pleasure, but to enjoy it in safety. Instead of abridging it, we exhort you to pursue it on an extensive plan: We propose measures for securing its possession, and for prolonging its duration.

On the proper management of our time.

To be impressed with a just sense of the value of time, it is highly requisite that we should introduce order into its management. Consider well, then, how much depends upon it, and how fast it flies away. The bulk of men are in nothing more capricious and inconsistent than in their appreciation of time. When they think of it as the measure of their continuance on earth, they highly prize it, and with the greatest anxiety seek to lengthen it out. But when they view it in separate parcels, they appear to hold it in contempt, and squander it with inconsiderable profusion. While they complain that life is short, they are often wishing its different periods at an end. Covetous of every other possession, of time only they are prodigal. They allow every idle man to be master of this property, and make every frivolous occupation welcome that can help them to consume it. Among those who are so careless of time, it is not to be expected that order should be observed in its distribution. But by this fatal neglect, how many materials of severe and lasting regret are they laying up in store for themselves! The time which they suffer to pass away in the midst of confusion, bitter repentance seeks afterwards in vain to recail. What was omitted to be done at its proper moment, arises to be the torment of some future season. Manhood is disgraced by the consequences of neglected youth.

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Old age, oppressed by cares that belonged to a for mer period, labours under a burden not its own. At the close of life, the dying man beholds with an guish that his days are finishing, when his prepara tion for eternity is scarcely commenced. Such are the effects of a disorderly waste of time, in not attending to its value. Every thing in the life of such persons is misplaced.

He, on the contrary, who is orderly in the distribution of his time, takes the proper method of escaping those manifold evils. By proper management he prolongs it. He lives much in little space; more in a few years than others do in many. He can live to God and his own soul, and at the same time attend to all the lawful interests of the present world. He looks back on the past, and provides for the future. He catches the hours as they fly. They are marked down for useful purposes, and their memory remains. But by the man of confusion those hours fleet like a shadow. His days and years are either blanks, of which he has no remembrance, or they are filled up with a confused and irrégular succession of unfinished transactions. He remembers indeed that he has been busy, yet he can give little account of the business which has employed him.

The necessity of depending for success on the blessing of Heaven.

Let me finish the subject, with recalling your attention to that dependance on the blessing of Heaven, which, amidst all your endeavours after improvement, you ought continually to preserve. It is too common with the young, even when they re

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solve to tread the path of virtue and honour, to set out with presumptuous confidence in themselves. Trusting to their own abilities for carrying them succesfully 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? Destitute of the favour of God, you are in no better situation, with all your boasted abilities, than orphans left to wander in a trackless desert, without any guide to odüct them, or any shelter to cover them from the gathering storm. Correct, then, this ill-founded arrogance. Expect not, that your happiness can be independent 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.

The employment of time

Redeeming your time from those dangerous wastes of it, which lead our youth into every disorder and confusion in society, seek to fill it with employment which you may review with satisfaction. The acquisition of knowledge is one of the most honourable 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, a course of education always fumishes 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, exempts you from the duties of application and industry. Industry the law of our being; it is the demand of nature, of reason, and of God. Remember always, that the years which now pass aver your heads, leave permanent memorials behind thein. 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, el.or for or against you, at that day when, for all your actions, but particularly for the employ ment of youth, you must give an account to God. 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.

Irregular pleasures.

By the unhappy excesses of irregular pleasures in youth, how many amiable dispositions are corrupted or destroyed! How many rising capacities and powers are suppressed! How many flattering hopes of parents and friends are totally extinguish

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Who but must drop a tear over human nature, when he behoids that morning, which rose so bright, overcast with such untimely darkness; that good

humour, which once captivated all hearts, that vivacity which sparkled in every company, those abilities which were fitted for adorning the highest stations, all sacrificed at the shrine of low sensuality; and one who was formed for running the fair career of life in the midst of public esteem, cut off by his vices at the beginning of his course, or sunk for the whole of it into insignificancy and contempt?-These, O sinful Pleasure, are thy trophies! It is thus that co-operating with the foe of God and man, thou degradest human honour, and blasteth the opening prospect of human felicity.

Industry and application.

Diligence, industry, and proper improvement of time, are material duties of the young. To no purpose are they endowed with the best abilities, if they want activity for exerting them. Unavailing, in this case, will be every direction that can be given them, either for their temporal or spiritual welfare. In youth, the habits of industry are most easily acquired in youth, the incentives to it are strongest, from ambition and from duty, from emulation and hope, from all the prospects which the beginning of life affords. If, dead to these 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 indo lent mind. He who is a stranger to industry, may possess, but he cannot enjoy. For it is labour only which gives the relish to pleasure. It is the appointed vehicle of every good to man.

It is the in