emotion. We can easily avoid the precipice; but the little pools and hollows on the moor, which are often covered with a deceptive verdure, are not so easily shunned. Here, caution must be used, or we shall not fail to stumble.

The pursuits of the young are generally lax and misdirected. Their minds are often rather polished than strengthened by that discipline of education, to which they are for the most part subjected. Their acquirements are too frequently intended for display, rather than for use. There is more of the glitter of learning, than that lustre of true wisdom, which has descended from above to make us "wise unto salvation," and of which it has been so truly said, "she is more precious than rubies; and all the things that thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her."

Those studies which are pursued during our adolescent years, must of necessity be superficial and incomplete. They form but an induction of preparatory materials, upon which to raise a more perfect superstructure, when the mind shall be in a higher degree matured. But those materials are often suffered to perplex by their variety, where due care is not taken to render them clearly perceptible by the tender understanding. They may, indeed, in the main, be proportioned to the age and comprehensions of those for whose benefit they are employed; still, they require continual attention on the part of the instructor, to render them

profitable to the interests of the soul as well as to the enlargement of the mind; for every new difficulty which arises to perplex the young and ardent intellect, requires fresh aids to render it intelligible. If these aids be not continually supplied, the spirit languishes over a dry and barren task, and recoils at length in disgust from the obstacles which oppose its improvement, and which its unassisted or misdirected reason cannot remove.

These observations will apply particularly to religion, which is generally made quite a secondary matter in our juvenile studies. Far from going up to its ulterior and sublimer objects, our mere elementary views of it, in the earlier period of our lives, generally reach not beyond its first and simple principles. Even these are for the most part loosely or carelessly explained, and left to work their way into the heart almost by intuition, at a time when the judgment is unripe, and reflection an irksome discipline. Therefore it is, that we are then so much more inclined to drive it altogether from our thoughts, than to encourage its possession of them.

How often are the young allowed rather to thrive in the prolific hot-beds of sin, than turned into those "fat pastures" where they may "apply their hearts unto wisdom"! How much more earnestly are they taught the trifling accomplishments of life, rather than to "grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ"? How many pressing motives to virtue; how many inducements

to adore with all our hearts and souls and strength, the Saviour of our race; how many imposing truths; how many valuable maxims; how many important precepts in the book of God, remain unobserved or disregarded! What lofty themes of instruction; how many striking views of a sublime morality, are passed over, as subjects fit only for the investigation of a riper judgment! With what exalted rules of conduct, improving discussions, and salutary doctrines, do not the Holy Scriptures abound, which are left for the consideration of maturer years? "Who is wise, and he shall understand these things; prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them." And yet, in our youth, how often and how sadly are "these things hidden from our eyes"! In this minority of reason, how perpetually are those glowing sensibilities, native in the young and enthusiastic heart, crushed in warping the tender mind into the repulsive discipline of speculative study! These are serious considerations for guardians and parents. Let us advance to the period when the capacity has reached its maturity. Do our religious studies become then necessarily more profound than in the springtime of existence, when we were only laying open the soil to receive the seed, which we calculated should afford us a harvest in our riper years? No! laxity in youth generally ripens into recklessness in manhood. Where our minority has been suffered

to pass in an almost total neglect of religion, we shall be little likely to occupy ourselves, in our adult years, with its more paramount obligations. The leaven of indifference will remain, and there will be little anxiety to purge it out. What are but too frequently our spiritual derelictions? We neglect God to worship Mammon. We "look not into Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith," but only regard Him superficially. We encourage no sensations of glowing gratitude; our hearts do not "burn within us," when we direct our thoughts to Him who died for "our sins, and rose again for our justification." We are too much occupied with the affairs of this life to "lay up in store" for the life everlasting. The schemes of the present, too much engross our thoughts; and while these are almost wholly absorbed by our profits or our pleasures, we madly put off to "a more convenient season," the vastly important business of salvation. In the meanwhile, the book of God's law is left to moulder in the undisturbed dust of the ark.

These are, it is true, melancholy views of human frailty, and of human tendencies. Let us, however, as an incentive to holier thoughts, recall the occurrences of past years, and we shall probably find them but too much confirmed in ourselves. We shall, indeed, trace a miscellaneous confusion of events, from which little of actual good has accrued to us, but much of positive evil. We shall commonly find, that the knowledge of spiritual

things has been suppressed, in order that no check might be opposed to the interests of this life, and the wide arena of enjoyment entered without any compunctious opposition of conscience. Let us turn to our hearts, and there inquire to what truths we have directed our belief-upon what particular maxims we have determined our course of conduct--by what motives we have been guided in the general concerns of life, and, we shall, perhaps, be surprised to find the embarrassment which such interrogations will occasion us. We shall probably discover, that, if we have not absolutely "despised wisdom and made a mock at sin," we have nevertheless often "left the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness" that we have obtained notions vague and imperfect, of matters the most desirable to be known: that if we have been rich in the knowledge of the world, we have been poor in the knowledge of God: that we have often mistaken the false laws of honour, for the true rules of duty; the rash assumptions of theorists, for the axioms of moral truth: that the most sacred and sublime assurances have been frequently arrested in the progress of our hearts, by some tenet to which fashion has imparted her sanction, or by some dogma which infidelity has but too successfully propagated. We may discover in this general retrospection, that virtue has failed to kindle our bosoms into admiration of her purity; that we have been less attracted by the "beauty