CONTENTS.

Criginal state of man, the, briefly considered, Tales illustrative of scripture history, No. I.,

career of holy benevolence and activity. I will not stop to point out the facilities, reasons, and motives for all this on the one hand; nor the peculiar difficulties, arising from your own temperament, and from circumstances, to be expected and encountered, on the other.

"I WRITE unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one." (1 John ii. 13, 14.) Young But I will tell you how often I men, the language of the venerable have mused, till the fire within me Apostle is, I trust, strictly applicable, has burned, at the grievous fact that as a description of character, to many a large proportion of young men, once of you. Animated with this hope, religiously disposed, at least with no and yearning for your welfare to a conscious aversion to religion, are lost degree which no language at my com- to society and to happiness through mand can adequately express, I would neglect. I have said to myself-and dare even to emulate the only kind of inspiration which I can hope to share with the holy Apostle,-the inspiration of love.

I have said to others, both in conversation and by letter-what a subject for lamentation is it that no religious effort is made specifically on the beI will not now tell you what I half of young men ! We surrender think of the vast importance of your them to the world just when they reparticular class to society; of the quire and deserve the most effective peculiar evils which the irreligious tutelage. We extinguish our dim portion of your class is always inflict-taper just at the moment when their ing on the social system; of the infi- path requires a guiding column of nite good which it might be the means of light. Multitudes of them are coneffecting if organized into a holy con- stantly issuing from our Sunday federacy for God; of the great variety Schools to take their places in society; of ways in which it might combine, others who have left the parental roof more effectually than any other class, where they have enjoyed the benefit for turning the world of evil upside of a pious example, are arriving among down; of the new elements which it us; others have been more or less acmight instrumentally infuse into ex- customed to read the sacred literature isting modes of religious and general of the day, by which their minds are usefulness; nor of the happy con- informed, if not divinely impressed; junction of circumstances which at all of them have been trained to an the present day marks it out, and attendance on the public ordinances calls on it aloud to enter on a splendid of religion; and a much larger proVOL I.

portion of them than is commonly value of the literary articles sent for supposed have by these means re- insertion, and on contingent circumceived a religious bias, at least, which stances. When first I heard of the only requires to be guided and encou- project, I pictured to my mind the raged in order to become, by the grace beau ideal of a 'Young Men's Maof God, a religious character. But gazine"-not of its gross material what is the fact? They are lost attributes, form, size, colour-but of lost through our neglect. Here and its mental qualities and religious obthere, indeed, one enters the Christian jects. It should be sustained, thought ministry; two or three become teach-I, by the loftiest sanctified talent of ers in Sunday Schools, and assume a the age. Genius should lay the most Christian profession; and two or three precious offerings on its altar; and more render themselves useful in taste adorn its shrine; and learning other ways. But as to the great pour out its selectest spice-woods and majority of them-where are they? incense: and poesy kindle its fires; Gone over to the world. We adopted and religion conduct and bless the no specific means to attract, retain, service. Animalism, and all debasing and employ them, and the consequence enjoyments should be held up to reis, that we have lost them; the world probation in its pages; and all those did employ means, and has succeeded natural sensibilities should be nouin enrolling them as her own. rished which, though not piety itself, Judge, then, my delight on finding is a soil in which the spirit of piety that Societies, formed exclusively of loves to cast its seed. Instead of young men, are beginning to be or- supposing, as many of the public ganized, or rather, have already taken literary guides appear to do, that the rank among the noble institutions of opposite of ignorance is knowledge, the day. In these associations- and that knowledge itself is a bare rightly conducted—you cannot fail to statement of facts, it should not only learn the strength of union; you show that a thing is, but lay it open will originate plans of usefulness, and to view in its causes and effects, point lay trains of salutary influence; you out its relations and resemblances, and will become centres of attraction to wisely improve the emotions which it the young men around you, and is calculated to excite. It should models to be copied by others at a discourse "of pleasures lying on the distance, or, yet unborn; you will unfolding intellect plenteously as enjoy the healthful happiness to be morning dew-drops-of knowledge found in useful activity; be building inhaled insensibly like the fragrance— up your characters into lofty structures of dispositions stealing into the spirit of moral excellence; and be an like music from unknown quartersarmory from which the militant of images uncalled for and rising up church of God will derive her most like exhalations-of hopes plucked burnished and effective weapons. like beautiful wild-flowers from the As a part of your machinery you ruined tombs that borders the highwisely propose to have a "Young ways of antiquity, to make a garland Men's Magazine." The practical for a living forehead." It should be value of such an agency will, of wise to warn its readers of the thoucourse, materially depend on the way in which it is conducted. But this, again, will greatly depend on its size, the subjects on which it treats, the

sand evils clustering about their path; and should walk before them with a lamp lighted at the altar of heaven in its hand. It should call up the actions

and characters of exalted virtue which " Young Men's Magazine" ought to have enriched the world in ages that be. What the reality is, you are be

are past, causing them to live and ginning to see. As far as dimensions walk again for the benefit of the pre- and appearance go, it may not promise sent. It should convince them that much. But it is a beginning; that what has been may be again; that is something. And having begun, it their lives can be "poetry and religion is for you to say how rapid its imput into action" now, as well as at provement shall be, and to what exany former time. It should show the tent that improvement shall be carried. objects to which the past has attached Not only ought you yourselves to be undue importance; the judgment better and greater than all the generawarped by prejudice and misled by tions of young men who have gone party; time wasted in speculative before you, but all the agents and and fruitless controversy; and the instruments you employ should be minds and systems which have swayed constantly advancing and improving a sceptre, owing to the weakness of also. Look on nothing as quite fit for their admirers rather than their own you, as long as it remains short of strength. It should call attention perfection. especially to prevailing modes of education, point out their essential defects and pernicious results, and inquire whether the foundations of the great pyramid of society do not need to be laid anew in a reformed and national education. It should ascertain what the present age is in itself positively, what it is as compared with the past, and thus, if possible, discover what is to be hoped, what feared, for the future, and what to be done for the present.

It should be a book for the present day; exhibiting the evils, tendencies, and wants of the time current. Laying its foundation in an earnest and evangelical piety, it should propose to the hopes and aims of its readers great objects, and kindle within them great expectations. Let it do this, and it will be a moral engine of transcendent power. It might not merely be the means of plucking off the leaves from many of the upas-trees which still pollute and poison the social atmosphere, but, by the divine blessing, it might even destroy them root and branch, and plant in their places an equal number of the trees of life for future generations.

Such was my idea of what a

Regard this Periodical as peculiarly your own; originated by you, and conducted for you. With this impression you will sincerely desire to make it God's-you will humbly dedicate it to his service, and earnestly implore on it his divine benediction. For, remember, nothing is blessed till he blesses it; and when he blesses an undertaking there need be no limit to success.

WHAT YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE; OR,
THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF SOCIE-
TIES FOR THE REFORMATION OF

MANNERS.

(From the Christian Visitor.) ABOUT 1668, there were several young men in the Metropolis brought under very great concern of mind respecting eternal realities. These serious impressions were made, under divine influence, by the preaching of Dr. Horneck and Mr. Smithies, distinguished clergymen of the Church of England, the latter of whom preached a morning lecture at Cornhill, chiefly to young people. When the minds of these young men were illuminated they began to view their own sins, and the sins of others, in a light very