may you learn, that it is not on the external condition in which you find yourselves placed, but on the part which you are to act, that your welfare or unhappiness, your honor or infamy depends. Now, when beginning to act that part, what can be of greater moment, than to regulate your plan of conduct with the most serious attention, before you have yet committed any fatal or irretrievable errors? If, instead of exerting reflection for this valuable purpose, you deliver yourselves up, at so critical a time, to sloth and pleasure; if you refuse to listen to any counsellor but humor, or to attend to any pursuit except that of amusement; if you allow yourself to float loose and careless on the tide of life, ready to receive any direction which the current of fashion. may chance to give you; what can you expect to follow from such beginnings? While so many around you are undergo. ing the sad consequences of a like indiscretion, for what rea son shall not those consequences extend to you? Shall you attain success without that preparation, and escape dangers without that precaution, which is required of others? Shall happiness grow up to you, of its own accord, and solicit your acceptance, when, to the rest of mankind, it is the fruit of long cultivation, and the acquisition of labor and care ? Deceive not yourselves with such arrogant hopes. Whatever be your rank, Providence will not, for your sake reverse its established order. The Author of your being hath enjoined you to "take head to your ways; to ponder the paths of your feet; to remember your Creator in the days of your youth." He hath decreed, that they only "who seek after wisdom, shall find it; that fools shall be afflicted, because of their transgressions; and that whoever refuseth instruction, shall destroy his own soul." By listening to these admonitions, and tempering the vivacity of youth with a proper mixture of serious thought, you may ensure cheerfulness for the rest of life; but by delivering yourselves up at present to giddiness and levity, you lay the foundation of lasting heaviness of heart..

When you look forward to those plans of life, which either your circumstances have suggested, or your friends have proposed, you will hot hesitate to acknowledge, that in order to pursue them with advantage, some previous discipline is requisite. Be assured, that whatever is to be your profession, no education is more necessary to your success, than the acquirement of virtuous dispositions and habits.

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This is the universal preparation of every character, and every station in life. Bad as the world is, respect is always paid to virtue. In the usual course of human affairs, it will be found that a plain understanding, joined with acknow ledged worth, contributes more to prosperity, than the brightest parts without probity or honor. Whether science or business, or public life be your aim, virtue still enters, for a principle share, into all those great departments of society. It is connected with eminence in every liberal art.; with reputation, in every branch of fair and useful business; with distinction, in every public station. The vigor which it gives the mind, and the weight which it adds to character: the generous sentiments which it breathes; the undaunted spirit which it inspires; the ardor of dilligence which it quickens; the freedom which it procures from pernicious and dishonorable avocations; are the foundations of all that is highly honorable, or greatly successful among men.

Whatever ornamental or engaging endowments you now possess, virtue is a necessary requisite, in order to their shining with proper lustre. Feeble are the attractions of the fairest form, if it be suspected that nothing within corres ponds to the pleasing appearance without. Short are the triumphs of wit, when it is supposed to be the vehicle of malice. By whatever means you may at first attract the attention, you can hold the esteem, and secure the hearts of others, only by amiable dispositions, and the accomplish. ments of the mind. These are the qualities whose influence will last, when the lustre of all that once sparkled and dazzled has passed away.

Let not then the season of youth be barren of improvements, so essential to your future felicity and honor. Now is the seed-time of life; and according to "what you sow, you shall reap." Your character is now, under divine as sistance, of your own forming your fate is, in some measure, put into your own hands. Your nature is as yet pliant and soft. Habits have not established their dominion. Prejudices have not pre-occupied your understanding. The world has not had time to contract and debase your affections. All your powers are more vigorous, disembarrassed, and free, than they will be at any future period. Whatever impulse you now give to your desires and passions, the di rection is likely to continue. It will form the channel in which your life is to run; nay, it may determine its everlasting

Masting issue. Consider then the employment of this important period, as the highest trust which shall ever be committed to you; as in a great measure decisive of your bap. piness, in time, and in eternity. As in the succession of the seasons, each, by the invariable laws of Nature, affects the productions of what is next in course; so, in human life, every period of our age, according as it is well or ill spent, influences the happiness of that which is to follow. Virtuous youth gradually brings forward accomplished and flourishing manhood; and such manhood passes of itself, with Lout uneasiness, into respectable and tranquil old age. But when nature is turned out of its regular course,disorder takes place in the moral, just as in the vegetable world. If the spring put forth no blossoms, in summer there will be no beauty, and in autumn, no fruit: so, if youth be trifled away without improvement, manhood will probably be con temptible, and old age miserable. If the beginnings of life have been" vanity," its latter end can scarcely be any other than "vexation of spirit."

