"That loudest laugh of hell, the pride of dying rich." Guard against the self-diffidence, distrust, and despondency, which would lead you to form too low an opinion of your own capability and resources, on the one hand; and on the other, against the complacent self-reliance, confidence, and conceit, which would lead you to think you can do everything. While you neither lean altogether upon your own understanding, nor trust implicitly to your own heart, remember they can both do something for you, and are both to be employed. Start upon the journey of life with the conviction that you can, by God's help and blessing, do something, yea, much, for yourself. Have faith in God first of all, and next to this, have faith in yourselves as God-sustained. Enter into the apostle's

words, catch their spirit, and imitate their union of personal activity and confidence with dependence on divine help; "Through Christ strengthening me, I can do all things."

Take heed against flexibility of principle, purpose, and character, in reference to what is right, and obstinate perseverance in what is wrong. Be master of yourself. Have a will of your own, but be governed by your own convictions. Knowing what is right, do it, though you stand alone, and though the world laugh in a chorus. Possess that due degree of moral courage which, while it leaves you in possession of true shame when doing what is wrong, will extinguish all false shame in doing what is right. It is a noble sight to behold a young man stand with his back against the wall of truth, and, with the shield of faith, repel the arrows of a multitude of assailants. Be an oak, not an osier. Let it be seen that you can resist the force of persuasion, the influence of oratory, the ridicule of the witty, the sarcasms of the scornful, the contagion of sympathy with the multitude. It is a great, good, and glorious thing, to be able in some circumstances to say "No," and to stand by it. On the other hand, it is no less great, good, and glorious to say

E

"I am wrong," when charged with an error, and convinced that you have committed it. An obstinate perseverance in a bad course, to avoid the shame and humiliation of confessing that you are wrong, is neither dignity nor greatness of mind, but stubborn imbecility, the obstinacy of a brute.

Avoid equally a total indifference to the good opinion of others, and a craving after admiration and applause. Seek to be approved rather than to be admired. Covet the esteem of the wise and the good; but do not hunger after the indiscriminate praise of any and every body. Rather seek to be excellent, than desire to be thought so. To wish to stand well with those whose praise is virtuous is lawful; but to be always anxious for the admiration of others is contemptible. The former is itself an exercise of virtue, the other is mere vanity. Guard against this vanity; it will make you far more solicitous about praise than principle, and willing to sacrifice the one for the other.

Avoid the extremes of credulity and suspicion in reference to mankind; of trusting everybody, as if all were worthy of your confidence; and of trusting nobody, as if all were knaves. Be cautious whom you trust, but do not suppose that every one will betray you. It is well to be reserved, but not to be suspicious; to be prudent, but not misanthropic. On the other hand, as the danger of the young lies rather in being too frank, open, and ingenuous, than too retiring and exclusive, study well the character of every one before you give him your confidence.

V. Perhaps I cannot do better than add to all I have said a few maxims, which may be considered as condensing some parts of the substance of this chapter, and which, as most easily remembered, may be of some service to you in your progress through life.

Your future history and character will be in a great measure of your own making, therefore pause and consider what you will make yourself.

What you would be in future, that begin to be at once; for the future is not at a great distance, but close at hand: the moment next to the present is the future, and the next action helps to make the future character.

While you consult your friends on every important step, (and this is at once your duty and your privilege,) rely less upon them than upon yourself; and ever combine self-reliance with dependence upon God, whose assistance and blessing come to the help of a man's own industry.

If setting out in life in the possession of property, let your dependence for success, after all, be less upon it, than upon industry. Industry creates capital, but beginginning with capital has in many cases made a man careless and improvident, and destroyed his industry.

Consider the importance of the first wrong step. That first one leads to many others, and may be more easily avoided than any that follows it.

True religion (which means the habitual fear of God and sin), is your best friend for both worlds; multitudes owe their all to it; and multitudes more who have been ruined by vice, folly, and extravagance, would have been saved from them all had they lived in the fear of God.

Those who would live without religion would not die without it but to enjoy its comforts in death you must submit to its influence in life; and those who would have it in life should seek it in youth.

The perfection of human character consists of piety, prudence, and knowledge. Make that noble trio your own.

Whatever specious arguments infidelity may put forth in defence of itself, and whatever objections it may bring against Christianity, hold fast the Bible till the infidel can furnish you a more abundant evidence of truth, a better rule of life, a more copious source of consolation, a surer ground of hope, and a more certain and glorious prospect of immortality. And remember that spiritual

religion is a better defence against the seductions of infidelity and false philosophy than the most powerful or subtle logic.

Enter upon life as you would wish to retire from it, and spend time on earth as you would wish to spend eternity in heaven.

I now leave the subject for your most devout and serious reflection. Entering upon life! How weighty the phrase, how momentous the consideration, how solemn the anticipation! A hundred millions, perhaps, of your fellow-creatures are at this moment like you entering upon life. What an infinity of weal and woe is bound up in the history of that vast aggregate of human beings. But this, all this, is of less consequence to you than that one life on which you are entering. For in the history of our world, in the convulsions of nations, in the revolutions of empires, in the stream of universal history, yea, in the chronicles of all other worlds than your own, there is less to affect your happiness, than in that one life which is before you. You are in life; you cannot go back; you must go on. Whether you shall exist or not, is not left to your option; it is a question settled; you are in being, never, never to go out of it. What you have to determine is, (and oh! what is involved in the determination!) how existence shall be spent by you, and whether it shall be to you an infinite and eternal blessing, or an infinite and eternal curse. In view of such a career, let me, with an importunity which words are far too feeble to express, beseech you to take up the language of the passage at the head of this chapter, as the rule of your conduct: "In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths."

CHAPTER III.

INDECISION

AS TO RELIGION.

And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him but if Baal, then follow him. 1 KINGS, xix, 21.

THE scene to which this passage of the Jewish narrative refers, is one of the most sublime and important to be found in the whole range of history, being no less than the great trial between true and false religion, in answer to the challenge of Elijah, which terminated so gloriously in the complete triumph of the former. A strange and almost incurable propensity to idolatry had ever been evinced by the Israelitish race, obviously springing from that depravity of their nature which made them long for deities congenial to their own corrupted taste. The spirituality and purity of the true God offended them. They could not be content with a religion of which faith was the great principle of action; but coveted objects of worship which could be presented to their senses, and which would be tolerant of their vices. Among the idol gods of antiquity, Baal sustained a distinguished place.*

* Baal was originally not a proper name, but a common noun equivalent to God, and employed to designate the true God: but when idolatry arose, it was applied to the various objects of false worship. It is supposed by some that as the worship of the heavenly bodies was the first departure from the true religion, Baal was the representative of the This was the God of the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and indeed of many other nations; by whom he was variously

sun.