I mention this affair chiefly for the sake of recommending that branch
of education for our young females, as likely to be of more use
to them and their children, in case of widowhood, than either music
or dancing, by preserving them from losses by imposition of crafty men,
and enabling them to continue, perhaps, a profitable mercantile house,
with establish'd correspondence, till a son is grown up fit to undertake
and go on with it, to the lasting advantage and enriching of the family.
About the year 1734 there arrived among us from Ireland a young
Presbyterian preacher, named Hemphill, who delivered with a
good voice, and apparently extempore, most excellent discourses,
which drew together considerable numbers of different persuasion,
who join'd in admiring them. Among the rest, I became one of his
constant hearers, his sermons pleasing me, as they had little
of the dogmatical kind, but inculcated strongly the practice
of virtue, or what in the religious stile are called good works.
Those, however, of our congregation, who considered themselves
as orthodox Presbyterians, disapprov'd his doctrine, and were join'd
by most of the old clergy, who arraign'd him of heterodoxy before
the synod, in order to have him silenc'd. I became his zealous partisan,
and contributed all I could to raise a party in his favour, and we
combated for him a while with some hopes of success.
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