C.RICH'DWHLTTEMQRE Rare Books ASHLAND, MASS. THE YOUNG MAN FROM HOME. BY JOHN ANGELL JAMES. r, the History of a London Apprentice,"* left home to learn the trade of a woollen-draper in the metropolis. He carried from his father's house an unblemished moral reputation, and a general re- spect for religion. His situation was a laborious one ; " but," he observes, " often when toiling hard through the day, and travelling from one end of Lon- don to the other, ready to sink with fatigue, perhaps from six o'clock in the morning till eleven o'clock at night, I have been cheerful and happy, from the consideration that I was in the path of honest in- dustry, and that I should one day reap a reward. I felt ambitious to be able to soothe the declining years of my father, and do something for his com- * I shall be happy if this notice of the work shall in- duce many young men to purchase and read it. The Rrork is published by Wightman, price 1$. 70 EXAMPLES. fort when he was unable to provide for himself. These feelings warmed my heart while I was honest, virtuous, and happy." Corrupted, as I have shown before, by a fellow-apprentice, he was soon initiated into the practices of iniquity, which everywhere abound, and in the metropolis super- abound. Public worship was neglected, the Sab- bath habitually violated, every scene of dissipation resorted to, and every habit of vice contracted. Yet withal, misery mingled with his sinful gratifi- cations; the cup of pleasure was embittered with the gall and wormwood of remorse ; and under the stings of conscience, and the hopelessness of im- provement, he at one time resolved on self-destruc- tion a resolution, by the interposition of Provi- dence, happily prevented. At length, his extrav- agance led to habits of dishonesty. He was de- tected, arrested, and conveyed to prison, and thus relates, in a letter, the* scene to which his courses had conducted him, and the feelings with which he occupied it : " MY DEAR FRIEND, " You will easily conceive whither such a course of vice as these letters have portrayed must have led; and that, having once broken through my integrity, such habits would soon render it neces- sary to 'add iniquity unto iniquity.' Just so I found it ; and I commenced a system of dishonesty and breach of confidence toward my employers which might have terminated in an ignominious EXAMPLES. 71 death. At first, a few shillings, at convenient and far-distant opportunities, sufficed, or rather, was as much as I dared to take ; but at length I pro- ceeded to pounds. I could not, however, be happy under such circumstances, and I plainly saw that ruin would ensue: I was therefore anxious to leave my engagement, and enter upon some course of business where I should be less exposed to temptation, or where I could make use of only my own property. I had made several attempts to effect my purpose, and should probably have suc- ceeded ; but, in the mean time, suspicion fell upon me. A snare was laid by one of the firm, and I fell into it. Oh, what words can express my hor- ror, when, on one Saturday morning, my employer called me into his parlour, and charged me with robbery. I denied the charge : he persisted, and begged me to confess, threatening to send for an officer if I did not."" I was confounded, and could not confess, though I wished to do so. He produced my signature for money which I had not accounted for: I still equivocated. My brother, who had lately engaged in the same house, was called in. Oh, who can describe his agony ! He conjured me to confess my guilt, if guilty; but, while I hesitated, or rather attempted to explain, the police-officer arrived. My drawers and boxes were examined, and several suspicious circum- stances appeared. I was given up to the officer, who led me off to Union Hall, and placed me in the prisoner's box, with several of the lowest 12 EXAMPLES. blackguards London could produce. Ala's ! what a situation was I in ! Overwhelmed with shame, I sank down on the box, and hid myself among these wretches by sitting on the floor. At length, my name was called out, and my charge read over to me in open court. The magistrate, however, advised me to make no reply. This, I believe, was at the instigation of my employer and brother, who wished to avoid pushing matters to* an extre- mity with me. I was then taken away by the officer, fastened by handcuffs to a dirty-looking fellow, and thrust into a dark hole. The business of the day, at length closed at the office, a cart drew up for the criminals, and myself, with about a dozen others, were thrust into it, handcuffed, and tied together by a long cord. In this way we were conducted to Horsemonger-lane prison, Here my appearance made my wretchedness the greater, for the dandyism of my person afforded the prisoners fair ground for their scurrilous wit. On arriving at the prison, I was ordered, in a sav- age voice, to pull off my boot which was replaced by a heavy iron. In vain I remonstrated-; all the reply I could get was, " People don't come here* for their good behaviour." My person was strictly searched, and my watch, money, and every thing valuable was taken from me ; so that I was left without a farthing to help myself. Thus, in the middle of winter, the day before Christmas-day, which I had anticipated spending with some gay friends in the country, was I thrust into a cold EXAMPLES, 73 prison ; a stone cell was my sleeping-room, a wooden block was my bedstead, and a little, poor, thin covering was all I had to wrap myself up in. By day I was called to mix with about thirty abandoned sinners, in a small, dirty apartment, in my division of the prison; and, by night, was locked, bolted-, and barred in my solitary cell. Our food consisted of bread and water, with, now and then a little soup, supplied by the charity of some benevolent people in the neighbourhood, My legs \vere galled with the heavy iron, and my distracted mind much more galled by a sense of my shame and guilt, " Oh what a scene does a common prison pre- sent ! And how much fitted is such a place to harden the inmates in crime, and to turn even the well-disposed into consummate villains. Here every thing wicked and abominable is laughed at. The man who manifests any remorse is bantered and ridiculed, till he is glad to shake it off, and sear his conscience. If any one seemed disposed to plead guilty of his charge, he was taunted with, 4 Oh ! you are going to tell God Almighty's truth, fire you?' Plans of villany are talked over; the different means of disposing of stolen property are pointed out ; technical language is taught for every purpose ; and, in short, an introduction is afforded to every vice the devil can wish his votaries to engage in. I was at first disgusted and dismayed, but matters of convenience induced me to try and forget myself, and descend to the base level of the 7 74 EXAMPLES. wicked throng. I joined them in several of their low revelries, and forced myself into a sort of com- placence of their conduct. "I at first thought I should be left to suffer alone, and my country friends know nothing of my disgrace: but here also I was disappointed; for a lad from my native town saw and knew me, and carried the news of my imprisonment down among my friends. I was confounded and astonished at what I had done ; but my severest exercises of mind referred to the anguish that I knew I should bring upon the mind of my aged father. I felt that I should bring down his " gray hairs with sorrow to the grave." My nights were to me intolerable. I was then left alone in my gloom, to review the past, and feel the upbraidings of my guilty conscience. I would gladly have escaped ; but I had now no wish to lay violent hands on myself. I was determined not to add to my load of crime, but to submit to whatever might come upon me." I now present to you a still more awful scene and more tragic narrative than this, which is re- lated by the Rev. Hubbard Winslow, of America: 14 The inspired writer says, ' Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment ; and some men they follow after,' 1 Tim. v. 24. That is, sometimes sin begins to be overtaken with ret- ributions in the present world, so far at least as to illustrate the fact that we are under a righteous moral government. Such instances seem to ami- EXAMPLES. 75 eipate the retributions of eternity. Many arc so sceptical in regard to what lies beyond the grave, that God sometimes brings the judgment, as it were, to this side of it. As he sometimes grants a portion of the very joys of heaven to the soul of a dying Christian, that he may thereby encourage the pious in the way of obedience, he also some- times sends a portion cf the very woes of perdition to the soul of the dying sinner, that he may there- by teach the wicked to turn from his evil ways, and live. "As an illustration of this, I have concluded, after much hesitation, to mention the particulars of a case which fell under my own observation. I shall state the facts as they occurred, without any exaggeration or embellishment. "A young man left his father's house in the country, at the age of fifteen. He had a pious mother, and had been the subject of early religious instructions and impressions. After he began to reside in the city, according to his parent's direc- tions, he attended for a while upon the faithful preaching of the gospel, and was of hopeful habits. He, however, kept himself aloof from the more personal and special means of religion, yet still be- lieving it to be important, and designing to attend to it at a future time. He formed an acquaintance with associates less favourable to piety, with whom his feelings gradually learned to sympathize. He went on in this way for four or five years without much obvious change ; though he was, of course, 76 EXAMPLES. resisting convictions, hardening his heart, grieving the Spirit of God, and laying the foundation of his moral ruin. He often received letters from his mother, reminding him of his duty, and urging him to it; over some of which he was constrained to drop a tear, and make good resolutions. 11 But the way of his heart was backward from God. Every month hardened him the more in im- piety. He at length began to visit rather freely the theatre, and other dissipating amusements and pleasures. His place in the house of God was sometimes vacated, especially in the afternoon, and he was scarcely ever at the evening religious lectures. His mother's letters he read with less attention than formerly; for he had begun to sup- pose himself a young man of some consequence, quite competent to think and judge for himself, without her assistance: he thought, indeed, she was a kind and good mother, but that she did not know so much about the customs of the city, and what was most becoming a young man in his sit- uation, as himself. " About this time, he fell in with some sceptical Things. He at first hesitated as to reading them; but as he had attended infidel meetings once or twice without experiencing any harm, he thought there could be no danger in just seeing what its writers had to say, especially as it was his princi- ple to examine all sides. He first read, then doubt- ed, then began to be more wise than all his teach- ers; and at length slid quite over into the yawning EXAMPLES. 77 gulf! His seat in the house of God, at first only occasionally deserted, was at length quite forsaken. " He was now quite prepared for more desperate steps. He lost his situation from certain irregu- larities and vices; and all know how difficult it is for a young man to obtain a second place, when the first is forfeited by improper conduct. He at length succeeded in finding employment, but it was not such as he had lost. It -was a much humbler and more menial condition to which he found him- self reduced. His ambition was broken down ; he was mortified and discouraged. This subjected him still more to the power of the baser motives. To these he continued to yield more and more ; losing of course what remained of self-respect, and falling under those severe lashes of self-reproach which, if they do not bring to repentance, drive to more desperate lengths in sin. " I will not detail the sad particulars respecting his subsequent course for four or five years. After several fruitless attempts to retrieve his circum- stances, he changed his place of residence, hoping to do better. But his character and habits went with him. For five years he did not write a single letter to his parents, and according to his state- ment they did not know any thing of him ; although they were most of the time only about a hundred and fifty miles distant. But he had determined that neither they nor any of his former acquaint- ances should know where he was, or what he was doing. 7S EXAMPLES. " He attempted to act upon the stage, but could not succeed. He even undertook to be a juggler, but soon found it quite out of his province. He began to gamble ; but usually lost when he had any thing to lose. How he obtained the means of subsistence during his years of profligacy, they can tell who are acquainted with that manner of life better than I can. He wandered from place to place, prodigal, reckless, forlorn, rapidly wasting his health, till at length he was reduced to the condition in which I first saw him. " One day an individual applied to me, and said, * There is a young man at my house, whom I am desirous you should visit. We took him in some three or four weeks since, out of charity ; for he is destitute, homeless, and sick; although he is a young man of respectable manners, and appears to have seen better days. But we cannot get much out of him. He is not inclined to talk. The phy- sician thinks that he is in a fixed and rapid con- sumption. He has a wasting cough, with night sweats, seems to be very much dejected, says but little, and is at times apparently in very great dis- tress of mind. I asked him if he was willing to see a minister or some other Christian friend : he at first refused; but has since consented.* " I, of course, took an early opportunity to visit him, and found his condition even worse than had been represented. It presented a wan, ghastly countenance, a sunken eye, a hollow voice, as from, the tomb, an expression of intolerable anxiety upou EXAMPLES, 79 his countenance, every thing indicating extreme wretchedness and an opening grave. He was at first disinclined to converse; he seemed to be com- pletely reserved, and no efforts could draw him forth. I addressed a few words to him, such as I thought best calculated to lead his thoughts to the Saviour, and with his permission offered a short prayer. On retiring, I asked him if he would like to have me call again. He assented. " Soon after, I renewed the visit. He was ly- ing in bed, and had just recovered from a severe paroxysm of coughing. After a short time, he beckoned me to him, and with a low voice said he should like to see me alone for a few moments. The nurse and lady of the house, who were pres- ent, left the room. When we were alone, he fixed his eyes upon me in silence. There seemed to be a conflict in his mind, whether to speak or refrain. At length his struggling spirit burst its en- closure, and he began to tell something of his history. " He was now in his twenty-sixth year. For nearly five years he had been, as he supposed, a confirmed infidel. He had become an alien from his parents, they did not even know where he was, nor was he willing that they should. He felt that he had ruined himself. He saw clearly where the work of ruin commenced ; it was in his resisting his early convictions of truth and duty. His father was not a godly man ; but his mother was pious, and he iiad no doubt she had wept rivers of tears over him, 'After a gust of emotion, which for a moment 80 EXAMPLES. suspended his utterance, he proceeded : It was not infidelity that ruined him ; the procuring cause of his ruin lay farther back. He was virtually ruined hefore he became an avowed infidel. It was his resisting the admonitions of God and the striving of his Spirit, that made him an infidel ; but his in- fidelity had served to plunge him into more open and desperate iniquities. Since he had embraced infidelity, he had committed vices at which his earlier youth would have shuddered : fraud, gam- bling, drunkenness, seduction ; he had led others into the same vices. " * But these,' continued he, * arc only the warts and excrescences of my ruined character ; the ruin itself lies deep in the soul, and the misery with which it is overtaken here is only premonitory of the everlasting misery which awaits it beyond the grave. For several years I have tried to disbelieve the Bible. I have succeeded. I have been a con- firmed infidel. More than that I have been an atheist. I used to hear it said that no man could be really an atheist ; but I know to the contrary. I have been an atheist. I have perfectly and fa- tally succeeded in being given over to a strong delusion, to believe a lie that I might be damned, because I obeyed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. But I am no longer an athe- ist, I am convinced that there is a God. I feel, I know, that I am an accountable being, and that a righteous judgment awaits me in eternity.' " After a moment's rest, his countenance gather- EXAMPLES. 81 ing more intensity of expression, he added, with increased energy, * ?ut the most terrible thing to reflect on is, that I have not only ruined myself, but have been the cause of leading others to ruin. Oh, I am sure that the everlasting execration of ruined souls nmst follow me into eternity ! Oh that I had never been born, or had sunk in death upon my mother's arms !' " I here endeavoured to cast oil upon the rising waves of emotion, and to calm his tempestuous spirit, by reminding him of the great mercy and forgiveness there is in God. * No,' replied he, * not for me : I cannot be forgiven, and I cannot repent. My day of grace is all over. But I feel greatly relieved since I have told you my story. I am glad you came, sir. Wretched as I am, this is the best moment I have seen for a long time. I have hitherto kept all this to myself, it has been as a fire shut up in my breast. I have not known one hour of peace since I left the paths of virtue ; and for two or three years I have been perfectly wretched. I have often been upon the point of committing suicide.' " After a few words intended to direct his mind to the source of hope, I left him, promising to see him again the next morning, if he should survive till then. He did survive the morning came ; but it was no morning to him. The sweet rays of the rising sun shot no kindling gleam of hope into his dark and troubled soul. I had hoped, I had almost expected, to find it otherwise. 