calls, you already languish in slothful inaction, what will be able to quicken the more sluggish current of advancing years?

Industry is not only the instrument of improvement, but the foundation of pleasure. Nothing is so opposite to the true enjoyment of life as the relaxed and feeble state of an indolent mind. He who is a stranger to industry may possess, but he cannot enjoy. For it is labor only which gives the relish to pleasure. It is the appointed vehicle of every good to man. It is the indispensable condition of our possessing a sound mind in a sound body. Sloth is SO inconsistent with both, that it is hard to determine whether it be a greater foe to virtue or to health and happiness. Inactive as it is in itself, its effects are fatally powerful. Though it appear a slowly flowing stream, yet it undermines all that is stable and flourishing. It not only saps the foundation of every virtue, but pours upon you a deluge of crimes and evils. It is like water, which first putrifies by stagnation, and then sends up noxious vapors, and fills the atmosphere with death.

Fly, therefore, from idleness, as the certain parent both of guilt and of ruin. And under idleness I include not mere inaction only, but all that circle of trifling occupations, in which too many saunter away their youth, perpetually engaged in frivolous society or public amusements; in the labors of dress, or the ostentation of their persons. Is this the foundation which you lay for future usefulness and esteem? By such accomplishments do you hope to recommend yourselves to the thinking part of the world, and to answer the expectations of your friends and your country?-Amusements youth requires. It were vain, it were cruel

to prohibit them. But though allowable as the relaxation, they are most culpable as the business of the young. For they then become the gulph of time and the poison of the mind. They foment bad passions. They weaken the manly powers. They sink the native vigor of youth into contemptible effeminacy.

Redeeming your time from such dangerous waste, seek to fill it with employments which you may review with satisfaction. The acquisition of knowledge is one of the most honorable occupations of youth. The desire of it discovers a liberal mind, and is connected with many accomplishments and many virtues. But though your train of life should not lead you to study, the course of education always furnishes proper employments to a well disposed mind. Whatever you pursue, be

emulous to excel. Generous ambition and sensibility to praise are, especially at your age, among the marks of virtue. Think not that any affluence of fortune, or any elevation of rank exempt you from the duties of application and industry. Industry is the law of our being--it is the demand of Nature, of Reason, and of God. Remember always, that the years which now pass over your heads leave permanent memorials behind them. From your thoughtless minds they may escape; but they remain in the remembrance of God. They form an important part of the register of your life. They will hereafter bear testimony, either for or against you, at that day, when, for all your actions, but particularly for the employments of youth, you must give an account to God.

Thus I have set before you some of the chief qualifications which belong to that sober mind, that virtuous and religious character, which the apos

tle recommends to youth; piety, modesty, truth, benevolence, temperance, and industry. Whether your future course is destined to be long or short, after this manner it should commence; and, if it continue to be thus conducted, its conclusion, at what time soever it arrives, will not be inglorious or unhappy. For honorable age is not that which standeth in length of time, or that which is measured by number of years. But wisdom is the gray

hair to man, and an unspotted life is old age.

Let us finish the subject with recalling your attention to that dependence on the blessing of Heaven, which, amidst all your endeavors after improvement, you ought continually 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 presumptous 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 wisdom nor human virtue, unsupported by religion, are 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 virtue, 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. Correct then this ill founded arrogance. Expect not that

your happiness can be nidependent of Him who made you. By faith and repentance 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. Thou, 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 searcheth 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.

INNOCENT ENJOYMENT.

WHILE religion condemns such pleasures as are immoral, it is chargeable with no improper austerity in respect of those which are of an innocent kind. Think not, that by the cautious discipline which it prescribes, it excludes you from all gay enjoyment of life; within the compass of that sedate spirit, to which it forms you, all that is innocently pleasing will be found to lie. It is a mistake to imagine that in constant effusions of giddy mirth, or in that flutter of spirits which is excited by a round of diversions, the chief enjoyment of our state consists. Were this the case, the vain and the frivolous would be on better terms for happiness than the wise, the great, and the good. To arrange the plans of amusement, or to preside in the haunts of jollity, would be more desirable than to exert the highest effort of mental powers for the

benefit of nations. A consequence so absurd is sufficient to explode the principle from which it flows. To the amusements and lesser joys of the world religion assigns their proper place. It admits of them, as relaxations from care, as instruments of promoting the union of men, and of enlivening their social intercourse. But though, as long as they are kept within due bounds, it does not censure nor condemn them, neither does it propose them as rewards to the virtuous, or as the principal objects of their pursuit. To such it points out nobler ends of action. Their felicity it engages them to seek in the discharge of a useful, an upright, and honorable part in life; and, as the habitual tenor of their mind it promotes cheerfulness and discourages levity.

Between these two there is a wide distinction: and the mind which is most open to levity is frequently a stranger to cheerfulness. It has been remarked, that transports of intemperate mirth are often no more than flashes from the dark cloud; and that in proportion to the violence of the effulgence is the succeeding gloom. Levity may be the forced production of folly or vice: cheerfulness is the natural offspring of wisdom and virtue only. The one is an occasional agitation, the other a permanent habit. The one degrades the character, the other is perfectly consistent with the dignity of reason, and the steady and manly spirit of religion. To aim at a constant succession of high and vivid sensations of pleasure is an idea of happiness altogether chimerical. Calm and temperate enjoyment is the utmost that is allotted to man. Beyond this we struggle in vain to raise our state; and, in fact, depress our joys by endeavoring to heighten them. Instead of those fallacious hopes of perpetual festivity, with which the world would allure us, religion