the imperfections which are sometimes adherent to the most amiable qualities.

FEELINGS PROPER FOR ENTERING UPON THE DUTIES OF LIFE.

They

As all unseasonable returns to the levity of youth ought to be laid aside-an admonition which equally belongs to both the sexes-still more are we to guard against those intemperate indulgences of pleasure to which the young are unhappily prone. From these we cannot too soon retreat. open the path to ruin in every period of our days. As long, however, as these excesses are confined to the first stage of life, hope is left, that when this fever of the spirits shall abate, sobriety may gain the ascendant, and wiser counsels have power to influence the conduct. But after the season of youth is past, if its intemperate spirit remain; if, instead of listening to the calls of honor, and bending attention to the cares and the business of life, the same course of idleness and sensuality continue to be pursued; the case becomes more desperate. A sad presumption arises, that long immaturity is to prevail; and that the pleasures and passions of the youth are to sink and overwhelm the adult. Difficult, I confess, it may prove to overcome the attachments which youthful habits had for a long while been forming. Hard, at the beginning, is the task to impose on our conduct restraints which are altogether unaccustomed and new. But this is a trial which every one must undergo on entering on new scenes of action, and new periods of life. Let those who are in this situation bethink them

selves that all is now at stake. Their character and honor, their future fortune and success in the world depend, in a great measure, on the steps they take when first they appear on the stage of active life. The world then looks to them with an observing eye. It studies their behavior; and interprets all their motions, as presages of the line of future conduct which they mean to hold. Now, therefore, put away childish things; dismiss your former trifling amusements and youthful pleasures; blast not the hopes which your friends are willing to conceive of you. Higher occupations, more serious cares await you. Turn your mind to the steady and vigorous discharge of the part you are called to act.

ORDER AND METHOD.

THE observance of order and method is of high consequence for the improvement of present time. He who performs every employment in its due place and season suffers no part of time to escape without profit. He multiplies his days; for he lives much in little space. Whereas he who neglects order in the arrangement of his occupations is always losing the present in returning upon the past, and trying, in vain, to recover it when gone. Let me advise you frequently to make the present employment of time an object of thought. Ask yourselves about what are you now busied? What is the ultimate scope of your present pursuits and cares? Can you justify them to yourselves? Are they likely to produce any thing that will survive the moment, and bring forth some fruit for futu

rity? He who can give no satisfactory answer to such questions as these, has reason to suspect that his employment of the present is not tending either to his advantage or his honor. Finally, let me admonish you, that while you study to improve, you should endeavor also to enjoy the present hour. Let it not be disturbed with groundless discontent, or poisoned with foolish anxieties about what is to come; but look up to Heaven, and acknowledge with a grateful heart the actual blessings you enjoy. If you must admit that you are now in health, peace, and safety, without any particular or uncommon evils to afflict your condition, what more can you reasonably look for in this vain and uncertain world? How little can the greatest prosperity add to such a state! Will any future situation ever make you happy, if now, with so few causes of grief, you imagine yourselves miserable? The evil lies in the state of your mind, not in your condition of fortune; and by no alteration of circumstances is likely to be remedied.

MUTABILITY OF HUMAN OPINIONS.

The fashion of the world passeth away, as the opinions, ideas, and manners of men are always changing. We look in vain for a standard to ascertain and fix any of these; in vain expect that what has been approved and established for a while is always to endure. Principles which were of high authority among our ancestors are now exploded. Systems of philosophy, which were once universally received and taught as infallible truths, are now obliterated and forgotten. Modes of liv

ing, behaving, and employing time; the pursuits of the busy, and the entertainments of the gay, have been entirely changed. They were the offspring of fashion, the children of a day. When

they had run their course they expired, and were succeeded by other modes of living, and thinking, and acting, which the gloss of novelty recommended for a while to the public taste.

When we read an account of the manners and occupations, of the studies and opinions, even of our own countrymen in some remote age, we seem to be reading the history of a different world from what we now inhabit. Coming downwards through some generations, a new face of things appear. Men begin to think and act in a different train, and what we call refinement gradually opens. Arriving at our own times, we consider ourselves as having widely enlarged the sphere of knowledge on every side; having formed just ideas on every subject; having attained the proper standard of manners and behavior; and wonder at the ignorance, the uncouthness, and rusticity of our forefathers. But, alas! what appears to us so perfect shall in its turn pass away. The next race, while they shove us off the stage, will introduce their favorite discoveries and innovations; and what we now admire as the height of improvement may, in a few ages hence, be considered as altogether rude and imperfect. As one wave effaces the ridge which the former had made on the sand by the sea shore, so every succeeding age obliterates the opinions and modes of the age which had gone before it. The fashion of the world is ever passing away.

Let us only think of the changes which our own ideas and opinions undergo in the progress of life. One man differs not more from another than the

same man varies from himself in different periods of his age, and in different situations of fortune. In youth and in opulence, every thing appears smiling and gay. We fly as on the wings of fanbeauties wherever we cast our cy; and survey eye. But let some more years have passed over our heads, or let disappointments in the world have depressed our spirits; and what a change takes place! The pleasing illusions that once shone before us; the splendid fabrics that imagination had reared; the enchanting maze in which we once wandered with delight, all vanish and are forgotten. The world itself remains the same. But its form, its appearance, and aspect is changed to our view; its fashion, as to us, hath passed away.

MUTABILITY OF EXTERNAL THINGS.

WHILE our opinions and ideas are thus changing within, the condition of all external things is, at the same time, ever changing without us and around us. Wherever we cast our eyes over the face of nature, or on the monuments of art, we discern the marks of alteration and vicissitude. We cannot travel far upon the earth without being presented with many a striking memorial of the changes made by time. What was once a flourishing city is now a neglected village. Where castles and palaces stood, fallen towers and ruined walls appear. Where the magnificence of the great shone, and the mirth of the gay resounded, there, as the prophet Isaiah describes, the owl and the raven now dwell, thorns come up, and the nettle and the bramble grow in the courts.-When we read