AN ESSAY oN cumarrY-SCnOOtS. 25 something of this benefit ? UsefuLsentences, counsels, advices, moral and divine must be forgotten, if they cannot write. Their little agreements, promises, duties,, debts, transactions of life, and memorable providences, afflictions, blessings, all that be- longs to their sphere of action for time and eternity, must be iu danger of being lost out of their thoughts, if they cannot use a pen. Writing, what a blessedand divine invention ! And must all the poor be for ever secluded from all the privileges of it, where they may be obtained with so much ease ? Here I might make a pathetic address to all those who by mutual intercourse of letters, have maintained their love to their dear relations at a distance, and have felt the inward pleasure of receiving tidings of their welfare ; I might address myself to thosewho have written or have received letters of piety to er from their friends ; to those who have found the sweetness of recollecting past providences, by the help of their paper-me- moirs, and of preserving some useful sermon long on their memories by the aids of writing; have not these things been a matter of special refreshment and delight to you ? llave you not counted it a very valuable advantage to yourselves ? And why should you for ever deny your fellow-creatures, that are made of the same clay, and cast in the same mould as yourselves, why should you for ever deny all of them such benefits as these, when they may be attained at so easy a rate ? And if you do not think proper by your own liberality to bestow this benefit on the poor, yet by all the sacred pleasure and profit you have derived from the use of the pen, I entreat you not to discourage and forbid the liberality of others who would confer this privilege on them. II. But in the second place, Consider whether a servant incapable of writing, can be so useful to his master? Oc whether it will not be some considerable advantage to superiors, to have their servants, and their poor labourers able to make use of a pen. 1. May I have leave to ask whether it be not far better they should be able tó write their own names, when you employ them, ifit were but to give a receipt for their weekly, or their monthly, or their yearly wages ? Is not their name better than merely their scrawling- marks, which are such poor doubtful and uncer- tain tokens of their own giving a receipt ? 2. It is a frequent case that occurs in common life, that ser- vants are sent out perhaps to a considerable distance, with mes- sages to several persons at once, and at the same time are ordered to buy several little necessaries for different persons in the family : Their zeal and diligence, it may be, is greát and unexceptionable, but their memory fails them, and they drop two or three of their, orders by the way : They are chid at hofne, if the master be choleric, perhaps with some severity, the family is in great and present want of the necessaries they should have
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