I have frequently heard wise parents and teachers speak of the perplexity of spirit which they feel when they see that in so many instances the acquirement of accomplishments, as they are termed, fails to add any moral strength or beauty to the character of the young people in whose welfare and advancement their hearts are so entirely absorbed.  This young girl sings and plays beautifully, paints and draws in a genuinely artistic manner, speaks French and German like a native, and yet she is ill-tempered and shrewish if circumstances happen to cross her inclination.  Here is a young man who is possessed of a fine collegiate education, and who is also an excellent musician.  Yet he can be rude and disrespectful to his mother, insolent to his father, overbearing and arrogant towards servants and subordinates, and a perfect boor to his younger brothers and sisters.  Both these young persons have uncultivated spirits.  So we see that the cultivation of the intellectual nature, the acquirement of accomplishments, the practice of any art, the advantages of travel, the surroundings of elegance, may or may not tend to the genuine culture of the spirit; and as wise and earnest parents and teachers perceive this truth, they realize more and more that the great problem of culture, alike for parent and teacher, is how to develop the moral sentiment.

LETTER IX.

Religious culture and duty.

My Dear Daughter:—­I have endeavored in my previous letters to give you a kind of outline series of directions and instructions in matters that pertain to the ordinary every day duties of life.  I have spoken of the motives that should influence your actions, and have tried to show you that all truly lovely and beautiful conduct must have a basis in the moral sentiment.  I have reserved till this last letter what I have to say to you on the most important subject of all:  the infinitely momentous subject of religious culture and duty.

In the first place I must explain that there is a great difference between the methods and circumstances of religious instruction now and those which surrounded the youth of the maturer generation.  When people of the age of your parents were young, the habits of family life were such that religious observances held a place of first importance.  All household affairs were arranged with reference to morning and evening worship, which consisted of singing, reading the Bible, and prayer.  No matter how much work was to be done, the family must rise in time to allow for the performance of this service.  Children heard so much about God, and heaven, and the life beyond death, that often a morbid and unnatural frame of mind was induced.  Parents and instructors often forgot to make allowance for the fact that youth naturally and rightly loves and enjoys this life, and rightly and naturally dreads death.  So much was said