82 EXAMPLES. " I have somewhat doubted in regard to the ex- pediency of relating his expressions the next morn- ing, but as I have undertaken to report the facts as they were, I do not know that I should do right to withhold a part of them ; especially as he not only permitted but requested me to admonish all others by his example, if peradventure he might serve as a beacon to warn them off from the vortex into which he had been drawn. He had no longer any wish to conceal any thing ; he seemed rather to wish to proclaim his wretchedness to the world. He was dead to hope and alive to despair. With recollections of his past life, an awakened con- science, eternity full in view but a step before him, and every gleam of hope excluded, oh, it was indeed a painful illustration of the inspired truth, that * some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment.' " The following conversation took place on the occasion now referred to : " ' How do you do, my friend, this morning ?' " l As miserable as sin and wrath can make me!' 44 This he said with an emphasis, which sur- prised and startled me. " * And did you obtain no rest last night ?' " * Not a moment's rest ; my soul has been in perfect misery.' " * But you are excited ; your body is diseased, and your mind is weak and morbid. You ought to endeavour to compose yourself to rest, to be- EXAMPLES. 83 come calm, and to look to that source of forgive- ness and mercy which is still open to you, if you repent and believe. 1 " ' No, no, it is impossible ! I cannot compose myself, I cannot be calm. My body is well enough, but my soul has been in hell all night! I have de- nied that there is a hell : I have scoffed at it; I have induced others to do the same, and now God is convincing me of my error. Oh, I know now that there is a hell; I feel it in my own spirit. lam gla^d that you have come to see me, that I may tell you how miserable I am. This is the only relief I can get. You are the first person to whom I have ventured to make known my misery. I havs for a long time kept it to myself; but I can no longer conceal it. 7 " * It is well for you to acknowledge your sins. But you should confess them to God, as well as to your fellow-men. He has said, ' Acknowledge thy transgressions;' and moreover, ' He that confesseth and forsaketh his sins, shall find mercy. ' " * No, no, I cannot approach God I cannot meet him I cannot ! Oh that the same grave which will soon bury my body, could bury my soul with it. Oh that I might be annihilated ! This is what I have long hoped for and expected; but this hope has failed me. I never before realized the meaning of that Scripture, 4 When a wicked man dieth his expectations shall perish.' All my ex- pectations have perished. I have been for some lime reviewing my past life, and during the last 84 EXAMPLES. night, that passage kept passing like a burning ar- row through my spirit, ' Rejoice, young man in thy youth ; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes; but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.' Yes, I have walked in the way of my heart, and in the sight of my eyes ; and now God is bringing me into judgment. The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison where- of drinketh up my spirit. You can pray for rne; but it is of no use. You are very kind ; the fami- ly here are very kind ; I thank you all ; but you cannot save me. My soul is damned ! the seal of reprobation is already upon me !' " These last were precisely his words ; and they were uttered with a pathos, a sort of calm, fixed, significant earnestness, which almost overcame us. I can never forget his expression, when he fixed his dark, restless, glassy eyes upon us, and uttered these last words. Perceiving it in vain to say any thing more to him while in that state, we with- drew, that he might, if possible, be composed to rest.' " The next day I called again to see him, and found him dying. His power of utterance had almost failed. I took hold of his hand, and told him it would afford us great relief to know that he left the world reconciled to God, and trusting in the Saviour's grace. His only reply was, and they were the last words I heard him utter, * If the EXAMPLES. 85 grave would bury my soul with my body, I should consider it my best friend ; that would be immea- surably better for me than my present condition, or anything I have a right to expect.' After again commending him in a short prayer to the mercy of God, I was obliged to leave him. In about an hour afterward he died. " The next day I attended his funeral. It was the most gloomy occasion to which I was ever summoned. Not a relative was present. Here was a young man, evidently of fine natural talents, who might have been a comfort to his parents, an ornament to society, and a blessing to mankind ; who might have pursued a useful and happy life, and been raised to shine as the brightness of the firmament for ever and ever cut off from life and happiness and hope, when he had only reached his twenty-sixth year. " And what had done this dreadful work of deso- lation ? It was sin. These are thy doings, these thy triumphs, thou enemy of God and man. Destruction and misery are thine. Thou hast con- verted a paradise into thorns and thistles ; all that is most fair, lovely, and promising, it is thy delight to blast and destroy ; that very earth which was pronounced 'good,' and which might have been peopled with the joys and praises of heaven, thou hast in all ages filled with weeping, lamentation, and wo. And yet will men call thee a pleasing trifle, invite thee to their bosoms, and love thee instead of God ! 8 BD EXAMPLES. "This young man died, and found his grave among strangers. No mother was present, to watch the last struggles and catch the last words of her dying son. He could not ask her forgive- ness, nor know that she forgave him. No sister was there to wipe the cold sweat from his pale brow. His father had been dead some three or four years. The conduct of his son might have hast- ened his end. The residence of his mother was ascertained, and the facts respecting him commu- nicated to her. She had for some time given him up for lost, supposing that he had gone off to sea, and was probably dead. Again were a mother's tears and sorrows called forth afresh ; but she, too, has since died, and gone, we trust, to that better world, which sin has not invaded, where ' the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest.' Some family connexions are however still living, on whose account no name and no further particulars will be given. " Excepting the two or three last sentences, I have not given the young man's conversation ex- actly in his own words, but as nearly so as I can recollect them ; except that I have in some in- stances mitigated or withheld expressions which I deem unprofitable to repeat. I question the expediency of introducing into the minds of young people, even for the sake of administering to them a salutary warning, the more profane and blas- phemous language of those that have grown ripe in sin. * my soul, come not thou into their EXAMPLES. 87 secret ; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united.' " In reviewing the sad history of this youth, let us notice more particularly the leading steps in his progress to ruin. In the first place, he should have hearkened to the voice of God when a child. Com- mitting himself to his care and guidance, and seeking his favour before all other things, he should have said to him, c My Father, thou art the guide of my youth.' The lessons of his mo- ther, and of his school, had taught him to do this ; and a voice of known authority had said to him, ' Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no plea- sure in them.' It was in resistance of conscience and of known duty, that he refused obedience to this command. Had he obeyed it, he would have had sure and unfailing protection through life; his feet would never have been thus left to slide. " In the second place, after he began to reside in the city, and was in attendance upon a faithful ministry, it was a favourable opportunity for him, before his acquaintances and habits were formed in his new situation, to yield up his heart to God, and to join himself to his people. He ought to have done it. When he found himself separated from the guardians of his youth, and in circum- stances of untried temptation; when he felt the occasional loneliness and despondency which every young man feels, on being first actually exiled 88 EJALIPLES. from his home, and cast upon his own resources then was one of the seasons of God's special visi- tations to him; then it was, with a great and threatening accumulation of guilt, that he turned from the counsel of his mother, of his pastor, and of other Christian friends, saying to them, ' Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient sea- son, I will call for thee.' You may observe thai irreligious youths coming from the country into the city, usually become pious soon, if ever they do. If they resist religion for a considerable sea- son in their new situation, and under the peculiar and urgent convictions which they then have, they become hardened and fall under the power of those peculiarly adverse influences which are sel- dom or ever surmounted. " In the third place, his becoming the prey of infidelity greatly facilitated his progress to ruin. Had he before been faithful to his obligations, his reading and hearing something of infidelity would probably not have injured him ; though it is cer- tainly not worth while for any man to punish himself with death, in order to ascertain the quality of poison. But this young man, accord- ing to his own confessions, had sinned, as all who become infidels do, against clear convictions of truth and duty, before he was given over to ' strong delusions to believe a lie.' " In the fourth place, losing his situation in business was another fatal step. From that time, his course downward was, as we have seen, very EXAMPLES. 89 rapid. His ambition was broken, his spirit sub- dued, his pride mortified ; he left off writing to his parents, gave himself up to low vices with mor fearless restraint than before ; and at last became one of the most hopeless and dangerous of all characters." 8* PO DANGERS OF A MINOR KIND. CHAPTER VI. DANGERS OF A MINOR KIND TO WHICH YOUNG MEN AWAY FROM HOME ARE EXPOSED. BESIDES the formidable and appalling perils which have been already enumerated, as awaiting the young man on his quitting the house of his father, and entering into the business of life, there are others, which, if they do not expose him to the same moral jeopardy, are of sufficient consequence to his well-being to deserve attention. Char- acter may be injured by many things which can scarcely be called immoralities ; and misery, yea vice also, may grow out of indiscretions and im- prudences. 1. Absence from home may beget forgetfulness of home, and indifference to it': and such a state of mind, where there is much at home worthy to be remembered and loved, is not only unarniable in itself, but injurious to its possessor. Home is not only the scene of enjoyment to the youthful mind, but it is the soil in which the seeds of the social charities and virtues are first sown and grow ; so that the child who, with much reason for loving his father's house, is destitute of this affection while there, or loses it when he leaves the spot long trodden by his infant and boyish feet, is a most unpromising character. He that, upon crossing the threshold of the house that has DANGFKS OF A MINOR KIND/ 01 sheltered him from his birth, cuts the ties which ought to bind him to that dear spot, and casts no longing lingering look behind, who suffers all its lovely images to sink into oblivion amidst new and ever shifting scenes, who can forget father and mother, brothers and sisters, in his intercourse with strangers, and whose heart is never under the influence of an attraction to the circle of all that is related to him on earth, is destitute, at any rate, of social virtue, and is in some peril of losing also that which is moral. He that can cease to remember the father that never looked upon him but with affection, and the mother that bore him, the brothers and sisters in whose society, and in the fellowship of whose childish sports he first knew what it was to be joyous and happy, has a soil of mind too stony to allow the fruits of moral excellence to grow there. Cherish, then, young man, cherish a fond affection for home ; it may be a humble one, but it is yours. You may be rising higher and higher at every step above the lowly spot on which your cradle was rocked, and may be outstripping in prosperity those with whom you inhabited it, but still let it be sacred to you. Let not your parents have to say to each other with tears, when they have waited years for a visit, and months even for a letter, " Our son has forgotten us." Let them not have to exclaim, in bitterness of spirit, '* How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is, To have a thankless child !" 02 DANGERS OF A MINOR KIND. Keep up a constant correspondence with home by letters, and let every line be such accents as shall be music to a father's and a mother's heart. As often as your engagements will allow, gladden them with a visit. Convince them that neither time, distance, nor prosperity, can lead you to for- get them. How will it delight them to see that neither new scenes, nor new occupations, nor new relations, can ever alienate your heart from them ! The preservation of a tender love for home, and its occupants, has proved in some cases a last tie to hold its subject to the practice of virtue, and a last hinderance to absolute ruin. When all other kinds of excellence were lost, and every other motive had ceased to influence, this one lingering feeling was left, and filial affection prevented the complete abandonment of the character to the desolation of vice. " What will my poor father and my dear mother say and feel, and my brothers and my sis- ters too, who yet love me ? and how shall I ever be able to face them again ?" By this one question the spirit about to swing off into the turbid stream of vice that was rolling by, held on, till time was given for other and more powerful influences to come, and the love of home saved its possessor from the perdition that seemed to await him- However far the poor prodigal may have wander- ed, yet this one and last remainder of excellence may bring him back at last; but let this be extin- guished, and nothing human is left to stand be- tween him and destruction. DANGERS OF A MINOR KIND. 93 2. In opposition to this danger, the love of home has been so strong, so fond> so effeminate in some, that they have been really injured by it, through all their future life. It has promoted, and even produced, such a softness and feebleness of char- acter as totally unfitted them to struggle with the difficulties of the world, and rendered them good for nothing, but to be nursed in the lap of luxuri- ous ease. Parents have sometimes lent a helping hand to this mischief, and have cherished in their children a whimpering fretfulness after home, and such a feeling of dependance on its comforts, as has rendered them through their whole exist- ence pitiable spectacles of querulous effeminacy, and helpless imbecility. After what I have stated in the foregoing particular, no one will suspect me of encouraging an indifference to home when I call upon my youthful readers to be willing to leave it, for the sake of their future welfare. Act the part of a good child in loving your father's home, and its happy circle, and act also the part of a man, in being willing to quit it, for the sake of learning to perform your part well in the affairs of life. Do not cherish such a hankering after home as will make every situation uncomfortable, and inflict wretchedness upon you wherever you are. Let not your parents be made unhappy by letters full of complaint, and tales of lamentation and wo. Rove not from place to place in quest of that which you will never find a situation abroad that will command all the indulgences of a father's abode, 94 DANGERS OF A MINOR KIND. Acquire a manliness of character, a nobleness and firmness of mind, that can endure hardships and make sacrifices. It is desirable, of course, that your parents should procure a situation for you, or that you should procure one for yourself, where as much comfort may be secured as is usually attain- able, for we have no need to court annoyance, dis- comfort, and privation : but be not over-fastidious about these matters, nor let your happiness depend upon having your palate, your convenience, and your ease, consulted and gratified even in the mi- nutest particulars. Do not set out in life the slave of little things. No situation is without some in- conveniences. Human life is a journey ; all men are travellers; and travellers do not expect the comforts of their own house upon the road. Cul- tivate a hardihood of mind, that shall .make you insensible to petty annoyances. Look at great things, aim at great things, and expect great things; then little ones will neither engage, nor amuse, nor distress you. 3. Among the minor perils to which you are exposed on leaving home, is the liability of acquir- ing an unsettled, roving, and romantic disposition. During the years that you spend beneath the pa- rental roof, things go on in a settled order; you see and know little of the world, your horizon is very circumscribed, and your prospect limited. There is little or no room for imagination, and generally little disposition to speculate or to wander. Now and then a boy of erratic mind, and precocious DANGERS OF A MINOR KIND. 95 vagrancy is found, who is ever shaping new and strange courses for himself, and laying schemes for adventure and enterprize, in his father's house. These, however, are comparatively rare cases. But the spirit, of roaming is not unfrequently awakened when a youth leaves home ; then " the world is all before him," as he imagines, " where to choose ;" but, without making Providence his guide, he begins to think of looking further for himself than his judicious friends have done for him. A useful and honourable employment is selected ; a good situation for carrying it on, and acquiring a knowledge of his business, is obtained, perhaps at much cost and trouble. His friends rejoice in the idea of his comfortable and advanta- geous disposal. But ere long, home comes a letter of complaint, which banishes all these ideas from his father's mind, of his son's happy position, and fills him with perplexity. Much against the hopes and wishes that had been formed, a change takes place, and the youth removes to another situation. Here he stays not, but removes somewhere else. At length he wishes to go abroad, and try his for- tune at sea. This is done, and he embarks. One voyage is enough, and he returns home, weary of foreign travel and of the waves, and a dead weight upon his father's hands. He is not im- moral. He commits no vice. He does not grieve his friends by profligacy. He is not indolent, but his versatile unsettled, romantic