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borious and benevolent effort, that God has promised the blessings of his righteous reign over the earth.

Can you then, my young friend, be too soon or too decided in the dedication of yourself to God? Will you not need all the power of principles early formed, deeply laid, and nourished up to manhood by a faithful process of pious culture, to be prepared to act your part well in that elevated and responsible station to which God has called you? Do not, then, put this duty aside with the purpose of becoming pious at a future time. Those recorded in the Scriptures as instruments of the greatest good to mankind, served God from their youth; and this will be eminently true of those who live in an age like the present. In all probability, your embracing or rejecting religion while young, will determine your future character and influence in this world, and of course your everlasting destiny in the world to come.

Your services are wanted this moment. If it is important to the cause of God that you should be pious next year, or five years hence, it is much more important to it that you should be pious today. Whatever is done for the cause of religion to-day, is worth more than the same amount done for it at any future period. "Go work, to-day, in my vineyard." To-morrow, will not do as well; perhaps it will not do at all.

CHAPTER II.

KNOWLEDGE.

"To the young man knowledge."

IN popular usage there is some distinction between knowledge and wisdom. The one implies an acquaintance with facts, the other a right use of what is known. The man who is acquainted with facts in nature and providence-for instance, the fact that certain things taken into our systems tend to kill us, and others tend to nourish us; that industry promotes thrift, and indolence poverty; that intemperance invites disease, and temperance repels it; that benevolence brings happiness, and selfishness misery; that sin tends to destroy us, and righteousness to bless us; that mankind are involved in sin, and that God has graciously provided redemption for us; that they who accept of proffered grace and return to obedience will be delivered from ruin, and that they who do not will perish is said to have knowledge on these subjects. If he makes a right use of his knowledge,

that is, turns it to valuable account, he is said also to be wise.

The terms are, however, not unfrequently used interchangeably, as in the sacred Scriptures, to comprehend both ideas. They there express the character of the mind which aspires to rise intellectually and morally; which solicits the acquaintance, service, and enjoyment of God, as he is pre,sented in his works and word; in contrast to the mind which, conducting in a manner unworthy of its high birth and privilege, sinks down under the dominion of sensuality, stupidity, and moral death.

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The true preacher has said, "That the soul be without knowledge is not good." The human mind was made for knowledge; it is the appropriate possession and true glory of the intellect. distinguishes man from the brutes. The pursuits and pleasures of sensuality and of instinct are theirs, as well as ours; but the nobler pursuits and pleasures of the mind, are given only to man. To hold high converse with the works and government of God in the language of the great preacher, "to know wisdom and instruction, to perceive the words. of understanding; to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment, and equity; to give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion"- these are the distinguishing pre

IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE.

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Would you see the importance of knowledge on a wide and general scale? Look abroad over the world. Mark the stupendous difference between the nations elevated by knowledge, and those sunk in savage ignorance. Contrast the civilized nations of Europe and America, basking in the beams of mental illumination, with those enshrouded in mental darkness. What has made New-England the glory of all lands? Not vast physical resources; not wealth, or arms, or military prowess and the laurels of conquest; but the superior and sanctified knowledge of her fathers, and the zeal with which they taught it to their children.

Would you see the importance of knowledge more individually? Look then, just around you. Do you not see, in the case of every man who walks your streets, and acts a part in the passing scene, that "knowledge is power?" The power that wealth confers is frequently great; but the power of knowledge is far greater and more enduring. Do you not plainly see that it is the grand means by which men rise from abjectness to honor, influence, and usefulness ? And what boundless sources of exalted and enduring happiness does it open to the mind? The man who has no higher knowledge than just to exert his muscles in some accustomed way, to earn

his subsistence, may be in a measure useful and happy. But how limited and how grovelling must his happiness be, compared with his whose thoughts climb upward through nature to God whose mind, while his hands toil, has learned to converse and sympathise with other and superior minds ; who studies the laws and operations of the material and moral world; who holds communion with the past, the present and the future, and who thus lives not only in the little spot and the little interest about him, but as an heir of immortality and a denizen of the universe.

There is, among young men, a prodigious and most lamentable waste of intellect. How few do justice to their native powers. How few so improve their means and talents as to rise to that eminence which a kind providence has placed within their reach. It is peculiarly desirable to acquire as much knowledge as posible, WHILE YOUNG.

Because it is then acquired most easily. All the powers of mind are then active and elastic; the feelings are fresh and vigorous; imagination is lively; the spirit exults in buoyant hope, which nerves it to severe effort; obstacles are soon surmounted; and the plastic mind is readily moulded to patterns of exalted worth and greatness. As you advance from youth, the sinews of the mind become more stiff and rigid; it becomes less in

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