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tance, once broad, and seemingly impassable, is reduced, and constant and convenient opportunity for intercourse is afforded. With this disposition to conciliate, the professors of religion are in considerable danger of compromising their principles and of resigning the essential characteristics of their faith. The religious youth is especially liable to this peril. Unlike his pious ancestors, he is not kept at a distance from the world by mutual antipathy, nor driven by persecution into exile. On the other hand, he is brought into frequent and friendly contact with the irreligious part of society, and is invited to its pursuits both of business and pleasure. His temptations to yield to unlawful solicitations must be both numerous and powerful; his objections will be met both by argument and banter, and every device will be employed to seduce his heart from its allegiance to virtue, and to tempt his feet from her paths.

What, then, is the best antidote which the guardian of his early character can

employ? Doubtless it is thoroughly to instruct him in the principles of virtue; to put him in possession not only of the precepts, but also of the grounds of moral obligation; to give him a clear insight into the nature and moral tendency of those pleasures against which he is with propriety warned. There is in the human mind, at least before it becomes corrupted by moral evil, an instinctive love of truth. To discern it clearly is its delight, and to adhere to it firmly its pride. As soon as reason dawns to shed its light on his path, then let the youthful disciple be conducted to the temple of this fair divinity, and taught to offer at her shrine the homage of his heart. Let him be taught his dignity as a rational being, and his accountableness as a moral agent; a foundation for virtuous character will then be laid, on which, under the conduct of heavenly guidance, a superstructure may be raised, as permanent in its duration as noble and beautiful in its form.*

*The above remarks have been associated in the writer's mind with the subject of a most interesting

To encounter the formidable temptations to which he is exposed, a youth thus instructed is admirably qualified. Inspired with a love of truth, and at the same time taught to separate it from error, he will meet the attacks alike of sophistry and ridicule without fear or failure. Possessing too much skill to be foiled by the former, and too much dignity to shrink

and instructive biographical production of the Rev. J. Durant, entitled "Memoirs of an only Son." It is impossible to peruse these volumes without perceiving that they supply a striking comment on the above remarks. That this extraordinary youth possessed native qualities, both intellectual and moral, superior to those which are ordinarily allotted to human nature, it would be absurd to deny; but no doubt can be entertained, that to the course of education so singularly happy, received from his earliest years, he was mainly indebted for his high attainments, as well in moral as intellectual character. The firm attachment which he invariably manifested to truth, charms us as much as the ability with which he defended it; and the constancy with which he maintained it, in opposition to the scepticism of some of his companions in study, affords a pleasing proof how thoroughly his mind was imbued with this virtuous feeling.

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before the latter, he will be conquered by neither. Clad in intellectual panoply, and inspired by moral courage, he will be fearless of attack; and, conscious of his prowess, he will invite rather than shun the contest. He will never betray the cause which he espouses, either by ignorantly mistaking or cowardly compromising its principles. He will silence, if he cannot convince his opponents, and destroy their opposition, if he does not gain their concurrence. *He will rise with a noble superiority above the sneers and cavils and aspersions of witlings, of infidels, of libertines; preserve unimpaired the sweetness of his temper amid the overflowing of their gall; and, as he passes on with modest greatness through the whole ranks of these unhappy men, eye them by turns with generous compassion and just disdain; not unlike that fearless and flaming spirit of heaven, represented in "Paradise Lost," where, after having remonstrated

Fordyce's Addresses to Young Men.

in vain against the apostacy of the rebel angels, he is thus described by the poet :

So spake the seraph Abdiel, faithful found;
Among the faithless, faithful only he ;
Among innumerable false, unmoved,
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal ;
Nor number nor example with him wrought,
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind,
Though single. From amidst them forth he passed,
Long way through hostile scorn, which he sustained
Superior, nor of violence feared aught;

And, with retorted scorn,
his back he turned
On those proud towers, to swift destruction doomed.

There is no need, it is presumed, any further to multiply proofs of the importance of the present inquiry. Under the designation of Fashionable Amusements will be included, the Theatre, the Ball Room, Card-playing, and Novel-reading. Each amusement will be taken separately under consideration, its moral character and tendency examined, and the question discussed, whether it may correctly be pronounced a lawful amusement. The meaning affixed

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