disposition, makes them sick at heart, and convinces them that he 96 DANGERS OF A MINOR KIND. will never be a comfort to them, or do anything good for himself. And he never does. Life is worn out in trying many things, and succeeding in nothing. Guard, young man, against such a disposition as this. Let not your imagination gain the ascend- ency over your judgment. Do not be always thinking about some other occupation and place than that in which you are fixed. Avoid build- ing castles in the air. Be not the victim and sport of a wild, roving, and untutored fancy. Ac- quire a steadiness of purpose, a fixedness of plan, a settledness of habit. Make no more changes than are necessary to arrive at a complete knowl- edge of your business : and nothing but necessity should induce you to alter the profession or trade which you have once selected and entered upon. Remember the old proverb, "A rolling stone gathers no moss." If you meet with young men of unfixed habits, hearken not to their persua- sions, and be not led away by their example. If you are told that you have not found a respectable trade, make it so by your conduct. Multitudes have failed in life, have sunk to poverty, brought ruin upon those who dealt with them, and misery upon their friends, by an unsettled and romantic turn of mind. To this danger you are exposed when you go forth into the world, where all the numerous and various roads through life open to your eye, and all their unknown and untried circumstances present themselves to the imagi- nation. DANGERS OF A MINOR KIND., 07 4. Il may not be unnecessary to caution you against a spirit of insubordination and disrespect toward your employers. Accustomed, perhaps, to much freedom, and little restraint at home, the reins of authority may be found rather irksome when held by the hand of a master, and he perhaps not the most gentle or agreeable one. These re- marks appertain more to apprentices than to shop- men, though they are not altogether inapplicable to the latter. It not unfrequently happens, that a young man has his comfort destroyed, and his character injured, by constant collision with his employer. Sometimes the fault is all on one side ; the youth has been so petted and spoiled at home, has had his own way so entirely, and been left so much to be his own master, that the yoke of au- thority, however light and easy, has been felt to be galling and intolerable, and, like an untamed bullock, he has resented and resisted it, to the annoyance of his employer and his own injury, Young man, if this has been your case, instantly change, or you are undone. Such a disposition will not only be your misery, but your ruin. No one can be prepared to become a master, but by first acting as a servant ; and the way to govern is first to obey. Give up your home habits and caprices: and the sooner the better. Call into exercise your judgment and good sense. Give over the contest with your master: he must be obeyed, and it is jas much for your interest as for his that he should. But suppose that he is an 9 98 DANGERS OF A MINOR KIND. austere man, a hard master, an unreasonable em- ployer ; even in that case carry your patience and submission to the utmost limit of endurance. If there be absolute tyranny and cruelty, or an intol- erable severity, make it known to your parents, after having mildly expostulated against it with- out effect. Do not by impertinence, by obstinacy, or by rebellion make bad worse. The galled ani- mal which is urged on by a furious driver, and which cannot escape from the reins and collar, avoids much pain by quiet and patient submis- sion : resistance only brings more blows from his unrelenting master, and causes deeper wounds by the fretting and friction of the harness. Perhaps in most cases of disagreement there is a little fault on both sides. I know an excellent young man who was apprenticed to a master in a respectable trade, and of a tolerably good dispo- sition, and who made a profession of religion ; but he was a very bad tradesman, and had a wife who was gay, worldly, and exceedingly imperious in ordering the young men who were in the house. The youth I speak of, saw the fault of his employer, and felt the haughty demeanor of the wife. Instead of submitting with a good grace to many things that were certainly very annoy- ing, he was constantly engaged in strifes about little things, that kept him in perpetual wretched- ness. Sometimes his aim was really to correct the blunders into which the master fell, and to avert the consequences; but it was oft en done pertly DANGERS OF A MINOR KIND. 99 and disrespectfully, and therefore met with pas- sion and rebuke in return. He complained to his friends, and made them wretched without reliev- ing himself; and had he not been released from his situation, he might possibly have absconded, and been ruined. I have since heard him say that, much as his employer was to blame, and much cause as he had to complain, yet if he had himself possessed a little more patience and pru- dence, and somewhat less of irritability and re- sistance, he should have saved himself incalcula' ble wretchedness, and averted much ill-will and opposition. Let this be a warning to you. In a former part of this volume, I have alluded to the discomfort of such a case, as one of the sources of moral danger. I have now dwelt upon it more at length to show, that it is sometimes brought on by a spirit of insubordination, and that it may be in great measure avoided by an obedient, con- ciliatory, and submissive temper. 5. The entanglements of love, and the rash form- * ation of attachments and engagements of this kind, are another snare into which young men away from home are too apt to fall. Besides the love of society, and the desire of companionship, there is a susceptibility, a strange and restless emotion, seated deep in the heart of youth, which pants for a closer alliance of the soul with some dear select- ed object, than is felt or found in the closest gen- eral friendship. The love of the sexes toward each other, is one of .the instincts planted in our 100 DANGERS OF A MINOR KIND. nature by the hand of Him who formed it, and was intended like every other arrangement of Providence, for benevolent purposes; and when this passion is guided by prudence and sanctified by piety, it becomes a source of felicity, which if it does not remove, at least mitigates the woes of our fallen state. " It must however be a rea- sonable, and not a reckless passion. A check must be given to these emotions while immature years are passed in the acquisition of knowledge, or in preparation for some useful station in socie- ty. The young affections should be restrained until the period arrives, when it will be honora- ble and safe to unfetter them. For want of such restraint many a youth has dashed his earthly hopes, and dragged out a miserable existence." Attachments formed in boyhood, have often led to a dishonourable dissolution, or a wretched union. The heart grows faster than the judgment, and should not be allowed in this matter to be our first and only guide. A youth not out of his apprentice- ship is a poor judge of the fitness of a person as young as himself 10 be his companion for life ; and his mind should be occupied by other things. " It is not to be denied that when circumstances justify it, a reciprocal affection between the sexes, founded on virtuous and honourable principles, is one of the purest sources of earthly happiness. It seems as if the Creator, in pronouncing upon ?;he sinning pair the curses which their disobedi- ence so justly merited, left them in pity for their DANGERS Of A'lSIINOR KIND, 191 calamities this soothing mitigating blessing," But early connexions, especially if clandestine ones, formed and cherished without the consent or knowledge of parents, have rarely proved hap- py ones. In some cases the dissolution of them at the imperative command of parental authority, has been followed with an injurious influence over the young man's future destiny, inasmuch as it has made him either reckless or misanthropic. I have some painful instances of this before my mind's eye at this moment, some of which are of melancholy, almost tragic interest. 6. Where a youth has been much indulged at home, and not trained to habits of persevering ap- plication and patient industry, he is in danger of sinking into indolence, and then into vice. This tendency is not always the result of parental neg- lect, but is occasionally found in youths, who have had the best precepts to guide them, and the most stimulating examples to quicken them. To whatr ever cause it may be attributed, indolence is an evil of immense magnitude. There may be no actual vice, nothing at present bordering on immo- rality, but only a disgraceful and shameless inac- tivity. Nothing rouses the inert and creeping youth. His employer frowns, scolds, threatens, or coaxes, stimulates, and promises ; but it is all in vain. Nothing moves him. It is a difficulty to rouse him from his slumber, or draw him from bis bed; and when he is up, he may almost as well be in his chamber, for of the little he does, 9* 102 DANGERS OF A MINOR KIND. und it is as little as he can make it, he does nothing willingly, and nothing well. It is more trouble to get him to do any thing, than it is to do it oneself. If one single abstract word may express his char- acter, it is " laziness." What a pitiable and almost hopeless spectacle ! A young man gifted by Prov- idence, perhaps, with a mind susceptible of im- provement, and talents for business, which if cultivated would lead to eminence, dozing away the most precious period of existence, wasting his time, burying his talent and sleeping upon its grave, disappointing the hopes of his parents, tor- menting by his incorrigible laziness the heart of his employer, and preparing himself, probably for vice, certainly for misery. " Indolence throws open the avenues .of the soul to temptations, and the great fallen spirit, in his malignant march through the earth, siezes upon the occasion, and draws the unwary youth into his toils. . ' For Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do.' " By indolence the moral principle is weakened, and the impulse of passion is increased. It is the gateway through which a troop of evil spirits gain admission to the 'citadel, and compel con- science to surrender to base desire. Activity in honourable pursuits strengthens moral principle, makes the conscience vigilant, and furnishes a breastwork of defence impregnable to the assaults of the tempter. Indigence has in some cases DANGERS OF A MINOR KIND. 103 counteracted the causes of indolence; and if there be a spark of youthful fire in the soul, the stimu- lant of necessity will operate as the spur to vigor- ous action, , Hence it is, that from the low walks of life have risen some of the greatest statesmen, most learned divines, and gifted geniuses in every department of human action. Their poverty has been- the spring of their exertions. Though denied in youth the advantages which wealth commands, they have found more than an equivalent in their own unconquerable aspirations. What seemed to be an obstacle became an impulse ; and the impediments in their path to usefulness and repu- tation, which would have frightened back less noble spirits, only seemed, like the interposing Alps in the march of Hannibal, to make their vic- tory more glorious and more complete. Oh that I could reach the ear of every youth in the land, wake up in his soul those generous desires, and urge him to those active exertions, which should be at once his safeguard from temptation and the pledge of his success."* 7. On leaving home and entering on the business of life, or at any rate preparing to enter upon it, * " Considerations for Young Men," by the author of " Advice to a Young Christian." This small vol- ume, penned by an American divine, ia beautifully and eloquently written, is of great worth, and cordially rec- ommended to the perusal of young men. It is published Jby the Tract Society, price U. 104 DANGERS OF A MINOR young men are apt to form too high an estimate of the importance of wealth, and to make the acquisi' tion of it the supreme, if not exclusive object of existence. Ours is emphatically a money-making country. By far the greater part, if not the whole, of those who read these pages, will be found among the middling classes; young men who leave their father's house, not to seek the laurels of fame or the titles of rank, but the possession of wealth. Their feeling is, "I am going out to learn, and try, to get a fortune : to try my chance in the world's lottery, with the hope of drawing a prize." To this they are directed, perhaps, and stimulated, by their parents, who send them forth, virtually, with this admonition : " Go, my son, and get rich." Perhaps the son has seen no other ob- ject of desire or pursuit before the eyes of his parents, has heard no other commended, and has been placed in a situation where the attraction of no other could be felt. Money, money, money has been held up to him as the summum bonum of human life, and he goes out eager to obtain its possession. But even without being thus sworn in and consecrated in childhood on the altar of Mammon ; yea, when they have seen and heard all that is opposed to it in the house of their fathers, youth, in general, can with difficulty be persuaded that to learn to get money is not the only or the highest end of their leaving home. Riches are the bright vision, which, seen in the distant prospect, call forth their aspirations, and DANGERS OF A MINOR KIND. 105 make them willing to sacrifice the endearments of their father's house. They have no ideas of greatness, of happiness, of respectability, apart ,from wealth, which is the standard of every thing valuable with them. The hope of being a rich man is the nerve of their industry, the spur to their energies, the reconciling thought that makes them wipe from their brow with joy the memo- rial of an accursed earth. And should we cut this nerve of effort, and paralyze these energies ? Should we take from the heart this desire and ex- pectation of success? Should we quench the ardor of youth, and make life a dreary wilderness, pathless, objectless, hopeless ? No. Money has proper attractions. It is the gift of God. When sought in subordination to a higher end of life, by honest industry, and as a means of rational grati- fication, and of benevolent effort, it is a blessing So its owners and to others. But when it is wealth for its own sake that is set up as the ob- ject of existence; when it is loved for itself; when that love is an absorbing passion; when it takes such hold of the inner man as to thrust out and cast down every moral principle, every noble sen- timent, every honourable emotion, and every subject which relates to our immortal destiny ; then it is a low and sordid passion, a groveling ambition, a contraction of mind, of itself unworthy a rational, much more an immortal being ; and which, in its influence, will benumb the con- science, harden the heart, and ruin the soul. 106 DANGERS OF A MINOR KJNI>. In a case where you cannot have experience of your own to guide you, be willing, young men, to profit by the experience of others. Is there a sub- ject about which the testimony of mankind is more concurrent, or on which they have delivered their testimony more spontaneously and emphati- cally, than the insufficiency of wealth to satisfy the soul ? Has not this been proclaimed by the contentment of millions who have had little, and the restlessness and dissatisfaction of millions who have had much ? Does not Solomon, as the fore- man of that countless jury which has sat in judg- ment upon the world's claim, deliver the verdict in those impressive words, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Not that I mean to say wealth contri- butes nothing to our felicity, either by lessening the evils, or multiplying the comforts of life : it does contribute something, and for as much as it can yield, it may be lawfully sought after. My remarks go only to prove that it is not the chief good, and to dissuade the young from considering and treating it as such in the outset of life. It may be useful as one of the golden vessels with which to serve yourselves, your neighbours, or your Lord ; but it must not become a golden idol, to be set ujv and worshipped instead of Jehovah. I do not wish you to become careless or inactive in business, or even indifferent to the increase of your possessions; but what I aim at is, to convince you, that it is not the supreme end of life, and that it is infinitely less desirable than the inheritance which is laid DANGERS OF A MINOR KIND. 107 up in heaven. If you make this the end of life, you may miss it after all, and even in reference to your own selected object live in vain ; while if you succeed, you will still miss the end for which God created you, and lavish existence upon an idol, which cannot save you when you most need its help. You may cry to it in your affliction, but it will have no ears to hear. You may call upon it in your dying hour, but it will have no power to commiserate, and to turn the ebbing tide of life. You may invoke it at the day of judgment, but it shall be only to be a swift witness against you. You may think of it in eternity, but it will be only to feel it to be " the gold that shall canker," and the " rust that shall eat your flesh." Such, then, are some of the minor dangers, if indeed I can with propriety call them by such a designation, when they entail such consequences as those I have stated : but what I mean is, that they are not so directly and flagrantly immoral in their tendency and effects as those previously enu- merated. Look at them, young men. Weigh them with deliberation. And may God grant you his grace, in answer to your earnest prayers, for your protection and preservation. 108 THE MEANS OF SAFETY. CHAPTER VII. THE MEANS OF SAFETY FOR YOUNG MEN AWAY FROM HOME. SUCH means there certainly are, if you will avail yourselves of them. Imminent as is the peril to which you are exposed, defence is at hand, and it will be your own fault if you are not preserved. Thousands have been kept amidst the severest temptations. In the beautiful, touching, and in- structive history of Joseph, as recorded in the book of Genesis, a history which will never cease to be admired as long as taste or piety shall remain in the world, we have a striking instance of moral preservation amidst great danger, well worthy your attention. How fierce and seductive was the assault upon his morals ; it came from a quarter, and in a form, the most likely to corrupt a youth- ful mind : yet how promptly, firmly, and success- fully was it 'resisted. True, his virtue subjected him for a while to much suffering, for, defeated in her criminal intentions, his seductress, under the combined influence of disappointment, shame, and remorse, wickedly revenged herself upon the virtue she could not subdue ; blasted his reputation by calumny and false accusation, and caused him to be cast into prison. But Providence, ever watch- ful over the reputation and interests of pious men, THE MEAN'S OF SAKETT. 