VICTORIA. It has been so ordained by Providence, that I-who am a native of one of the most solitary valleys of our fair island, and whose earliest years were spent in a retirement almost as absolute as that of a recluse of the Chartreuse, having little intercourse but with the wild beauties of Nature and the dusty volumes of an old library, supposed to have belonged to a friend of Addison-should in my later years have become a great traveller, having visited three quarters of the globe, and been resident in various climates, from the burning torrid zone to the northern borders of England; having at one time been surrounded by idolaters and followers of the prophet Mahomet, and at another finding myself in the assemblies of comparatively pure and simple Protestants —that is, of persons who profess to take the Holy Scriptures as their rule of life; and again being mixed up in one household with Roman Catholics, which last are persons bearing indeed the name of Christian, but having many of the errors of the heathen, together with the pride and self-righteousness of the Mussulman. In all these situations it has been my pleasure to study the characters of children, and to observe their various trials and circumstances of life; and these observations have led me to conclude that many and terrible evils accrue to them from their intercourse with servants, and especially with servants in countries where the national religion is false, and the language different from that commonly used by their parents. I have already given examples of this kind in my Narratives of Indian Life. It is now my intention to bring forward another example which has come to my knowledge during my residence in a place much nearer home; and I should rejoice to find that the instance |