has actually commenced, and decisive steps have been taken or previous to its commencement, when it can be brought fairly and fully before the mind, and the right course clearly marked out? The right improvement in human life must be allowed on all hands to be a great undertaking, and nothing promises so effectually to aid and secure this improvement, as a careful and serious preparation for the duties which men have to perform, before they are actually undertaken. Will it now be denied that he who makes an early and judicious preparation for the part he has to perform in the world, uses unnecessary haste and troubles himself too soon?

Let the young consider that the leisure which they at present enjoy, must pass away with the season to which it belongs. Once arrived at maturity, they will engage with zeal and earnestness, as all have done before them, in the various pursuits of the world; their connexions will increase, their employments will be far more numerous and more weighty; they will covet and eagerly seek the profit and advantage which so constantly invite human pursuit ; one will make riches his pursuit—another, honors; this, will strive to win his way to fame-that, to extend his influence over others; and all, generally speaking, will follow up their objects so closely and devotedly, as to leave themselves a very few moments for rest or thought. Unless they employ their present leisure in the way we suggest, they will hereafter have bitter cause to regret that the opportunity was, indeed, presented to them, but not wisely improved. They will lament that such an important period

of their life passed away in thoughtlessness and neglect, and sigh in vain for the benefits which it is now in their power to secure for themselves. They will experience how the cares which pertain to mature and active life, distract the mind and engross all its powers; and how the business, and the amusement, and the sorrow, and the joy that seize upon them in turn, cause their days and years to disappear with the speed of lightning, whilst they form fruitless wishes for relief from corroding care, and a freedom from almost incessant toil.

But we wish, as we pass on, to put the young on their guard against the deceitful and ruinous maxim, that theirs is the time for enjoyment and pleasure. What enjoyment? what pleasure? If by these terms be meant anything which is not strictly innocent, and prudent, and good, and religious, nothing can be more false nor more mischievous than the notion that they, more than persons of advanced age, are at liberty to seek it. Say, however, that youth is the season for innocent and rational enjoyment-let the maxim, which in its common acceptation has ruined tens of thousands, be thus limited in its signification, and we shall not object to it. On the contrary, we urge the young to seek innocent and rational enjoyment, to taste of the allowable pleasures of their age. We urge them to roam among the fields and the woods and to inhale the breezes of health, whilst they learn to admire the works of God. We urge them to delight themselves at home, and to be the delight of their parents and dearest friends. We urge them to seek society, but it must be the society of the virtuous and

religious; whose tastes they may acquire-whose pleasures they may share. We urge them to converse, in books, with the sages of other days; to cultivate a taste for reading and study, and to know the refined delight of literary occupations. Still more, we urge them to study the recorded will of God, and learn what is the exalted happiness of a religious youth. We point out to them in these hints, sources of gratification to which they can apply again and again, and neither exhaust them nor weary themselves; but let them, as they value their peace of mind and final welfare, turn a deaf ear to such as would persuade them, that the society of the indolent, the trifling, the ignorant, and the depraved, offers a single rational inducement to join them; or that levity, and disobedience, and guilt, can procure them one pleasure, which they will not purchase at too dear a rate, whatever may be the price they pay for it.

It is a strong recommendation of the diligence and sober thought which we are recommending to the youthful, that they prepare them for entering upon life, with a determinate object and in a wise course. The culture of their mental and moral powers, pursued at leisure and according to a judicious plan, will prove far more beneficial to them than they are perhaps disposed to imagine. Their correct knowledge will become highly useful both to themselves and others to themselves it will render more easy and successful the application of their industry, in any direction in which circumstances may lead them to employ it-to others, it will enable them to show frequent kindness in the form of advice, information, or other assistance which ignorance,

however kindly disposed, can seldom attempt with success. And who can estimate the benefits which result from an early and calm contemplation of life, its varieties and its duties, and the formation of moral habits. He who thus prepares himself for the engagements of active life, for the warfare which he must carry on with the powers of the world, for the discipline to which Heaven is pleased to subject us-enters upon these engagements, this warfare, and this discipline, with the advantage of years which he has not numbered; young in life, he has attained in some degree to the maturity of wisdom, and all that his best friends hope for him, and from him, is likely to be realized, as he continues to tread the path of duty, and to recede still farther from the days of his youth.

Inspect the conduct of the man who prepared not in his youth for the days that were to come, by whom early culture was neglected, and judicious plans were unformed; you will perceive with what an unsteady aim and wavering purpose he proceeds. And how can it be otherwise? He is endeavouring to form principles of conduct, when he ought to be acting upon them; and he is subject to this disadvantage, that he is too busily occupied with the affairs of the world to use that caution, deliberation, and reflection, which are absolutely necessary to the forming just and sound principles. He is swayed to the right hand or to the left, by any impulse which acts upon him, because he has not learnt to suppress the feelings whose dictates ought not to be listened to, nor taught his passions to yield without a murmur to the authority of reason and duty.-He has

a grand object before him—that of preparing himself by the discipline of time for the freedom, the glory, and bliss of eternity; but he has never seriously weighed it, nor determined in what manner it shall be most surely secured. To whom shall we liken him? He resembles the traveller-and he must be, indeed, a thoughtless one-who sets forward on his journey, without arranging his course or manner of proceeding. Such an one, having scarcely a definite object, is induced by the merest trifle to loiter away his time, and allured by the slightest temptation to deviate from his path. Here, a valley catches his eye, and he is curious to measure its extent, and ascertain if any stream meanders along it. There, a thick wood or a forest spreads its close shade over the land, and he is tempted to explore it. Now it is a hill which he is eager to climb, that he may judge of its height, and become familiar with the prospect to be viewed from its summit; and now it is the ruin of some ancient hall or abbey, and he desires to rest upon the moss-covered stones, and give his mind to vagrant and profitless thoughts. At length, he begins reluctantly to think of the end of his journey; and then he finds that night is coming upon him, and wonders why he should have thus dreamed along his road, and how he shall redeem the time he has thus thoughtlessly consumed in his wanderings. The night does come, but he cannot reach a safe and happy shelter. He, on the other hand, who has arranged the plan of his course, and made wise preparations for every thing that is likely to happen to him upon it, presses forward with a deliberate aim and a firm