piety. Happy youth! to be thus snatched from the vortex of perdition at home, and brought into the way of salvation abroad. Oh prize your privileges, and improve your opportunities. Many a young man, who, at the time of leaving home, wept over the necessity which caused him to quit the scenes of his childhood, and go from beneath the wing of his parents, has lived to consider it the brightest era of his life, inasmuch as it took him away from scenes of moral danger, and led him to the means of grace and the path of eternal life and in looking back upon the way of Providence, and upon his own feelings and ignorance of what awaited him, has exclaimed, "Thou bringest the blind in a way that they knew not, and leadest them in paths that they have not known; thou makest darkness light before them, and crooked things straight."

This, however, is not applicable to all families: if there are some parents who take no care about the religious or even moral character of their children, who neither set them good examples, nor deliver to them any instruction, nor impose upon them any restraint, but who allow them the unchecked gratification of their passions and the unreproved commission of sin, there are many others who act a wiser and a better part. In most instances, parents are moral; in many, they are pious and while the former are anxious to keep their sons from vice, and train them to virtue, the latter go farther, and endeavour to bring

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them up in the fear of the Lord. Many who will read these pages know this by experience. You have been brought up in habits of rigid morality. Your parents have been solicitous to form your character on a right basis. You have been long familiar with the voice of instruction, admonition, and warning. You have been the constant subject of an anxiety which you could neither be ignorant of, nor mistake. If you were seen in company with a stranger, or with a youth of doubtful character, you were questioned and warned. If you brought home a book, it was examined. If you stayed out at night later than usual, you saw a mother's anxious eye turned upon you, and heard a father's voice, saying, "My son, why so late, where have you been?" In short, you felt yourself within the range of an ever present inspection, and under the pressure of a never relaxing restraint. The theatre and other places of pollution were strictly forbidden, and indeed you felt little inclination to visit even the purlieus of those haunts of vice. Morning and evening you heard the Scriptures read, and the voice of prayer ascend to God, and ascend for you. With such examples, under such instruction, and amidst such scenes, you had no opportunity, and felt no disposition, to be vicious. Sometimes you thought, perhaps, that the restraint was too severe and the care too fastidious; but then you said, "It is all for my good," and you submitted to it.

All this is now over: you have left, or are

leaving home. The moment has arrived, or is past, and will never be forgotten, when those arms which sustained your infant frame were thrown around your neck and pressed you to the bosom that nourished you, while a mother's faltering voice exclaimed, "Farewell, my boy;" when a father, always kind, but kinder then than ever, prolonged the sad adieu, and said, "My son, I can watch over you no longer. The God whose providence removes you from your father's house, be your protector, and preserve you from the evils of this sinful world. Remember that though my eye cannot see you, his can, and ever does.

Fear him." where your

And there, young man, you now are, parents' hearts trembled to place you, amidst the snares and perils of this evil world; where your father's inspection cannot reach you, nor your mother's tearful eye behold you. Perhaps you are in a family where no prayer is presented, nor even the form of religion observed; where you are left to yourself, little or no care being taken of your morals or religious principles: and where, provided you serve your employers with industry and 'honesty, you may choose your own companions, recreations, and places of resort. Or if more favourably situated, and your lot is cast in a religious family, still what is the instruction of a master compared with that of a father, or the care of a mistress compared with that of a mother? Away from home, a viciously inclined youth will find opportunities for the gratification of his evil

propensities in situations the most friendly to virtue. His wicked heart, rejoicing in the absence of his parents, will make that absence an incentive to sin. Ever and anon the whisper will come from within, "My father is not here to see it; my mother will not know it; I am not under inspection now, restraint is over, I can go where I like, associate with whom I please, and fear neither rebuke nor reproach." O young man, think of the unutterable baseness of such conduct as this. Ought you not to despise yourself, if you could thus meanly, as well as wickedly, take advantage of a father's absence, to do that which you know would excite his strongest reprobation, and afflict him with the bitterest grief, if he were present. Yet multitudes are thus base and wicked, and have gone from their parents to ruin themselves for ever. Act, young man, act as you would do, if you were conscious that your father's eye were upon you.

2. Your danger is increased by the spirit of independence and self-confidence, connected, as of course it must be, with much ignorance and inexperience, which young men are apt to assume, when they leave their father's house, and go out into the world.

"Paternal rule is now over, my parents are not at hand to be consulted or obeyed; and if they were, it is time for me to think and act for myself. I am my own master now. I am a young man, and no longer a child. I am capable of judging, discriminating, and determining between right and

wrong. I have the right, and will exercise it, of forming my own standard of morals, selecting my own models of character, and laying down my own plans of action. Who has authority to interfere with me?" Such probably are your thoughts, and they are encouraged by many around you, who suggest that you are not always to go in leading strings, but ought now to assert your liberty, and act like a man. Yes, and how many have employed and abused this liberty to the most criminal and fatal purposes: it has been a liberty to destroy all the habits of virtue formed at home, to subvert all the principles planted with such care by parental solicitude, and to rush into all the evil practices, against which the voice of warning had been raised from boyhood. Many young men have no sooner been freed from parental restraint and become their own masters, than they have hurried to every place of amusement, resorted to every species of vicious diversion, initiated themselves into all the mysteries of iniquity, and with prurient curiosity to know, what it is bliss to be ignorant of, have entered into fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. Happy, happy, had they been, had they considered that an independence which sets them free from parental advice and control, is the bane of piety, morality, and felicity, and has proved, where it has been assumed, the ruin for both worlds of multitudes of once hopeful youths. Wise is that young man, and blessed in all probability will he be, who, though