the foregoing remonstrance I have never recommended to you the test so common among many good people of our acquaintance, viz. whether you are able to pray as devoutly on returning from a ball as after an evening spent at home?  My reason for this silence was, that I have found the test an ineffectual one.  The advanced Christian, if obedience to those who are set in authority over her should lead her into scenes