109 overruled all for good, and made the prison of this illustrious Israelite the way to his elevation. But for Potiphar's wife, Joseph had never been prime minister of Egypt; her guilt and its painful effects were rendered subservient to his advancement. Sooner or later virtue will bring its own reward. But what was the means of Joseph's preservation from the snare ? RELIGION. "How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God . ? " was his noble reply. Here was the shield that covered his heart. True, he had a deep sense of the duty he owed to his employer, and on this ground expos- tulated with the tempter, " Behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and he hath committed all that he hath to my hand ; there is none greater in this house than I: neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife." This was faithful, just, generous, noble; but there needed something else, something still stronger to resist such a temp* tation : morality alone would not have done it, and he called in the aid of his piety. " How CAN I rx THIS GREAT WICKEDNESS, AND SIN AGAINST GOD ?*' Thus armed with religion, he fought with the tempter, and came off more than conqueror. Let every young man mark this, and see the power, the excellence, and benefit of piety, as a preserva- tive against sin. Amidst the snares to which you will be expos- ed, you will need something stronger and more trustworthy than those feeble defences on which 10 110 THE MEANS OF SAFETY some rely, and which in many instances are de- molished by the first assault upon mere unaided virtue. You may leave your father's house with fixed resolutions to shun what is evil, and practise what is good ; you may suppose that you have no taste for the vicious pleasures of profligate persons; you may cherish a tender regard for the feelings of your parents, sufficient, as you think, to preserve you from every thing that would grieve their hearts ; you may have your eye on future respec- tability and wealth, and be inspired with an ambi- tion that makes you dread whatever would inter- fere with these objects of desire; you may be already moral and upright, and thus be led to im- agine that you are prepared to repel every attack upon your purity and integrity: but if destitute of real religion, you may soon be exposed to tempta- tions which will either sweep away all these de- fences as with the violence of a flood, or insidiously undermine them with the slow but certain process of a siege. Religion, true religion, young man, is the only defence to be relied upon : morality may protect you, but piety will. What multitudes of instances could the history of the church of God furnish of youths passing unconquered, through the most corrupting scenes, by the aid of this Divine shield, taken from the armoury of revela- tion ; this shield of faith. I could mention names known and loved among the pious, of your own and other countries, who in youth went unbefriend- ed and unpatronized from the country to the me- THE MEANS OF SAFTEY. Ill tropolis, and who, by the fear of God, were not only preserved from evil, but were raised to wealth, to influence, and usefulness, by the aid of religion. There are two or three questions concerning true religion which may with great propriety be asked, and which have, or ought to have, great force in recommending it to all. Whom did it ever im- poverish, except by martyrdom ? Whom did it ever render miserable ? Who ever, on a death- bed, repented of having lived under its influence ? On the contrary, how many millions has it blessed with wealth, with happiness in life, and comfort in death ! But what is religion ? Give me your attention while I attempt to answer this question. It is the most momentous inquiry which can engage the intellect of man. Literature, science, politics, commerce, and the arts, are all important in their place and measure ; and men give proof that they duly, or rather unduly estimate their importance, by the devoted manner in which they attend to them. To multitudes they are everything. Yet man is an immortal creature, and there is an eter- nity before him, and what direct relation have these things to immortality ? or what influence do they exert on our everlasting destiny in another world ? Nay, do they make us either virtuous or happy in this ? Is there any necessary connexion between any one, or all of these things, with hu- man felicity ? They call out and employ the no- ble faculties of the mind : they raise man from 3 l THE MEANS OF SAFETY. savage to civilized society: they rellne the taste, they embellish life: they decorate the stage on which the great drama of existence is carried on, and give interest to the performance : but do they reach the seat of man's chief pleasures or pains the heart ? Do they cure its disorders, correct its tastes, mitigate its sorrows, or soften its weighti- est cares? Do they comfort man amidst the wreck of his fortunes, the disappointment of his hopes, the loss of his friends, the malignity of his enemies, the pains of a sick chamber, the strug- gles of a dying bed, or the prospect of a coming judgment ? No. Religion is that, and that only, which can do this ; and this it can do, and is con- tinually doing. Disbelieve, then, the calumnies that ignorant men have circulated concerning it, who represent it as degrading our intellect, and destroying our happiness. On the contrary, a lit- tle reflection will convince you that it is the sub- limest science, the noblest learning, the profound- est wisdom, the most consummate prudence, and most useful art. In its theory, it is called by way of eminence TRUTH; in its practice, WISDOM; in its essence, LOVE ; in its effect, PEACE ; and in its destiny, IMMORTALITY. It is sustained by abundant and unanswerable evidence ; it has en- gaged the attention, and captivated the minds of men of the profoundest intellect : to speak only of our own country, I might mention Bacon, Mil- ion, Newton, Locke, Addison, Johnson, and a host of others : and it is now preparing to subdue all THE MEANS OF SAFETY. 1 13 nations to the obedience of faith. Is it not a subject, then, which demands and deserves at- tention ? The question, however, still returns, What is religion ? To reply first in negatives : it is not merely being baptized in any particular church ; it is not merely being educated in the profession of any particular creed ; it is not merely being ac- customed to observe any particular forms ; it is not merely an attendance at any particular place of public worship ; or to prefer any particular set of doctrines, however orthodox and scriptural : re- ligion is all this, but it is a great deal more: it includes this, but it goes much further. Perhaps you will understand more clearly and accurately what religion is, if you take a short view of the condition and circumstances of man, by whom it is to be practised. Every one who is born into our world, in consequence of his descent from Adam, since the fall, partakes of a nature to- tally corrupt ; by which I mean, that whatever gen- eral amiableness and loveliness of disposition there may be, and much there sometimes is, yet with- out Divine grace, there is no right disposition, but a wrong one, toward God, and holiness. The Scriptures declare that " the carnal mind," that is, the mind of every man in his unrenewed state, " is enmity against God ; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be," Rom. viii. 7, This is a description, not of any one man, ^it of human nature in its most generic sense. 10* 114 THE MEANS OF SAFETY. All men, every man, till renewed by Divine grace, is in enmity against God. He is not merely indif- ferent to God, and alien from him, but inimical to him ; he does not merely not love him, but he dislikes him. He dislikes his moral attributes of righteousness and holiness, and resists his author- ity as expressed in the law. So that in the heart of man there is not one good or holy feeling ; but all its thoughts and emotions toward God and ho- liness, are evil, only evil, and that continually. There may, as I have said, be blended with this, many fine, and generous, and noble sentiments of patriotism, social kindness, honour, generosity, and philanthropy, but these affect not the disposition toward God, that still remains unmixed, unsubdu- ed dislike. Many think this not true, because they take pleasure in thinking of God's great kindness and indulgence ; but mercy without ho- liness is not the character of God as delineated in the Scriptures, and many who speak with pleasure of an indulgent God, are displeased with a holy and a just one. Nor is it any abatement of the truth of my representation of human nature, that some who are not evangelically pious, take pleasure in tracing the wisdom and power of God in the works of creation ; because it is the God of the Bible that is proposed as the object of our love, fear, and delight; and not merely the God of nature. It is God, as righteous, holy, true, and merciful, that is revealed to us, and whom we are to love ; and not merely as wise, power- TILE MEANS 0F SAFETY". 115 fal, and beneficent. Human nature in its un- changed state, is opposed to holiness : it dislikes it even in the imperfect form in which it is seen in the saints, a plain proof that it is opposed to it in its source and model, which is God. Perhaps you think this arises from ignorance in man, and that he would love God more if he knew him better. Quite the contrary. The reason why men think they dislike him so little, is because they know him so little. If they knew him more, they would be still more opposed to him. If we dislike a quality, the more that quality prevails, or Is known, the stronger must be cur dislike to it. So it is with the sinner toward God; as he is opposed to his holiness, the more he knows it, the more he is opposed to it. Consequently it would be impossible for an unconverted man to be happy in heaven. There God reveals himself clearly, and gloriously, and for ever, as the holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty ; and must necessarily be an object of dread, terror, and dislike to an un- holy mind, in proportion to the clearness of the manifestation. Such is the heart of man in his unconverted state. Now look at his conduct. It is his duty to love God with all his heart, all his soul, and all his rnind, and his neighbour as himself, Matt. xxii. 37 39 : riot only to love him in some measure, but supremely, practically, and constantly. To be without this love is a state of sin : such a life is a career of rebellion against the Divine author- 116 THE MEANS OF SAFETY". ity, and contempt of the Divine excellence. This is the one great sin which comprehends most other sins. Dwell upon the other sins which stand connected with it ; first, toward God him- self, there is no gratitude for his mercies, no rev- erence for his authority, no habitual veneration for his character, no fear of his displeasure, no trust in his promises, no submission to his will, no de- votedness to his service, no living to his glory, no pleasure in his ordinances, no prayer in the spirit of it, no communion with him, no walking with him, no delight in him. Instead of this, in many cases, profaning his name, dishonouring his insti- tutes, despising his ordinances, and especially the great sin, the greatest of all sins in his sight, neg- lecting his salvation in Christ Jesus. To these sins add others committed against man, disobedi- ence to parents, rebellion against the authority of masters, lying, malice, revenge, slander, envy, im- pure thoughts and feelings and acts, injustice, op- pression, cruelty, swearing, cheating but where shall I stop ? Suffice it to say, that the exposition given by our Lord in his sermon on the Mount, of the strictness and spirituality of the law, by which an unchaste feeling is called adultery of the heart, and sinful anger murder, is such as to prove that each one of us is guilty in the sight of God of sins equally innumerable and inexcusable. This representation, so affecting and so hum- bling, belongs to you, my reader, and is a descrip- tion of your state and condition. And can you THE MEANS OF SAFETY. 117 read it unmoved and unalarmcd ? Is there no- ihing to excite apprehension and concern ? What ! bear in your breast a heart disloyal to God ! disaf- fected to God ! at enmity to God ! Will you, dare you, can you go into life, pass through the world, and enter eternity, an enemy of God ? Yet is it not so, that you love not God ? does not your con- science assure you it is so ? Can you help saying, >4 Oh ! what a heart have I, that can love anything else, that can love trifles, that can love impurities, that can love sin ; and cannot love God, the most desirable good ! What a monster in the creation of God is this soul of mine ! my soul, thou hast in thee other valuable things: thou hast under- standing, judgment, perhaps learning, considerable acquired endowments ; but thou hast not the love of God in thee : I can do many other commendable or useful things, I can discourse plausibly, argue subtilly, manage affairs dexterously ; but I cannot love God. my soul, how great an essential dost thou want to all religion, to all duty, to all felicity ! The one thing necessary thou wantest, thou hast everything but that which thou needest more than anything, more than all things ; and what is to become of thee ? Where art thou to have thine eternal abode ? To what realms of horror, dark- ness, and wo, art thou going ? What society can be fit for thee ? No love of God ! what but that of infernal spirits who are at the utmost distance from him, and on whom no beam of holy light shall shine to all eternity. Thou, my soul, art 118 THE MEANS OF SAFETY. self-abandoned to the blackness of darkness for ever. Thy doom is in thy breast, in thy own bosom ; thy no love to God is thy own doom : this creates thee a present hell, and shows whither thou belongest ! "* You are now prepared to understand what true religion is, and to perceive that it includes the following things : Repentance toward God. This is frequently enjoined in the New Testament. " Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish," Luke xiii. 3. "Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out," Acts iii. 19. "Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of," 2 Cor. vii. 10. From this last passage it clearly appears what repentance means, and that sorrow is but a part of it, yea, only the operative cause of it. The word signifies, a change of mind with regard to sin : it is such a view of the evil of sin in general, and of the number and aggrava- tion of oar own sins in particular, as leads us to confess them to God, without reserve or excuse, to hate, and to forsake them. But repentance is not enough : this is but a part of religion, and is not all that is necessary to sal- vation ; for without FAITH, have whatever we may, it is impossible to please God. God has not left man to perish in his sins. Mercy has visited our world, and brought salvation to man. " God so * Howe's Works, vol. ii. 499. THE MEANS OF SAFETY. 119 loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." AVhen the jailer, expecting to perish, exclaimed, " What must I do to be saved ?" the apostle replied, '* Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." We are "justified by faith;" we 4 purify our hearts by faith," " we walk by faith." Faith in general, means such a belief of the whole of God's holy word, as leads us to observe and obey it. Faith in Christ, signifies such a belief in the testimony borne to him in the Scripture, as the Son of God, and Saviour of the world ; as our Me- diator between God and man ; as our Prophet, Priest, and King; as our atoning sacrifice, and justifying righteousness, as leads us to quit all dependance upon our own works for pardon, ac- ceptance with God, and salvation, and to rely exclusively, and with expectation of eternal life, upon his propitiation and intercession. This is one great part of religion, and an essential to sal- vation. Faith is the saving grace ; it is not that for which we are saved, as the meritorious cause , but that by which we are saved, as the instru- mental means. The first effect of true faith is peace, the second love, the third holiness. With faith is connected an entire change of heart, conduct, and character. This is what our Lord calls, being " born again," being " born of water and the Spirit," John iii, ; and the inspired evangelist calls it, being " born, not of blood, nor 120 THE MEANS or SAFETY. of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God," John i. 13. It is what the apostle calls 4 " putting off the old man which is corrupt with his deeds, and putting on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him." It is what is meant when ho also says, " If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature : old things are passed away ; behold, all things are become new," 2 Cor. v. 7. It is that entire change of our moral nature, which is ef- fected by the Spirit of God, through the word, received by faith ; when the corrupt and fallen nature which we inherit from Adam, is taken away ; and the holy and spiritual nature, which we receive from Christ is imparted. This is the new birth, such a change of our hearts, as gives a new direction to our thoughts, feelings, tastes, and pursuits ; and this direction is toward God, holi- ness, and eternity; whereas formerly it was to- ward sin and the present world. Now, the soul loves God with a supreme affection, and from this love springs a sincere desire to please him, and an endeavour to serve him with the obedience of affection, even as a son obeys the father whom he loves. Now he fears sin, hates it, and strives to avoid it, as that which God hates, and from which Christ died to redeem him. Now he has a tender conscience, and a jealousy over himself, lest he should offend God, and pollute his own soul. He watches and prays, lest he enter into temptation, and sanctificaiion is his delight. Now he keepi THE MEANS OF SAFETY. 