The strength and power of any community is in its young men. For weal or woe, they give it tone and character, and life and energy. They will also be its future leaders. Out of their ranks must come forth the husbands, the fathers, the merchants, the operatives, the municipal fathers and legislators, the pillars both of the state and of the church. The very being and, much more, the well-being, of this as of every other community, rests, therefore, upon the opinions, character, and habits of the young men whose strength is now their glory or their shame.

THE PECULIAR TEMPTATIONS OF YOUNG MEN.

And hence, of all other classes, our young men most emphatically stand in need of the benefits and blessings of Christian association. That energy, strength, and boldness which constitute their glory is at the same time the source of their greatest danger. Their pride, passion, and love of independence, like unbroken steeds, spurn the control of reason, laugh at experience, and, dreaming of no sickness, disease, or death, give the reins to passion, rush into the very whirlwind of temptation, and sport merrily while their hand is upon the lion's mane and their feet upon the hole of the serpent. The general arrangements of business, its ungodly "HASTING after" riches, its utter disregard of the health,

happiness, and morals of the young men who are its instruments, and the whole nature of their surrounding circumstances and conditions, expose our young men to peculiar and almost irresistible temp

tations.

The perverted spirit of our free institutions, the want of consideration, intellectual pride, immorality, and the inevitable tendency of spiritual darkness to shut out from itself the light, lead many young men to skepticism in one or other of its Protean forms. If too conscientious and enlightened to fall a prey to this snare of the destroyer, the same causes render young men unwilling to submit fully to the gospel, and induce them to take shelter from the storm and tempest of conscience in some refuge of lies, some man-constructed system of doctrine or philosophy, by which-imagining they must think for themselves, that is, hold opinions different from those around them-they are easily beguiled. "I have been," said such a one, when dying, "a most wicked and incorrigible opponent of the whole Christian system; and I know not why I was so, but for the pride of opinion."

In these ways, and by every device, Satan blinds the eyes of young men, closes their ears, and locks their hearts, so that they may permit their day of grace to pass away. This is all he wants; and his end is gained, whether this is accomplished by vice, folly, frivolity, or vain philosophy, falsely so called.

"The young Lord Littleton was in early life the subject of deep impressions, under the influence of which, he informs us, he retired at a particular time to his chamber to pray, with the intention of committing his soul to God. As he was on the point of kneeling to engage in prayer, he concluded to turn aside and close his window-shutter. At the window he saw a band of musicians parading the streets. The splendour of their appearance caught his eye; their inspiring notes ravished his ear; he rushed from his apartment to the street, joined in the crowd, banished his seriousness, and felt the strivings of the Spirit no more." This was all that Satan desired; since in gaining this he gained, and Lord Littleton lost, all. If the fly can only be attracted by its glare to circle round the flame until, intoxicated, it falls into it, its wings are lost; and, if not destroyed at once, it is destroyed inevitably. "I am a candidate for a fortune," said a young man recently in the flush of health and the ardour of hopeful prospects, " and I am bound to die rich!" Alas! within a year he was dead, and that too before he was rich either in earthly or in heavenly

treasures.

Ah! thus it is that, while Christ and his bride the church stand in their very presence, beckoning them to heaven and holding forth the crown of an immortal heaven with its imperishable, eternal weight of glory, thoughtless and blinded youth cast their all

upon a moment's die,-eternity, the prize of life, salvation through the blood of the Lamb;-and, Esau-like, barter every thing for baubles, "and buy only eternal pains!"

Of all others, therefore, young men stand in need of association, of the power which is found in the example, influence, advice, encouragement, sympathy, companionship, and occupation which are so powerfully brought to bear upon them by association with those of their own age who have like passions, feelings, and temptations with themselves.

YOUTH THE CRISIS OF MAN'S CHARACTER AND DESTINY.

Youth is the crisis of a man's character,-the tide of life which, taken at its height, leads on, according to the power that moves it, to a life of glory and of goodness, or to one of shame, hard impenitence, and unbelief. Of the crimes of Great Britain, one-fourth are ascribed to parties under twentyone years of age. In three years, eight hundred and thirty-three offenders under that age were committed to the Glasgow prison.

The number of criminals under twenty years of age, imprisoned in 1815, in Britain, was 6803, or 1 in 449 of the population between ten and twenty years of age; while in 1844 they amounted to 11,348, or 1 in 304 of the population of the same age.

In London, between the years 1844 and 1848, the proportion of criminals under twenty years of age to the population of the metropolis under that age increased from 1 in 56 to 1 in 47.

One leading question of the present age, therefore, is to know how to deal with juvenile delinquents.

THE NUMBER AND IMPORTANCE OF YOUNG MEN IN ANY COMMUNITY.

Such are the temptations of young men, and such the danger of their being lost to society, and of their becoming a curse instead of a blessing.

Now, there are probably not fewer than between two and three thousand young men in this city. They are essential to its very existence. There is not a store in this city which would not be closed but for the needful services of its young men; not a counting-house, not a workshop, not a printingpress, which would not be broken up if deprived of their vigorous and energetic young men. As principals, as bookkeepers, as clerks, as hands and operatives, men still endowed with the energy, enterprise, and strength of youth sustain and carry on the various busy operations of this and of every other mercantile community.

The character of any city, therefore,-of its business, its manufactures and its arts, depends on the character of the young men.