such an hour; to hold conversation an hour or two under the influence
of some sort of excitement, physical or moral, got up for the occasion,
on topics which are of little comparative importance--of which the most
valuable part often is, the inquiry, How do you do? and the consequent
replies to it; to trifle the time away till ten, eleven or twelve
o'clock, and then go home through the cold, damp atmosphere, perhaps
thinly clad, to suffer that night for want of proper and sufficient
sleep, and the next day from indigestion, and a thousand other evils;
what can be more truly pitiable, not to say ridiculous! Nor is the
practice of putting on a new dress--or one which, if not new, we are
quite willing to exhibit--and of going to see our neighbors, and
staying just long enough to ask how they do, say a few stale or silly
things, and prove an interruption and a nuisance, and then going
elsewhere--a whit more justifiable, in beings made in the image of God,
and who are to be accountable at his eternal bar.

Let it not be said that I disapprove of visiting, entirely. One of the
grounds of condemnation at the final day, is represented in the twenty-
fifth chapter of Matthew, as being--"Ye visited me not;" that is, did
not visit in the name and for the sake of the Judge, those whom God has
made it a duty no less than a privilege to visit. And can I set myself,
with impunity, against that which my Saviour has encouraged, and yet
pretend to be one of his followers? What would be more presumptuous? I
am not an enemy to visiting, if done with a view to glorify God in the
benefit of mankind. Let young women visit, indeed, but lot it be done
in a way which will be approved by the Saviour and Judge. But there may
be dissipation in the garb of visiting; and it is still oftener nothing
more than the garb of indolence.

It is not visiting, but visiting without a definite or important