121 holy the sabbath, reads the word of God, rejoices in the preaching of the cross, loves secret prayer, receives the supper of the Lord, joins the communion of saints, because these things are means of grace, and ordinances of God. Constrained by the love of Christ, he now seeks to be useful, and especially by diffusing that religion which he has found for himself. He gives up all his former sinful amuse- ments, the theatre, the card party, the ball, the fashionable and dissipating visit, for they do not now suit his taste ; his delight is in God and his service, to which these things are all contrary. He is independent of them, and happy without them. Such is religion a personal, experimental, and practical thing. It is a thing of the heart, and not merely outward forms ; a living principle in the soul, influencing the mind, employing the affec- tions, guiding the will, and directing as well as enlightening the conscience. It is a supreme not a subordinate matter; demanding and obtaining the throne of the soul, giving law to the whole character, and requiring the whole man and all his conduct to be in subordination. It is an ha- bitual, not an occasional thing; it takes up its abode in the heart, and not only sometimes and at particular seasons visiting it. It is a universal, and not a partial thing; not confining itself to certain times, and places, and occasions, but form- ing an integral part of the character, and blending with every occupation. It is noble and lofty, not 11 122 THE MEANS OF SAFETY". an abject, servile, and grovelling thing; it com- munes with God, with truth, with holiness, with heaven, with eternity, and infinity. It is a happy, and not a melancholy thing, giving a peace that passeth understanding, and a joy that is unspeak- able and full of glory. And it is a durable, not a transient thing, passing with us through life, lying down with us on the pillow of death, rising with us at the last day, and dwelling in our souls in heaven as the very element of eternal life. Such is religion, the sublimest thing in our world, sent down to be our comforter and ministering angel on earth, " Our guide to everlasting life Through all this gloomy vals." RELIGION A PRESERVATIVE FROM SIN. 123 CHAPTER VIII. RELIGION CONSIDERED AS A PRESERVATIVE FROM SIN. You want, young man, a shield always at hand, and which is impenetrable by the arrows of your enemies, to defend you from the perils to which you are exposed, and you find it in religion ; and it does this by various means. It changes the moral nature, producing a dislike and dread of sin, and a love of holiness and virtue. Piety is a spiritual taste ; and, like every other taste, it is accompanied with a distaste for the opposites of those things or qualities which are the subjects of its complacency. Sin is that bitter thing which the soul of a true Christian hates ; it is the object of his antipathy, and therefore of his dread. He turns frorn it with aversion and loathing, as that which is offensive and disgusting. It is not merely that he is com- manded by authority to abstain from sin, but he is led away from it by inclination. He may have sinful propensities of his animal nature, but he re- sists the indulgence of them, for it is sin against God. Now what can be a more effectual protec- tion from a practice or habit than an actual dislike of it, or distaste for it ? Who does that which he dislikes to do, except under compulsion ? When you have once tasted the sweetness of religion, how insipid, how nauseous, will be those draughts 124 RELIGION A PRESERVATIVE FROM SIN. of vicious pleasure with which the sinner intoxi- cates and poisons his soul ? When you have ac- quired a relish for the pure, calm, satisfying joys of faith and holiness, how entirely will you disrel- ish the polluting, boisterous, and unsatisfying pleas- ures of sin ! When you have once drunk of the waters of the river of life, clear as crystal, proceed- ing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, how loathsome will be the filthy, turbid streams of licentious gratification ! The new nature, by its own powerful and holy instinct, will turn away your feet from every forbidden place, and every unhallowed scene. Panting after God, and thirst- ing for the living God, taking pleasure in his ways, and delighting in the communion of the saints, you will shudder at the idea of being found in the haunts of vice, or in the society of the vicious. It will be unnecessary to forbid your going to the tavern, the theatre, the house of ill fame, the gambling-table, or horse-race ; your own renewed and sanctified nature will be a law against these things, and compel the exclamation, " I will not sit with vain persons, nor go in with dissemblers ; I have hated the congregation of evil-doers, and will not sit with the wicked. Gather not my soul with sinners." In addition to this, religion will implant in your hearts a regard to the authority and presence of God. " By the fear of the Lord," says Solomon, " men depart from evil." This veneration for God, comes in to aid the operations of a holy taste. By RELIGION A PRESERVATIVE FROM SIN. 125 the fear of God I do not mean a slavish and tor- menting dread of the Divine Being, which haunts the mind like an ever present spectre, this is superstition, not religion ; but I mean a fear spring- ing out of affection, the fear of a child dreading to offend the father whom he loves. What a restraint from sin is there in that child's mind ! he may be absent from his father ; but love keeps him from doing what his father disapproves. So it is with religion ; it is love to God, and love originates fear, He who is thus blessed with the love and fear of God is armed as with a shield of triple brass, against sin. The temptation comes with all its seductive force, but it is repelled with the indig- nant question, "How shall I do this wickedness, and sin against God ?" And then this awful Being is everywhere. " Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways," Psa. cxxxix. 1 3. Yes, God is in every place. Heaven and the earth are full of his presence. A person once dreamed that the sky was one vast eye of God, ever looking down upon him. He could never get out of the sight of this tremendous eye. He could never look up but this awful eye was gazing upon him. The moral of this fearful dream is a fact. God's eye is always, and everywhere, upon us. Who could sin, if he saw God in a bodily form looking upon him. Young man, could you go 11* 126 RELIGION A PRESERVATIVE FROM SIN. to the theatre, or to still worse places, if you saw this vast and searching eye, with piercing looks, fixed upon you ? Impossible. " No," you would say, " I must wait till that eye is gone, or closed, or averted." But it is never gone, never closed, never averted. This the religious man knows, and there- fore says, " Thou, God, seest me." Would you sin, if your father were present ? Would you enter the haunt of vice if he stood at the door, looking in your face, and saying, " My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not; my son, walk not thou in the way with them, turn thy foot from their path ?" You could not so insult and grieve the good man's heart. But though your earthly father is not there, your heavenly Father is. Your father's eye does not see you, but God's eye does. This the reli- gious person believes and feels, and turns away from sin. Then religion presents a judgment to come. Yes. " God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world by Jesus Christ." " We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done injiis body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." " And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away ; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God ; and the books were open- ed : and another book was opened, which is the book of life : and the dead were judged out of those RELIGION A PRESERVATIVE FROM SIN. 127 things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it ; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them and they were judged every man according to their works." What a description ! What a day will be the judgment- day ! The shout of the descending God ; the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God; the burst- ing tombs, and rising dead ; the conflagration of the universe^ and the gathering of the nations to the Lord in the air; the separation of the righteous from the wicked ; and the final doom of all ; the closing of time, and the commencing of eternity ; the going away of the wicked into everlasting punishment, and of the righteous into life eternal ! Oh, what destinies ! The good man believes all this, and acts under its influence. How many has the prospect of the day of judgment alarmed in the midst of their sins ; how many has it checked ; how many has it been the means of converting ! I knew a lady in high life, one of the most accom- plished women I ever met with, who, while living in all the gayeties of fashionable life, visiting in noble families, and fascinating them by her power to please, dreamed that the day of judgment was arrived. She saw the Judge, in awful majesty, commence the dread assize. Around him, in a circle, the diameter of which no eye could meas- ure, was drawn the human race, awaiting their doom. With slow and solemn pace, he traversed ihe whole circle; whomsoever he approved, to 128 RELIGION A PRESERVATIVE FROM SIN. them he gave the token of his acceptance by gra- ciously laying his hand upon their heads. Many he passed, and gave them no sign. As he ap- proached the dreamer, her anxiety to know whethei she should receive the token of his acceptance be- came intense, till as he drew still nearer, and was about to stop before her, the agony of her mind awoke her. It was but a dream : a blessed one, however, for her. It produced, through the Divine blessing, a deep solicitude for the salvation of her soul. She became an eminent and devoted Chris- tian ; and some years since departed, to receive from Christ the gracious token of his approval, in his immediate presence, and in the regions of im- mortality. You, too, young man, must be brought into judgment. You are to form a part of the circle drawn round Christ, to receive your sentence; he will approach you ; he will give you the token of reception or rejection. Do, do consider that tre- mendous scene. How awful was the irony of Solomon ! " Rejoice, young- man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes : but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judg- ment," Eccles. xi. 9. You may go to places of vicious amusement, but you must go from thence to the judgment-seat of Christ : there is a path from every scene of sin to the bar of God. He goes with you as a witness ; and conscience also RELIGION A PRESERVATIVE FROM SIN. 129 goes with you as a witness : what witnesses these TO be "brought against you in judgment ! " 7 will come near to you to judgment, and 1 will be a swift witness against all that fear not me, saith the Lord," Mai. iii. 5. Oh, did you realize this awful fact, did you keep your eye upon the judg- ment-seat, did you anticipate your appearance at the bar of Christ, which religious men do, and which religion would lead you to do if you pos- sessed it, how effectually would you be protected from the evils by which you are surrounded. Could you sin, with a voice sounding in your ears, " For all these things I will bring you into judg- ment ?" No ; here would be a defence to you, as it has been to many others, and is to many now, Adopt it as yours. 130 COMFORT AND HAPPINESS, CHAPTER IX. RELIGION CONSIDERED AS LEADING TO COMFORT AND HAPPINESS. " YOUNG men away from home must have some- thing," you are ready to say, " to interest, to amuse, to gratify them. They have heen called to sacrifice the comforts of their father's house, and to endure many hardships, and much discom- fort, and need something to enliven and divert their minds:" True. But it should be of a kind that would not endanger their health, their morals, or their future interests, and especially their souls. To seek relief from the labours of business, the gloom of solitude, or the annoyance of an unpleas- ant domicil, by " the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season," is to recruit our wearied nature, and to enliven our dull frame, by drinking a sweet tasted and effervescing draught of deadly poison. That young man is not only not pious, but scarcely acts the part of a rational creature, whose love of diversion leads him to seek such gratifications as are ruinous to all his interests for time and eternity. A love of pleasure, a taste for amusement, as such, is a most dangerous propensity. Business, young man, business, is what you should attend to. There is pleasure in industry. Employment is gratification. But still you repeat, "We must COMFORT AND HAPPINESS. 131 have something to interest the mind when busi- ness is over; which shall be a subject ofhopeand mental occupation, to fill up the interstices ot" thought during the day, and that shall be an object to which the mind may constantly turn for refresh- ment and relief amidst all that is disgusting and disheartening in the rough cares of our situation." Well, here it is ! Here is a glorious object ! Here is what you want, just what you want, and all you want. RELIGION, religion, my reader, will prove to be, if you try it, an engaging companion, a sym- pathizing comforter, an ever present friend, and a sure guide to the fountain of happiness. Do not listen to the ignorant testimony of those who have never tried it, and who represent it as the enemy of human delight ; but attend to the intelli- gent witness of those who speak from experience, and who declare it to be the very element of hap- piness. Who would take the evidence of a blind man about colour and form; or of a deaf one about sounds ; or of one without the sense of taste about flavour? And equally irrational would it be to take the opinion of an ungodly man about religion. It is a truth, which the experience of millions has proved, that "Wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." Con- sider what religion is : not mere bodily exercise, a drudgery of mere forms and ceremonies : no, but an occupation of the mind and heart ; an occupa- tion, too, which engages the noblest contemplation 132 COMPORT AND HAPPINESS. of the former, and exercises the purest affections of the latter. It is the employment of the whole soul upon the sublimest object that mind can be conversant with. Mental occupation is essential to felicity, and here it is in perfection and perma- nence. Dwell upon the privileges of religion : the pardon of sin ; the justification of our persons ; the favour of the eternal G-od, together with the con- sciousness of that favour, and communion with Him ; peace of conscience, like the sunshine of the breast ; the renovation of our corrupt nature ; and the subjection of passion, appetite, and animal pro- pensity, to rules which revelation prescribes and reason approves: and all this united with the hope, and prospect, and foretaste of eternal glory. I ask, can the man whose mind is in this state be otherwise than happy ? I wish to impress you with the idea that the individual who' is thus reli- gious, whose piety is scriptural, evangelical, ex- perimental ; and not superstitious, nominal, and ignorant, must be happy; not indeed perfectly so, for that belongs exclusively to the heavenly world ; but he is contented and satisfied, as being in a state of repose. His mind is not anxiously and ignorantly urging the question, " Who will show us any good ?" He has a definite idea of what will make him happy ; he is not in quest of something to occupy his mind and satisfy his heart, but has found it, and is at rest. He has become possessed of a supreme object of interest, which his heart loves, and his conscience approves, COMFORT AND HAPPINESS. 133 an object which has many and great advantages; it is always at hand, for it is WITH him, yea, in him. He proves the truth of the assertion, " The good man shall be satisfied from himself;" because the spring of his happiness is in his own bosom. He is calm and tranquil : his pleasures are not only pure, but peaceful; they occasion no perturbation, no painful reflection, no remorse; they are unex- pensive ; they do not unfit him for business, nor create in him a disgust with his trade or profes- sion, but brace and invigorate him to carry on its labours, and endure its cares; they do not impair his health or enervate his mind, but are all of a healthful nature, both as regards the body and the soul. Religion, moreover, includes duties that are all agreeable. The love of God, the service of Christ, the practice of holiness, the destruction of sin, the cultivation of charity, are all pleasant. The Christian, in keeping holy the sabbath in the house of God, enjoys far more delight than he who desecrates it by Sunday excursions. The reading of the Bible, if it does not fascinate the imagination, and kindle the passions, like a novel or licentious poem, soothes and softens, and sanc- tifies the heart. Prayer is one of the most eleva- ting exercises in which the soul can be engaged, for it is man speaking to God ; the poor frail, finite child of dust and ashes, admitted, through the mediation of Chris! , to an audience with the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise 12 34 COMFORT AND HAPPINESS. God. And as to the pleasures of friendship, where are they enjoyed in such perfection as in the communion of saints ? Nor is this all ; for religion supplies an inex- haustible source of the deepest interest, in the various great and glorious institutions which are formed, and in operation, to promote the moral, spiritual, and eternal welfare of mankind; to many of these, young men are contributing, in different ways, their valuable assistance. I can with confidence ask, whether the polluted and polluting scenes of earthly pleasure, to which many resort, can yield half the satisfaction which is enjoyed at public meetings of religious institu- tions, where interesting facts unite to captivate the imagination and delight the heart : at the fes- tive scene of a tea-party, held by a company of Sunday-school teachers, or by the collectors of a juvenile missionary society, or the members of a society for mental improvement, there is more real enjoyment than in any of those sinful diver- sions ia which men of corrupt taste find theii amusement. The great moral enterprize for the conversion of the world, now carrying on its ope- rations through all lands, supplies an object of un- rivalled sublimity, splendour, and importance, and which, by firing the ambition, and employing the energies of youthful piety, never fails to be pro- ductive of pure delight, as often as the eye con- templates it, or the mind is conscious of pro- moting it. COMFORT AND HAPPINESS. 