ON

THE REVERENCE

WHICH

YOUNG MEN OWE TO THEMSELVES.

MY HONOURED FRIENDS,

O fet forth your importance in life,

Tin

in fociety, in the general system, to point out the good qualities which you have received from the Fountain of Goodnefs, and to demonstrate the Respect with which you ought, on both accounts, to be treated, was the chief object of the preceding Addrefs. To explain and enforce the Reverence which, on many accounts, you owe to Yourselves, is the purpose of the prefent. At the tribunal in your own breafts, I am to plead your caufe. It is the cause of Humanity, and of Heaven.

After afferting the regard due to you from others, and conscious as I am of paying it among the rest, I fhould be forry to see you forget your juft confequence, or act as

if you did..

Is there danger then, that youth should treat themselves with difrefpect? Have they not often been accused of magnifying their dignity in their own opinion, as well as claiming from others a degree of esteem to which their right was not very clear? Let us diftinguish.

That young man who pretends to more merit than he poffeffes, or who values. himself on trifles which imply none, will, from the difcerning, draw contempt instead of honour. In the eagerness of his purfuit after praises which he does not deferve, he will be apt to overlook the advantages which he really has, and to neglect the cultivation of those virtues with. which he was endowed by the Author of his

frame. On the other hand, he who pays himself juft refpect will generally bid faireft to meet it from others. It is impoffible ferioufly to despise a dignified behaviour; and the very wretch, who affects to laugh at a character truly honourable, cannot help at the fame moment feeling within himself inferiority and awe.

Among the profoundeft and the nobleft maxims of ancient philofophy, we may fairly reckon that which inculcated Self-reverence. Perhaps, Gentlemen, it is one of the first and most comprehenfive rules of right practice. Thofe that are habitually afraid of offending against the beft convictions of their own hearts, will not often go far wrong, at whatever period of life: but thofe that follow this direction early, before their fentiments have had time to be perverted by their paffions, or warped by the world, are furely leaft expofed to deviation.