13. Be thou compassionate, tender hearted, and mercifull; do good to all men, be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; for with such sacrifices God is evermore well pleased.
14. Avoid sloth and idleness, give thy Self to thy Studys; converse with such Authors as may tend to make thee wise and good and to forward thy growth in true wisdom and goodness.
15. Acquaint thy Self with History; know something of the Mathematicks, and Physick; be able to keep Accompts Merchant like in some measure; but let Divinity be thy main Study. Accomplish thy Self for the worke of the Ministry, begg of God that he would incline thine heart therto, and accept thee therin, and if it shall please God thus to Smile upon thee, aspire not after great things; let the Providence of God chuse for thee, and let the Flock have the Love of thy heart; be Solicitous for their Spirituall good, and for the glory of God; and let thy Aims be this way in all thy private meditations, and public administrations, all the dayes of thy Life.
My dear Child, be of a Catholick Spirit.
[RELATIONSHIP.]
In old wills and other old documents the word cousin is sometimes used for nephew, and thus many errors may occur in tracing out genealogies. Many curious cases of relationship will be found to exist by those that investigate the descent of families, some of which cannot be described by the terms we now use to designate consanguinity. It is surprising, that among the many words that have been coined, some new terms have not come into use as substitutes for the awkward way we now have of naming some of our relatives; such as great-great-great grandfather, great-great-great-uncle, &c. The following curious case was taken from a newspaper; whether the account is correct or not, the reader may see that it may be true.
"A man can be his own grandfather.
"A widow and her daughter-in-law and a man and his son—the widow married the son, the daughter the father; the widow was mother to her husband's father and grandmother to her husband; they had a son to whom she was great-grandmother. Now as the son of a great-grandmother must be either a grandfather or great-uncle, the boy must be one or the other. This was the case of a boy in Connecticut."