135 I remember, once when I was leaving my home, which I had visited for a short season, my mind was pensive and sad, as I contrasted the comforts I had left with the disagreeable circumstances to which I was returning. My heart was swelling with its sorrows, as I rode slowly along, till reli- gion came to my relief. " God," I said, " is in every place ; I am going away from my father's house, but I am not going from my God." This thought seemed like the bow of mercy upon the cloud of my dark and troubled thoughts ; I put spurs to my horse, and went on my way rejoicing. I was also returning to a beloved circle of reli- gious friends, and to the duties of a Sunday-school, which had already engaged my heart. I may truly say, that as regards myself, in a situation in many respects uncomfortable to the last degree, so that my heart often sickened as I rose from my bed, to contemplate the duties of the coming day, religion, then newly gained, was al- most my only comfort ; and a comfort indeed it was to me. To what sources of amusement I might have repaired but for this I tremble to think, as memory turns back upon the scenes of my youth. Before Divine grace had changed my heart, I was fond of the theatre, but religion came to my aid, with all its holy and peaceful enjoy- ments, and then I found a consolation under every annoyance, and a source of enjoyment which ren- dered many things tolerable that would have been otherwise hard to bear. 136 ' COJIFCRT AND HAPPINESS. Blessed with true piety, a youth may be happy any, and everywhere. The apprentice, serving the most tyrannical master, or oppressed by the most unfeeling and hard-hearted mistress, will still find, if he possesses religion, a relief suffi- cient to lighten the yoke and soften the rigours of the service. And how will it cheer the solitude of the clerk or the shopman in his private lodg- ings, when neither friend nor companion is near ! There he can commune with his God, and pray to his heavenly Father, though his earthly one be far from him. He is not now tempted to leave his cheerless dwelling in quest of comfort, for he can find enough in religious exercises : or if he wishes, as he lawfully may do, to relieve his solitude, he can be happy in hearing a sermon, or going to the meeting of some committee with which he is connected, or to the public meeting of some soci- ety which may be held in the neighbourhood. Solitude itself is not disagreeable, for he wishes to cultivate his mind by knowledge, and his hean by piety ; and when exchanged for social inter- course and pleasures, these are of a kind to do him not harm, but good. Religion thus makes him comfortable whether alone or in society. Young man, I want you to be happy, and I am sure there is only one thing that will make you so, and that is, true piety. You may be amused and gratified, pleased and diverted, at least for a while, without this ; but amusement and diver- sion are only substitutes for happiness, not the COMFORT AND HAPPINESS, 137 thing itself. Man was made for the service and enjoyment of God, and he cannot be truly happy till he is brought to answer the end of his crea- tion. How important, then, is it, that you should begin life with correct views of this subject ! How much misery will it save you from, to mind reli- gion young ! A course of iniquity must, sooner or later, end in misery. Even while the pleasures of sin last, they are sadly mixed with the warn- ings, perturbations, and reproaches of conscience. Sin is a hard master, and Satan's service is often a galling yoke. Religion will save you from all this, and impose in its place a yoke which is easy, and a burden which is light. Who can tell what sorrow awaits him in future life ? Oh, could I lift up the vail of futurity, and disclose the scenes of your history, how would your heart sink to foresee the trials that are in re- serve for you. Setting out upon the voyage of life, with a bright sky, a smooth sea, a fair wind, and every sail filled with the propitious breeze, you may soon have to encounter the storm that shall reduce you to a wreck on some inhospitable shore. Your trade may fail, your wife may die, and your constitution sink under the pressure of accumulated woes. What is there to comfort and support you amidst solitude, and the long, dark, wintry night of adversity ? Religion, had you sought it in the season of youth and health, would have helped you to sustain the shock of misfortune by its consoling and strengthening in- 12* 138 COMFORT AND HAPPINESS. fiuence ; but you have neglected it, and in its ab- sence there is nothing human or Divine to support you, and you fall, first, into poverty, then to drink- ing, then to the grave, and then to the bottomless pit. How many who have died of a broken heart, or as martyrs to drunkenness, and have gone from the sorrows of time to the torments of eter- nity, would, if they had possessed religion, not- withstanding their misfortunes, have lived in peace, died in hope, and been blessed for ever ! Religion, if it led only to misery upon earth, if it were really the gloomy and pleasure-destroying thing which many represent it, and others believe it to be, yet, as it leads from everlasting misery to eter- nal bliss hereafter, would be our highest as well as our incumbent duty ; for who would not escape from hell and flee to heaven, if it could only be done by passing through Cimmerian shades, or a per- petual martyrdom ? but instead of this, true piety is the most serene and delightsome thing on earth. It is the sweetener of our comforts, the softener of our cares, the solace of our sorrows. It de- prives us of no enjoyment but what would injure us, and gives other and far better ones in place of those it takes. It is the spring flower of youth, the summer sun of our manhood, the autumn fruits of our declining years, and the lunar brightness of the wintry night of our old age. It is a verdant, quiet, secluded path to the paradise of God, and, after giving us the light of his countenance in life, the support of his COMFORT AND HAPPINESS. 139 grace in death, will conduct us to his pres- ence, where there is fulness of joy, and to his right hand, where there are pleasures for ever- more. )40 TEMPORAL INTEREST. CHAPTER X. RELIGION VIEWED AS A MEANS OF PROMOTING THB TEMPORAL INTEREST OF ITS POSSESSOR. DID you ever consider that beautiful allegory which is drawn by the pen of inspiration in the third chapter of Proverbs ? " Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain there* of jthan fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, and all the things that thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her. Length of days is in her right hand : and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her." This is one of those sparkling gems of composition which deco- rate and enliven the pages of Scripture ; it is as poetically elegant, as it is morally useful. I scarcely need to observe that by wisdom here, we are to understand religion; for the sacred writer has defined the meaning of the term where he says, " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom : a good understanding have all they that do his commandments." The general idea pre- sented is, that religion is happiness : " Happy is TEMPORAL INTEREST. 141 ike man that findeth wisdom ;" and the qualities of that happiness are described : it is transcendent ; for it is better and more to be coveted than silver, gold, or rubies, and all the gains of the most prof- itable merchandise : it is comprehensive ; for, is length of days a blessing 1 it is in her right hand ; or riches and honour ? they are in her left ; or pleasure ? her ways are ways of pleasantness, and her paths peace : it is paradisaic bliss ; for it is the fruit of that tree of life which grows in hea- ven, and drops its produce upon earth ; it is Divine, being a participation of the happiness of God himself, whose wisdom is his glory and bles- sedness. GO, young man, to this beautiful person- ification, this angel form ; she has length of days in her right hand. Religion will not necessarily ensure health and avert disease ; but it will pre- vent the constitution from being destroyed or im- paired by vice. Read the description which is given of the consequences of sin in the book of Job, (ch. xi. 11,) as exhibited in an aged worn out sinner, " His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust," and then add the language of Solomon, where he says, " and thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy bones are consumed, and say * How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof: and have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me ! I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congre- gation and assembly,' " Prov. v. 12 14. Martyrs 145 TEMPORAL INTEREST. of concupiscence, victims of drunkenness, ye loath- some spectacles, ye living corpses, full of every- thing that is tormenting to yourselves and disgust- ing to others, rise like spectres before the imagi- nation of young men, to deter them from the crimes which have reduced you to corruption, even on this side of the grave. Religion would have guarded you from all this ! Such men live out not half their days. But see, what is in the left hand of wisdom ; "riches and honour." Not that religion shields from poverty, and guides all her subjects to wealth : but still it prevents the crimes which lead to the one, and implants the virtues which tend to the other. Sin is an expen- sive thing, as we have already considered ; it is a constant drain upon the pocket, and keeps a man poor, or makes him dishonest : while piety is fru- gal, industrious, sober, and prudent; it makes a man trust-worthy, confidential, and procures for him esteem, preference, and station. Do you wish to prosper, and get on in the world ? (and it is quite lawful for you to wish it, you ought indeed to wish it,) go to wisdom, and take the blessing, even riches and honour, which she has in her left hand, and which she holds out to you. Go and pluck the fruit of this tree of life, or catch the precious produce as the boughs are shaken by the favouring gales of Providence. How many young men have left their native village, and their father's house, with all the pro- perty they had on earth tied up in the bundle they TEMPORAL INTEREST, 143 carried in their hand, and have gone to London poor and almost friendless lads, who yet, because they became the disciples and admirers of this wisdom, have risen to opulence and respectability ! What names could I record, dear to the church of God, and known to the friends of man through- out the country and world, who by the aid of reli- gion rose from obscurity to renown, and from poverty to wealth ! Their history is a striking proof that "godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." I could mention, were it proper, the name of one, who went into an exten- sive concern in London as a boy to sweep the shop and carry out goods, who became at length pos- sessor of the whole concern, died rich, and his property, in part, became the foundation of a new charitable institution: of another, who, from a poor lad, became a leading man in one of our reli- gious denominations, and the treasurer of one of our most useful societies : of a third, who, from being a shop-boy in the city, became the possessor of a large fortune, which at his decease enriched many of the noblest institutions of the present time. In each case, religion, by rendering them steady, industrious, and confidential, was the means of their opulence and elevation. They shunned evil companions, evil places, evil habits, evil amusements, and, under the influence of piety, entered those paths which lead many from poverty to wealth and from obscurity to renown. They 144 TEMPORAL INTEREST. sat down as young men at the feet of wisdom, learned her lessons, and received her rewards. I do not mean to say that religion without appli- cation to business, or talents for it, will succeed ; but religion, by giving diligence and sharpening the faculties, will promote success. Piety exerts a favourable influence, not only on the morals but on the secular habits of life : and one piece of ad- vice which wisdom delivers, as she holds out hex left hand blessings, is, Be diligent in business, as well as fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, Rom. xii. 1 1. It is a lawful and proper ambition to try to excel in the profession or business to which you have devoted your life. You ought not to be sat- isfied with dull mediocrity, much less with creep- ing, grovelling inferiority. You happily live in a country where the summits of society are accessi- ble to those who seem, by the circumstances of their birth, to be placed at the base. The father of the late Sir Robert Peel was at one time a journeyman cotton-spinner ; nor is there any legal bar across the path of any other aspirant after distinction; but it is only talent, united with good conduct, that can expect to rise: while incompetence, which is more frequently the result of a want of application than of ability, and indo- lence, will sink. Piety and a desire to excel in business are helpful to each other: the former will give the virtues necessary to the latter, while the latter will guard the former from being de- stroyed by many of those evils to which youth are TEMPORAL INTEREST. 145 exposed, and by which they are hindered from getting on in life. The cultivation of the mind in all useful know- ledge, is also auxiliary to elevation in life. A reli- gious dolt may rise, but it is not usual. Besides admitting that religion does sometimes help igno- rance up the steep ascent to wealth, it is know- ledge alone that can fit a man for eminent use- > fulness. Employ your spare time in reading, and acquiring knowledge. Ignorance was never so inexcusable as it is now, when the fountains of science are opened all around us, and the streams of learning are flowing even into the cottages of. the poor. Religion and knowledge are harmoni- ous, and reciprocally helpful. Let your reading be select and useful. Squander not the little time you have to spare upon trash. Read history, natural philosophy, the evidences of revealed reli- gion, and some of our best conducted periodic?*! publications. How well is that young man defended from the dangers that surround him, and how likely to rise in life, who has religion to sanctify his heart, ap- plication to business to occupy his time, and a taste for reading to employ his leisure. It is he that receives from wisdom the blessings she holds forth in both of her hands : length of days in the right, and riches and honour in the left: anci at the same time it is his to gather from the tree of life che fruit of glory and immortality. 13 ^ 146 USEFULNESS. i CHAPTER XL RELIGION CONSIDERED AS A MEANS OF USEFULNESS. To do good is God-like ; to do evil is devil-like ; and we are all imitating God or Satan, accordingly as we are leading a holy or a sinful life. It is said in Scripture, that " one sinner destroyeth much good;" he not only does not do good himself, but he destroys good in others. Instead of doing good he does evil. He not only leaves unassisted all the great means and instruments for improving and blessing the world, and has no share in all that is being done for the spiritual and eternal welfare of mankind ; but he opposes it, and seeks to per- petuate and extend the reign of sin, and the king- dom of Satan. He corrupts by his principles, seduces by his example, and leads others astray by his persuasions. Who can imagine, I again say, how many miserable ghosts await his arrival in hell, or follow him there to be his tormentors, in revenge for his having been their tempter. He is ever scattering the seeds of poison and death in his path. Religion happily saves from this mischief all who possess it : it makes a man an instrument of good and not of evil to his fellow creatures; it renders him a blessing, and not a curse ; a saviour, and not a destroyer ; a physi- cian to heal, and not a murderer to destroy. Ho USEFULNESS. 147 lives to do good, good of the noblest and most lasting kind; good to the soul, good to distant nations, good to the world, good to unborn genera- tions, good for eternity. He is a benefactor to his species a philanthropist of the noblest order. By a pious example, he adorns religion, and recom- mends it to others, who, attracted by the beauties of holiness as they are reflected from his character, are led to imitate his conduct. He connects him- self, while yet a youth, with a Sunday school, and trains up the minds of his scholars in the ways of virtue and religion. He associates with a Tract Society, and visits the habitations of the poor with these admirable compends of Bible truth. As life advances, property increases, and influence becomes more powerful, his sphere of usefulness widens, his energies strengthen, and his devotedness be- comes more intense. He consecrates a share of his gains to the funds of Bible, Missionary, and various other societies, and gives his time, his wis- dom, and his labour to the committees that direct their affairs. He thus lives not for himself alone, but for the glory of God, the spread of religion, and the salvation of souls. To do good is his aim, his delight, his business. He catches the spirit of the times, and is a man of the age, and for the age. In secret he swells the cloud of incense that rises from the church, and which no sooner touches the throne of grace than it descends in ^bowers of blessings upon the world. He needs not the intoxi- cating cup of worldly amusement, as a relief and 148 USEFULNESS. diversion from the toils of business, and the cares of life, but drinks a purer draught from the fount- ain, whose living waters he is engaged in convey- ing to those who are sinking into eternal death. He is consulted on every new scheme of mercy, and called on to assist in working it for the relief of human wretchedness. His name is enrolled on the list of benefactors, and pronounced with respect by all who know him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish cornes upon him, and he has caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. Thus he lives. A happy death terminates a holy and use- ful life. " I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours ; and their works do follow them." He is received into glory by the Lord Jesus, who with a smile bids him welcome, saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." And there, among the glorified saints, the spirits of just men made perfect, are some of the Sunday school chil- dren whom he had taught to fear God in their youth ; the poor whom he had been the instrument of converting by the distribution of tracts ; and the heathen, whom, by his property, his time, and his wisdom, given to the support of missions, he had, in co-operation with others, been the means of turning from dumb idols to serve the living and the true God. Transcendent scene ! glorious specta- cle ! His usefulness is seen in living forms of glory USEFULNESS. 