I shall finish this address, with calling your attention to that dependence on the blessing of heaven, which, amidst all your endeavors after improvement, you ought continmally to preserve. It is too common with the young, even when they resolve to tread the path of virtue and honor, to set out with presumptuous confidence in themselves. Trusting to their own abilities for carrying them successfully through life, they are careless of applying to God, or of deriving any assistance from what they are apt to reckon the gloomy discipline of religion. Alas! how little do they know the dangers which await them? Neither human wis dom, nor human virtue, unsupported by religion, is equal to the trying situations which often occur in life. By the shock of temptation, how frequently have the most virtuous intentions been overthrown? Under the pressure of disaster, how often has the greatest constancy sunk?" every good, and every perfect gift, is from above." Wisdom and vir tue, as well as "riches and honor, come from God." Destitute of his favor, you are in no better situation, with all your boasted abilities, than orphans left to wander in a trackless desert, without any guide to conduct them, or any shelter to cover them from the gathering storm. Correet, then, this ill founded arrogance. Expect not, that your happiness can beindependent of Him who made youth. By faith and repent

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ance,

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The good and bad Man compared

ance, apply to the Redeemer of the world. By piety and prayer, seek the protection of the God of heaven. I conclude: with the solemn words, in which a great prince delivered his dying charge to his son; words, which every young person ought to consider as addressed to himself, and to engrave deeply on his heart: "Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy fathers; and serve him with a perfect heart, and with a willing mind. For the Lord searches all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts. If thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever."

LESSON XLVII.

BLAIR,

The good and bad Man compared in the season of adversity...

RELIGION

ELIGION prepares the mind for encountering, with fortitude, the most severe shocks of adversity; whereas vice, by its natural influence on the temper, tends to produce dejection under the slightest trials. While worldly men enlarge their possessions, and extend their connections, they imagine that they are strengthening themselves against all the possible vicissitudes of life. They say in their hearts, "My mountain stands strong, and I shall never be moved." But so fatal is their delusion, that, instead of strengthening, they are weakening that which only can support them when those vicissitudes come. It is their mind which must then support them; and their mind, by their sensual attachments, is corrupted and enfeebled. Addicted with intemperate fondness to the pleasures of the wo? A.. they incur two great and certain evils: they both exclude themselves from every. resource except the world; and they increase their sensibility to every blow which comes upon them from that quarter.,

They have neither principles nor temper which can stand the assault of trouble. They have no principles which lead them to look beyond the ordinary rotation of events; and therefore, when misfortunes involve them, the prospect must be comfortless on every side. Their crimes have disquali fied them from looking up to the assistance of any higher power than their own ability, or for relying on any better guide than their own wisdom. And as from principle they

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can derive no support, so in a temper corrupted by prosperity, they find no relief. They have lost that moderation of mind which enables a wise man to accommodate himself to his situation. Long fed with false hopes, they are exasperated and stung by every disappointment. Luxurious and effeminate, they can bear no uneasiness. Proud and presumptuous, they can brook no opposition. By nourishing dispositions which so little suit this uncertain state, they have infused a double portion of bitterness into the cup of woe; they have sharpened the edge of that sword which is lifted up to smite them. Strangers to all the temperate satisfactions of a good and a pure mind; strangers to every pleasure except what was seasoned by vice or vanity, their adversity is to the last degree disconsolate. Health and opu. lence were the two pillars on which they rested. Shake either of them; and their whole edifice of hope and comfort falls. Prostrate and forlorn, they are left on the ground; obliged to join with the man of Ephraim in his abject lamenration, "They have taken away my gods, which I have made, and what have 1 more ?"-Such are the causes to which we must ascribe the broken spirits, the peevish temper, and impatient passions, that so often attend the declining age, or falling fortunes of vicious men.

But how different is the condition of a truly good man in those trying situations of life! Religion had gradually pre pared his mind for all the events of this inconstant state. It had instructed him in the nature of true happiness. It had early weaned him from an undue love of the world, by discovering to him its vanity, and by setting higher prospects in his view. Afflictions do not attack him by surprise, and therefore do not overwhelm him. He was equipped for the storm, as well as the calm, in this dubious navigation of life. Under those conditions he knew himself to be brought hither; that he was not always to retain the enjoyment of what he loved and therefore he is not overcome by disappoint ment, when that which is mortal, dies; when that which is mutable, begins to change; and when that which he knew to be transient, passes away.

All the principles which religion teaches, and all the habits which it forms, are favorable to strength of mind. It will be found, that whatever purifies, fortifies also the heart. In the course of living" righteously, soberly, and piously," a good man acquires a steady and well-governed spirit.

Trained,