THE

YOUNG MAN.

CLAIMS ON YOUNG MEN.

THE claims of society upon young men are of the most weighty and serious character. They grow out of those indissoluble relations which you sustain to society; and those valuable interests, social, civil, and religious, which have come down to us, a most precious inheritance, from our fathers, and which, with all the duties and responsibilities connected with them, are soon to be transferred to your hands and to your keeping. I look forward a few short years, and see the aspect of society entirely changed. The venerable fathers

be gone.

who have borne the burden and heat of the day are dropping one after another into the grave, and soon they will all Of those too, who are now the acting members of society, some have passed the meridian of life, others are passing it, and all will soon be going down its decline, to mingle with the generations who have disappeared before them, from this transient scene of action. To a mind seriously contemplating this mournful fact, it is an inquiry of deep and tender interest ;Who are to rise up and fill their places? To whom are to be committed the invaluable interests of this community? Who are to sustain its responsibilities and discharge its duties? You anticipate the answer. It is to you, young men, that these interests are to be committed, and these responsibilities transferred. You are fast advancing to fill the places of those, who are fast retiring to give place to a new generation. You are soon to occupy

the houses and own the property and fill the offices and possess the power and direct the influence that are now in other hands. The various departments of business and trust, the pulpit and the bar, our courts of justice and halls of legislation; our civil, religious and literary institutions, all, in short, that constitutes society, and goes to make life useful and happy, are to be in your hands, and under your control.

This representation is not made to excite your vanity, but to impress you with a due sense of your obligations. You cannot take a rational view of the stations to which you are advancing, or of the duties that are coming upon you, without feeling deeply your need of high and peculiar qualifications. In committing to you her interests and privileges, society imposes upon you corresponding claims; and demands that you be prepared to fill, with honor

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and usefulness, the places which you are destined to occupy. She looks to you for future protection and support, and while she opens her arms to welcome you to her high immunities and hopes, she requires of you the cultivation of those virtues, and the attainment of those qualifications, which can alone prepare you for the duties and scenes of future life.

Such being then the claims of society, let us inquire,-How you may be prepared to meet them?

And, first of all, it is demanded that you awake to a serious consideration of the duties and prospects before you. I mention this first, because, if a young man cannot be persuaded to consider what he is, and what he is to become in future life, nothing worthy or good can be expected of him. And, unhappily, this is the character of too many young men. They cannot be made to think. They seem resolved to live only for the present moment, and for