149 everlasting. The good he did on earth follows him to heaven, and is a part of it. He will never cease to reap the rich reward of doing good, as with adoring wonder and rapturous delight he hears his name repeated with grateful praise, in the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. Young man, have you ambition ? can your soul be fired with the name of glory or the prospect of noble deeds ? Have you a pulse that beats to the sound of immortality, that word which has raised, and led to action an army of heroic spirits panting for fame? Oh, here, here, behold an object worthy to kindle this ardent flame in the human breast. Here is the high road to renown, and here alone. All else beside religion, and that which religion produces, shall perish. The garlands which are hung around the busts which have been placed in the temple of fame shall perish, for the temple it- self shall perish in the great conflagration ; but here is immortality. Souls are immortal ; religion is immortal ; salvation is immortal ; and so is the re- nown of him " who converteth a sinner from the error of his ways, and saveth a soul from death." This renown is within your reach. It is not an object of only official and ministerial ambition; nor merely within the scope of great wealth, or lofty genius, or commanding influence; but of real piety, even of piety in youth, and of piety in hum- nle life. The honour of being useful, the glory of being instrumental in saving souls, is placed with- in the reach of the youngest, poorest, and most il- 13* 150 USEFULNESS. literate aspirant after the mighty, and truly sub- lime achievement. Never, never, my young friend, were there such opportunities, or such means of a life of holy useful- ness, as there are now, and never such incentives to it. The world is in movement, and so is the church. The age of stagnancy is past, the era of general action is come. The armies of good and evil are marching to the scene of conflict, and mustering in the valley of decision. The gospel trumpet is blowing, and calling on the hosts of the Lord to the battle, which is to rescue a world from the slavery of sin and Satan, and restore it to God. Victory is certain, and the shout of it will one day be heard, ascending to heaven from this regenera- ted earth. Will you be idle ? What ! at such a time ? Will you have no share in such a triumph ? But this is not all. Will you be in the routed army, and belong to the discomfited foe, which you must be if you are not pious ? The cause of reli- gion is but one, and all the pious belong to it ; and the cause of sin is but one, and all the irreligious are identified with it. Religion is destined to vic- tory over all the earth, and every true Christian does something to accelerate the triumph, and will share the honour of the glorious conquest. What, then, is a life of sin, of worldly pleasure, of gay dissipation, compared with a life of religion ! What a contrast in their nature, and oh what a contrast in their results ! The former, is the course of a demon, the latter of a ministering angel; and USEFULNESS. 151 while the former shall eat the fruit of its doings for ever in the pit of destruction, the latter shall gather its everlasting reward from the tree of life in the paradise of God. 152 RELIGION A PREPARATION. CHAPTER XII. RELIGION CONSIDERED AS A PREPARATION FOR SUPER- INTENDING A HOME OF YOUR OWN UPON EARTH, AND FOR GOING TO AN ETERNAL HOME IN HEAVEN. You are preparing, in your present situation, to act the part to which Providence may have des- tined you upon earth ; and it is every way proba- ble, according to the natural course of events, that in a few years you will be found at the head of a household of your own. This opens to you not only an interesting scene, but also an important and very responsible one. From the nature and constitution of society, the destiny of one genera- tion is powerfully affected by the conduct of that which precedes it. The husband influences the wife, the father the child, and the master the ser- vant; consequently, of how much moment is the character of the head of a family ! How many households are scenes of discord and wretchedness, and are at length reduced to poverty and ruin, by a drunken, or pleasure-loving, or idle father ! How many who enter life with the fairest prospects of comfort and success, throw all away by sin ! They draw some lovely and virtuous young woman into the companionship of life with them, see a family rising around, and are bound by every tie of justice and honour to provide for the comfort of their RELIGION A PREPARATION. 153 wife, and the prosperity of their children; but habits of indolence and extravagance had been ac- quired in youth, and all goes wrong till ruin drives them from that home, .which industry and sobriety would have enabled them to maintain ; at length the wife dies of a broken heart, and the children become vagrants in the world. Religion would have prevented all this, and preserved that home to be a scene of order, peace, plenty, and respecta- bility. But even where things do not reach this point, and there is neither vice nor want, but sober mor- als and success, still, think of a family without re- ligion an atheistic household, in which there is no worship, no instruction, no regard to eternity a mere temporal confederation, though still follow- ed with eternal consequences. For the souls of their children and servants, every father and mother is answerable to God ; and oh what an ac- count will irreligious ones have to render to him at the day of judgment ! What an eternity will such parents have to spend in the bottomless pit, with those children whose souls sank thither through their guilty neglect ! Religion will fit you to preside with dignity over your household: it will add the sanctity of the Christian to the authority of the parent and the master, and render obedience, on the part of your children and servants, more pleasant and easy, as given to one who has such high claims to it. How will your family prayers tend to keep up in all 154 RELIGION A PREPARATION. other respects family order ! Piety will strengthen and soften every domestic tie, as well as consecrate every domestic occupation. It will lighten the cares of business, brighten the scenes of prosperity, and yield consolation in the dark season of family sorrow. If called to leave your wife and family, it will mitigate the pang of separation by the pros- pect of eternal union in a world where death has no power : or if required to surrender a pious wife or children, it will prevent the sting of that sorrow which has no hope. What a bliss then to a family, what a benign and heavenly inmate, is sin- cere, consistent eminent religion, as it shines forth in the form and character of a godly father and master. And now, young man, let me entreat you to consider what is the true character of your present life, viewed in relation to the life that is to come. Are you now at home, 01 are you away from home ? Let the poet answer. " Strangers into life we come, And dying is but going home." This world is not our home, and unhappy is the man who makes it such. HEAVEN is THE HOME OF IMMORTAL MAN. During the whole time we are upon earth, we are away from home; and away from it, that we may prepare, like a child at school or a youth in his apprenticeship, to go at length finally and fully, to possess and enjoy it. This is not your rest. How short and uncertain RELIGION A PREI ^RATION. 155 is your continuance upon earth ! You cannot re- main many years, you may not remain one ; for what is your life but " a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away ?" At a moment's notice you may depart. A flash of lightning, a stroke of apoplexy, a ruptured blood^ vessel, the overturn of a boat or a carriage, may plunge you suddenly into eternity. You are sus- pended over that vast gulf by the brittle thread of human life. Instead of living to old age, you may not live to be of age ; instead of living to be a master, you may die before your apprenticeship is finished. Place your ringer on your pulse, and say, "If this stop but a second, and any second it may stop, I am instantly in heaven or hell." Can you call this home ? Ought you to feel at home here? Should you wish to consider this your home? For what a home is it, but such a one as he had whose dwelling was among the tombs ? Home ! What ! would you desire it to be such, where there is so much to disturb, distress, and annoy? No. God has provided some better thing for us : heaven, I repeat, is the home of im- mortal man. Think what heaven is, and how long it lasts. Heaven is the habitation of Jehovah, the dwelling- place of God, the palace of the King eternal, im- mortal, invisible. Heaven is the residence of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, where he displays the glory which he had with the Father before th.9 world was. Heaven is the house of many man- 156 RELIGION A PREPAFwATION sions, inhabited by cherubim and seraphim, the innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect. Heaven is the world without sin, curse, death, or sorrow. Heaven is the state of perfect knowledge, holiness, love, and happiness. And it is everlasting. Our Lord calls it, eternal life. The apostle describes it as a house not made with hands, eternal in the h eavens. What a home ! This for man ! Can it be ? Is it a splendid vision only? No. It is a glorious real- ity. It is this, which Christ died to obtain for his people. It is this, which the Scriptures were written to reveal. It is this, to which the hope of the pious in every age has aspired ; and the prospect of which has cheered them amidst all the sorrows of life. " Two more stiles," said the martyr, as he walked across the fields to the place of execution, " and I shall be at home, at my Father's house." " I am going home," is the common and joyful exclamation of many dying Christians. And what a home ! The home, of saints, of martyrs, of angels, of Christ, of God ! What is the preparation for such a home? Re- ligion : nothing but religion. This home is a holy one. Heaven is in fact the home of religion itself: for here it is only in a wayfaring, pilgrimage state. Religion is a heavenly visitant upon earth, travel- ling back to her native skies, and will never be at rest till she finds herself in the presence of God her Divine Parent. Nothing, therefore, but reli- gion, can prepare a soul for heaven. You may RELIGION A PREPARATION. 157 have a good knowledge of the arts ; you may have a competent, or even profound acquaintance with learning and science ; you may have talents of a public order, that fit you for action and for influ- ence among your fellow men; but what have these things to do with preparation for heaven ? What reference have they to the eternal state ? Nothing but holiness will prepare us for a holy heaven. Would a knowledge of trade, agricul- ture, or science, prepare any one, without the knowledge and manners of a courtier, to dwell at court? How much less in heaven! No, it is sincere, experimental piety alone, that can prepare us to enter into the presence of God. The heav- enly character must be acquired on earth, or it can never be acquired at all. Begin then at once. It is a preparation for eternity, and who can com- mence such a work too early ? You may have but little time allotted for this transcendently mo- mentous affair, " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might ; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." Live for eternity ; live for heaven : and the only way to do this, is to live by faith. Once in heaven, you will never leave it. There will be no going out for ever. You will quit your Father's house no more. The celestial family will never break up. Once at home there, you will be at home for ever. But neglect religion, and you can never be ad- mitted to the regions of immortality. Your pa- 14 158 RELIGION A PREPARATION. rents may be there, but you will be excluded and shut up in outer darkness. I can imagine you in the day of judgment, pressing to lay hold upon the hand of your father, but he turns from you as from an object of disgust, exclaiming, "Your father no longer." You then direct an imploring eye to the mother that bore you, and laying hold on her robe piteously exclaim, " My mother, do you not know me ?" Gathering up her garment of light, she shakes you off, with the dreadful dis- ownment, " I know not the enemies of my Lord.' 1 They pass to the right hand of the Judge, while you, by a power you cannot resist, are sent to the left and what remains ? You will present from that day, the melancholy spectacle of an outcast from heaven, a homeless immortal, a vagrant in the universe, a wretched wanderer through eternity. SPECIAL ADDRESSES. 159 CHAPTER XIII. SEVERAL CLASSES OF YOUNG MEN SPECIALLY AD- DRESSED THE TRAVELLER BY SEA OR LAND THE ORPHAN THE PRODIGAL THE PIOUS YOUTH. I SELECT as the first whom I particularize, those who have left or are soon to leave their native country, whether for a permanent residence abroad, or only for a season. Numerous and very different are the causes which lead to this temporary or lasting expatriation. In some cases, it is a mere curiosity to see the world ; in others a restless, dis- satisfied, and indolent disposition ; in others a still worse cause ; while in some it is a step to which they are called by the plans of Providence, and which circumstances render, if not absolutely ne- cessary, yet every way proper. Whatever may lead to it, however, it is always a course of dan- ger, and sometimes of sorrow. That young man who can step from his native shores into the ves- sel which is to bear him to a distant part of the earth; who can see the land of his nativity recede from his view, till its spires, hills, and cliffs are lost amidst the mighty waste of waters ; who can utter his adieu to the friends, and scenes of his childhood which he very probably may never revisit ; who can forget the perils of the sea, and the danger of tropical climates, which he is about 160 SPECIAL ADDRESSES. to encounter, and all this without some degree of heart-sickness, or at least, evident sadness must have a heart too cold and too hard to be at present the residence of piety and virtue, and affords little hope for the future. Insensibility under such circumstances marks a callous mind ; while sadness and even sorrow are an honour, and not a weakness, to the youth who rather weeps than utters his last adieu. If it be a bad cause that takes you to sea, you will have time for reflection upon the voyage. Use it well. As you pace the deck at night, keeping your watch, with the moon and the stars speaking silently to you of God, think of your course, meditate upon your conduct ; give con- science leave and time to speak, and listen to its voice. Imagine you see a mother's form lighting on the deck, pointing to heaven, and saying as she smiles through her tears, " Repent, my son, re- pent, and come back to us reclaimed : we wait to receive you to our arms, and to our hearts." Hear that gentle voice coming to your ears when nothing else is heard but the whistling of the wind, the dashing of the waves, and the creaking of the masts and rigging. Many a youth in those sol- emn moments has considered his evil ways, and turned from them to God. Cut off from many temptations and companions which beset him on shore, he has had wisdom given him to be sorry for the course he ran, has resolved to forsake it, and has returned home when the voyage was SPECIAL ADDRESSES. 161 over, to heal by his good conduct the wounds he inflicted by his untoward behaviour in the hearts of his parents. But if these scenes are not enough to awaken reflection, and to startle conscience from her slum- ber, may I hope that the roar of the tempest will do it ? Then, when the vessel, with her sails torn, her masts injured, or gone by the board, is driving before the fury of the gale, on a rocky and lee shore, and the horrors of shipwreck and a grave among the monsters of the deep are before you, then think of your ways, then look back upon your wicked career, and cry to God for mercy through Christ : if you perish at sea, perish be- seeching for pardon through the blood of the Lamb ; or if you survive the storm, let its perils never be forgotten, nor the purposes and good res- olutions which in the hour of danger it led you to form. Do not smile at your fears and remorse, as some unhappy youths do, when you find that the vessel has outlived the tempest, and you are safe. The moral dangers of foreign travel are most imminent. You are then not only more than ever, and farther than ever, removed from parental in- spection and restraint, but you are removed also from the control of friends and of public opinion. You will have an opportunity, if you choose to embrace it, for gratifying to the greatest excess every youthful passion and every criminal appe- tite ; and multitudes are swept into an early grave abroad in consequence of their enormous lusts, or 14* 162 SPECIAL ADDRESSES. else become con firmed for ever in habits of immor- ality. Read with attention the following impres- sive fact. The motives which lead young men to sea are rarely laudable, and often criminal, as the follow- ing fact will prove : Two young men, the children of pious and wealthy parents, felt themselves exceedingly dis- pleased at being constantly refused the family car- riage on the Lord's day. It was in vain they urged their confinement during the week, as a sufficient reason why they should be thus indulged on the Sunday. It was the father's settled rule, that the authority which commanded him to rest, included also his servants and cattle ; he therefore turned a deaf ear to their entreaties and remonstrances. In their madness, or in their folly, they determined to resent this refusal, by leaving their situations and going to sea. Intelligence of this step was trans- mitted to the Rev. John Griffin, of Portsea, and he was requested to make diligent inquiry, and on finding them to use every possible means to induce them to return home. After some search, he found them in a rendezvous house, and introducing him- self, he stated his business, and urged their return. He, however, urged in vain ; for, bent upon the fulfilment of their design, they thanked him for his advice, although determined to reject it. Among other reasons for their return, he urged the feel- ings of their parents and especially those of their mother. "Think," said the good man, "what SPECIAL ADDRESSES. 