Providence never blesses idleness, thoughtlessness, negligence, and extravagance. Providence helps those that help themselves. Everything, therefore, cries to you, Prepare for life." Your teachers, your parents, your masters, your ministers, say to you, "Prepare to live." Your reason, your conscience, your weakness, your ignorance of the world, say to you, "Prepare to live." The prosperity of those who have succeeded, and the poverty of those who have failed, say, "Prepare to live." The duties, trials, difficulties, and dangers of earth, the joys of heaven, and the torments of the bottomless pit, say, Prepare to live ;" and above all, the great God who has given you existence, who is willing to help you to live holily, usefully, and happily, and who will call you into judgment for the manner in which life has been spent, says to you, "Prepare to live." Can you, dare you, will you, turn a deaf ear to voices so numerous, so solemn, so consentaneous ?

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CHAPTER II.

ENTRANCE UPON LIFE.

In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. PROVERBS III. 6.

As

THIS passage of the Bible may be called the pole-star of human life, placed by the hand of God in the firmament of Scripture, for the eye of man to observe upon earth and he that fixes his attention upon it, and steers his course by it across this troubled and dangerous ocean shall enter at length the haven of everlasting peace. It is applicable to all persons and to all situations, but especially to those who are just entering upon the duties, dangers and perplexities of man's terrestrial course. a rule of conduct it is brief, simple, intelligible, and unmistakeable, easily remembered, and delightful in its observance. If it does not assert, it implies, the existtence and operations of an all-comprehensive, all-wise, all-gracious Providence, which appoints, directs, and controls the affairs of men; a Providence which is not only general, as guiding the destinies of nations and worlds, but particular and minute, as shaping the history of individuals. Some, who profess to believe in providential interposition in the great events of history, deny it in regard to the minute affairs of individuals. But who can tell what, in fact is great, and what is little, and how far great events are influenced by lesser ones? The destinies of nations have sometimes hung upon a thought. But we need not reason upon this, since Christ has

asserted that "a sparrow falleth not to the ground without the knowledge of our Heavenly Father." Without this view, the doctrine of Providence might be grand as an object of contemplation, but it could yield little. consolation as a subject of faith. Individual trust, prayer, hope, and praise, all rest upon the ground of individual Providence. It is not what God is to the universe at large, but what he is to me as an individual, that is the chief source of my comfort, and the strongest motive to do my duty. Now the text proposes him to us as an oracle to which we may individually repair; and the injunction means that, really believing God by His Providence directs all things, we should consult him by reading His Holy Word, where he has revealed His will; and that by sincere and earnest prayer we should seek His leave for everything, His direction in everything, His blessing upon everything, and His glory by everything we do. In short, it means a devout and practical remembrance of God, as the Disposer of all things, in all the varying circumstances and all the changeful situations of life; and it promises us His wise and gracious direction in all our affairs. How easy, how safe, how tranquil, how dignified a course of action! How vast the privilege of this access to an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, all-sufficient Friend, for advice, direction, and consolation! A wise and benevolent human counsellor ever at hand is a blessing, how much more one that is Divine!

So much for the introduction of this chapter: I now come to its subject, entrance upon life: by which I mean that period of a young man's existence which follows his education and apprenticeship, when he usually leaves his father's house, and becomes a shopman, clerk, or journeyman; the intermediate stage between the youth and the man of business. Yet it may be remarked that the periods and situations intended to be described and distinguished

as separate, in the last chapter and this, run much into one another, and extend onward to settlement in life and the commencement of business.

This, young men, is the situation of the greater part of those whom I address; you are most of you not in business for yourselves, but looking forward to it; you are away from your parents, and have finally left home, and therefore are just stepping upon the stage of active life, and commencing your part in the great drama, with the scenes already shifting before and around you.

Let me then remind you a little more at large,

I. Of your actual situation. It is one of deep and pressing solicitude to your parents and other friends. They have parted from you, and sent you forth almost with the feeling and the fear that you were going as lambs among wolves. They know, for they have passed through them, the dangers of youth, and especially of youth away from home. If your good conduct and wellformed character at home, have inspired them with confidence, their solicitude is somewhat abated; but even then an anxious father will exclaim, "What if this fair blossom of parental hope, which grew so beautifully and looked so lovely when sheltered under the parental roof, should now be blighted when removed to the ungenial blasts of the world's temptations; the very possibility makes my heart bleed. Oh my son, my son!" How intensely aggravated is this painful solicitude, if unhappily his child is going forth undecided in religion, unconverted to God, with no "armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left," to defend him from the assaults of temptation; and if even at home portents of future misconduct have showed themselves. "Oh," says the distressed father, "if the wholesome laws, the firm yet mild restraint of parental authority and domestic order could not repress the outbreaks of youthful irregularity,

what is to become of him, when these are withdrawn; and he is left to the unchecked strength of his own corruptions, and the force of surrounding temptations? Oh, my son, my son!" Young men, you cannot know all a father's and a mother's agonizing solicitude for you, on your going out into the world; but you can conceive of it in part, by the scenes of that sorrowful hour when amidst so many tears your mother parted from you, and, with a voice half choked, your father grasped your hand, and sobbed out, "Farewell, my boy. Behave yourself well, and comfort our hearts by your good conduct." How anxious are they to hear from you, and of you, to have their fears dissipated and their hopes confirmed. How eagerly, joyfully, and yet how tremblingly, they open every letter to judge from its contents whether there are any signs of incipient moral mischief in your character. Respect their feelings, reward their affection, relieve their solicitude. Call it not suspicion, jealousy, distrust. No, no, it is love trembling over its object, affection agonizing for its loved one. Many an hour is that mother kept waking at midnight, thinking and praying for her son who has recently left her to enter upon the world's business; and often amidst other cares, does that father feel it to be one of the mightiest of them all, to consider how his boy conducts himself in his new situation. Let me plead, then, for the peace of those two hearts which throb so anxiously for you, and for the peace of which, so far as it is in your keeping, your own ought to throb most responsively.

But I now turn from your parents, and remind you of the momentous and infinite importance of this period of your life to yourselves. It is, in all probability, the crisis of your history, the hinge of your destiny, the casting of your lot for both worlds, the formation of your character for time and for eternity. Through every hour, almost every minute, of this term, and in every scene, your cha