163 must your mother's situation be, after years of anxious watching and fervent prayer ; after looking forward to this time, when in your society and in your welfare she hoped to meet a rich reward for all that she had suffered on your account : yet in one moment, and by one imprudent step, she finda you plunged into misery, the depths of which you cannot conceive of, and herself the subject of a wretchedness she has never deserved at your hands." In the heart of the youngest there was a sense of gratitude, which answered to this Sp- peal; and bursting into tears, he expressed his sorrow for his conduct, and his willingness to return. Still, the eldest remained obdurate. Nei- ther arguments persuaded him, nor warnings alarmed him. The carriage had been repeatedly refused ; he had made up his mind to go to sea, and to sea he would go. " Then," said Mr. Grif- fin, " come with me to my house ; I will get you a ship, and you shall go out as a man and a gen- tleman." This he declined, assigning as a reason, that it would make his parents grieve, to have it said that their son was gone as a common sailor ; as a common sailor, therefore, he would go. " Is that your disposition ?" was the reply. " Then, young man, go," said Mr. Griffin, " and while I say, God go with you, be sure your sin will find you out, and for it God will bring you into judgment." With reluctance, they left him ; the younger son was restored to his parents, while all traces of the elder one were lost, and he was mourned for, as one dead. 164 SPECIAL ADDRESSES. After the lapse of a considerable time, a loud knocking was heard at Mr. Griffin's door. This was early in the morning. On the servant's going down to open the door, she found a waterman, who wished immediately to see her master. Mr. Griffin soon appeared, and was informed that a young man under sentence of death, and about to be executed on board one of the ships in the harbour, had ex- pressed an earnest desire to see him; urging, among other reasons, he could not die happy unless he did. A short time found the minister of religion on board the ship, when the prisoner, manacled and guarded, was introduced to him, to whom he said, " My poor friend, I feel for your condition, but as I am a stranger to you, may I ask why you have sent for me ; it may be that you have heard me preach at Portsea." "Never, sir. Do you not know me ?" " I do not." " Do you not remem- ber the two young men whom you, some years since, urged to return to their parents and to their duty ?" " I do ! I do remember it ; and I remem- ber that you were one of them." " I have sent, then, for you to take my last farewell of you in. this world, and to bless you for your efforts to re- store me to a sense of my duty. Would God that I had taken your advice ; but it is now too late. My sin HAS found me out, and for it God HAS brought me into judgment. One, and but one consolation remains: I refused the offer of going to your house until I could be provided for, assigning as a reason, that it would make my SPECIAL ADDRESSES. 1G5 parents unhappy to have it said their son was a common sailor. A little reflection showed me the cruelty of this determination ; I assumed an- other name, under which I entered myself; and my chief consolation is, that I shall die unpitied and unknown." What the feelings of Mr. Griffin were at this sad discovery may be more easily conceived than described. He spent some time with him in prayer, and offered him that advice which was best suited to his unhappy case. The prisoner was again placed in confinement, and Mr. Griffin remained with the officer who was then on duty. " Can nothing be done for this poor young man?" was one of the first inquiries made after the pris- oner was withdrawn. " I fear not," replied the officer; u the lords of the admiralty have deter- mined to make an example of the first offender in this particular crime. He unfortunately is that offender; and we hourly expect the warrant for his execution. Mr. Griffin determined to go im- mediately to London, and, in humble dependance upon the Lord, to make every effort to save the criminal's life, or to obtain a commutation of the sentence. It was his lot, on the day of his arrival in the metropolis, to obtain an interview with one of the lords of the admiralty, to whom he stated the respectability of the young man's connexions, his bitter and unfeigned regret for the crime which had forfeited his life; and, with that earnestness which the value of life is calculated to excite, 166 SPECIAL ADDRESSES. ventured to ask, if it was impossible to spare him. To his regret, he was informed that the warrant for his execution had been that morning signed, and was on its way to the officer whose melancholy duty it was to see it executed. With compassion the nobleman said, " Go back, sir, and prepare him for the worst. I cannot tell what is to be done ; but we are shortly to meet His Majesty in council, and all that you have urged shall be then stated: may it prove successful." Mr. Griffin returned, but discovered that the morn- ing of his reaching home was the time appointed for the young man's execution. Joy, and fear, and anxiety, by turns, possessed his mind, as, within a few minutes after his arrival, came a pardon, ac- companied with the most earnest request to go immediately on board, lest the sentence of the law should be executed before he could reach the ship. Upon the issues of a moment now rested the life of a fellow-creature, and perhaps the salvation of an immortal soul. The minister reached the harbour, and saw the yellow flag, the signal of death, flying,' the rigging manned, and, for aught he knew to the contrary, the object of his solici- tude at the last moment of his mortal existence. He reached the ship's side, and saw an aged man leaving it, whose sighs, and groans, and tears, pro- claimed a heart bursting with grief, and a soul deeper in misery than the depth of the waters he was upon. It was the prisoner's father ! Under SPECIAL ADDRESSES. 167 the assumed name, he had discovered his wretch- ed son, and had been to take his last farewell of him. Yes, it was the father who had brought him up in the fear of the Lord ; who in his earli- est days had led him to the house of God ; and who, when lost, had often inquired in prayer, " Lord, where is my child ?" Fearfully was he answered ; he had found him, but it was to part, never in this world to meet again. Such, at least, must have been his conclusions in that moment, when, having torn himself from the embrace of his son, he was in the act of leaving the ship. The rest is told in a few words : with Mr. Griffin he re-entered the vessel at the moment when the prisoner, pinioned for execution, was advancing to- ward the fatal spot, whence he was to be sum- moned into the presence of God. A moment found him in the embrace, not of death, but of his father; his immediate liberation followed the knowledge of his pardon; and a few days restored the wanderer to the bosom of his family. The interesting nature of this fact will, it is pre- sumed, be a sufficient apology for its length. It is given on the authority of an individual who had it from the lips of Mr. Griffin himself, who was an eminent and much honored minister of the gospel. It is a fact replete with salutary warn- ing to all young men, not to neglect the advice of pious parents, nor to violate the commands of God; while at the same time it admonishes them, if unhappily they have done so, to repent 168 SPECIAL ADDRESSES. of their sins, and to alter their course, instead of fleeing from restraint to the dangers of a seafaring life. Wherever they go, their sins follow after them, and sooner or later will find them out. In some few cases, the fugitive who has, like Jonah, fled from duty to sea, has been overtaken by the fearful visitations of the Almighty, and brought to repentance by a mixture of judgment and mercy; but in by far the greater number of instances, those who betake themselves to the sea, under the influence of indolence, unsettledness, or sin, be- come abandoned in character and miserable in circumstances. There are some who are gone, or about to go abroad, at the call of duty. Their course of life lies that way, and they are yet happily free from vice, and even from unsteadiness of temper. To such I would say, Leave not your native land with- out real and decided religion as your companion m travel, or if you have left it without this friend, protector, and guide, instantly seek its possession. Religion will soften the pang of separation from your relatives, will open a source of happiness on the voyage, and will cover you with a protecting shield, amidst the dangers of a foreign land. As you travel, or as you dwell among a strange peo- ple, often alone and without a friend with whom to converse, you will feel, and sadly feel, your for- lorn and desolate condition : and when the hour of sickness comes, and you are laid up with a fever or consumption in a land of strangers, think of SPECIAL ADDRESSES- 6 the long nights, and weary days of restlessness and pain, with no mother, no sister near to nurse and comfort you, no, none but strangers, and they per- haps speaking a language you do not understand ! will not religion be needed then? Would not reli- gion soothe you then ? Yes, it would be your nurse, your friend, your comforter, your support. How many, in scenes like these, have taken up the words which the poet has put into the lips of Al- exander Selkirk, in his solitude on the island of Juan Fernandez : " My friends, do they now and then send, A wish or a thought after me 1 tell me I yet have a friend, Though a friend I am never to see. 41 How fleet is a glance of the mind ! Compared with the speed of its flight, The tempest itself lags behind, And the swift winged arrows of light. " When I think of my own native land, In a moment I seem to be there : But alas ! recollection at hand Soon hurries me back to despair. 11 But the sea-fowl is gone to her nest, The beast is laid down in his lair, Even here is a season of rest, And I to my cabin repair. *' There is mercy in every place, And mercy, encouraging thought I 15 " 170 SPECIAL ADDRESSES. Gives even affliction a grace, And reconciles man to his lot. 4< Religion ! what treasure untold, Resides in that heavenly word ! More precious than silver and gold, Or all that this earth can afford." And what an exquisite illustration of the power of religion to comfort, support, and animate the mind in the most forlorn and distressing circum- stances, is to be found in the journal of that most interesting traveller, Mungo Park. He was in the heart of Africa, alone and unprotected. He had just been robbed and stripped by a ferocious ban- ditti, and the following is the account he gives of liis feelings, and his relief: " After they were gone, I sat for some time, looking around me with amazement and terror. Whichever way I turned, nothing appeared but danger and difficulty. I saw myself in the midst of a vast wilderness, in the depth of the rainy season, naked and alone, sur- rounded by savage animals, and men still more savage. I was five hundred miles from the near-* est European settlement. All these circumstances crowded at once on my recollection, and I confess that my spirit began to fail me. I considered my fate as certain, and that I had no alternative but to lie down and perish. THE INFLUENCE OF RELI- GION, however, aided and supported me. I reflected that no human prudence or foresight could possi- bly have averted my present sufferings. I was in- SPECIAL ADDRESSES. 171 deed a stranger in a strange land, yet I was still under the protecting eye of that Providence who has condescended to call himself the stranger's friend. At this moment, painful as my reflections- were, the extraordinary beauty of a small moss, in> fructification, irresistibly caught my eye. I men- tion this to show from what trifling circumstances the mind will sometimes derive consolation; for though the whole plant was not larger than the top of one of my fingers, I could not contemplate the delicate conformation of its roots, leaves, and capsule, without admiration. Can that Being, thought I, who planted, watered, and brought to perfection, in this obscure part of the world, a thing which appears of so small importance, look with unconcern upon the situation and sufferings of creatures formed after his own image? surely not ! Reflections like these would not allow me to despair. I started up, and, disregarding both hunger and fatigue, travelled forward, assured that relief was at hand : and I was not disap- pointed. In a short time, I came to a small village,, at the entrance of which I overtook the two shep- herds who had come with me from Koama. They were much surprised to see me: for they said, they never doubted that the Foulahs, when they had robbed, had murdered rne." What can more beautifully or affectingly prove and illustrate the power of religion in the most trying circumstances and appalling danger, than this touching fact. Let me therefore entreat your 172 SPECIAL ADDRESSES. to seek the same source of consolation. Not cnly- take the Bible in your trunk, but its influence in your heart. Cat off from the means of grace, sur- rounded by Pagan, Mohammedan, or Popish rites, all of them superstitious, and some of them pollut- ing, you will be in danger of losing all sense of piety when you need it most. Fear God, and you will be safe and happy, wander or rest wherever you may; for He is there: reverence his presence, obey his authority, enjoy his favour and you are blessed. You may die, and leave your bones in a foreign land ; but, as one of the sages of antiquity said, "Every place is equally near to heaven," For you my tenderest sympathies are awakened, and my most affectionate anxieties engaged. You are, indeed, away from home; for you have no home but that which you occupy as an apprentice, shopman, or clerk. The grave has closed over your father and mother; and that habitation once the scene of your childhood, and which you then never entered but with delight, is now the resi- dence of strangers. That threshold you will never cross again. A father's hand, a mother's smile, will welcome you no more to that abode ; but you can never pass it even now, without looking up to the chamber window, within which the quiet nights of childhood were slept away in compara- tive innocence and peace, and saving with a sigh, SPECIAL ADDRESSES. 173 tt My mother, - Life has pass'd With me but roughly, since I heard thee last. 1 " Oh ! this is a cold and selfish world. Those who should have loved and befriended you, if not for your own, yet for your parents' sakes, have for- gotten you ; and perhaps, even in the circle of your relatives, you find scarcely any one who interests himself in your behalf. There was an orphan of old, who cheered himself thus, " When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." He found it so, and left his experience upon record for your encouragement and hope. Go to the same God by faith, by trust, and prayer, and seek his favour, his guardianship and guid- ance. He will be your friend, and never forsake you. He will be a father to you, and will never be removed by death. He styles himself, and it is one of his tenderest titles, " the Father of the fatherless.'' 5 His friendship will be more than a compensation for all you have lost, and he will raise you up other friends on earth. What have you lost in earthly parents, which cannot be more than made up in God ? " What have I lost," say you, " what have I not lost. They were my dearest, my kindest, my most valuable friends : their counsels guided me, their care protected me, their daily converse was the joy of my life, their sympathy revived me, and their bounty supplied my wai.s. And now they are gone, how justly 15* 174 SPECIAL ADDRESSES. may I say, that my dearest comforts and hopes lie buried with their precious remains." Well, but cannot God counsel you, protect you, converse with you, sympathize with you, supply you, far more effectually than they did ? Your father and mother are dead, but God, your heavenly Father, can never die. If you commit your way to him, by holy fear and earnest prayer, he will guide you through all the intricacies of life, protect you amidst its dangers, comfort you under its sorrows, and conduct you safely, notwithstanding your gloomy prospects, through this mortal life, till you come at last to your father's house in peace, Seek to have God for your Father, and you will never want a friend. Choose religion, and you will never want a portion. Unite yourself with the church of Christ, and you will never want a home. But at the same time, you should be told that you can expect no safety out from piety. Left at an early age without the guides and guardians of your youth, without the check and restraint that even a distant father, while he lived, imposed by his correspondence, you will be an object for Satan's wiles, and for the arts of those who lie in wait to deceive. There are many who date their ruin from the day of their parent's death, and con- sider that event as the commencement of their downward career. Some to hush their sorrows, increased by the selfishness and unkindness of friends, have plunged into dissipation : while others SPECIAL ADDRESSES. 175 who had hitheito felt a parent's admonitions an impediment to a life of sin, have rushed into vice, as soon as this obstacle was removed by death. If either of these dangers be yours, may your parent's venerable shade appear to your imagina- tion, as troubled by your misconduct, and warn you from a course of sin, which, if persisted in, will lead to destruction. You have lost them for a season, and will you by sin lose them for ever. PIOUS YOUNG MEN. You form a happy and an important class, if not a numerous one. Receive my congratulations on the rich and sovereign mercy which has called you out of darkness, and made you the children of light. Bless God, that while so many are walking according to the course of this world, and fulfilling the desires of the flesh, and of the mind ; you are walking in the ways of Godliness and peace. And while you are thankful, be humble, circumspect, and prayerful. You are, and will be exposed to great and sore trials of your steadfastness. Per- haps you are placed in a situation, where you find not one likeminded with yourself. You alone are "faithful found among the faithless," and will need great grace to stand your ground against the annoyance, ridicule, and opposition, with which your religion will be assailed, by a set of gay, dis- sipated, and irreligious youths. It is of vast im- portance, that you should at once, and without 176 SPECIAL ADDRESSES^ hesitation, let it be seen and known, that you fear God. Let there be no attempt to conceal your principles, or your practices. Let those with whom you are to associate, know at your first en- trance among them, that you profess to regard the claims of religion. If you begin by concealing your principles, it will be extremely difficult to exhibit them afterward, and thus your life will be wretched under the stings of conscience re- proaching you for cowardice, and the dread of open avowal. Moreover, you will often be obliged, or tempted, at any rate, in order to keep up the delu- sion, to do things which you know to be wrong, and thus bring much remorse into your bosom. Remember who has said, " Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he com eth in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." Pray much and pray earnestly, and believingly, for MORAL COUR- AGE. Entreat of God to be with you. Beseech him to stand by you, and uphold you with a strength greater than your own. You will be in imminent peril without great wa tchfulness. Every ingenious art and device will be tried to shake your con- stancy. The licentious or sceptical work will often be placed in yoar way. You will be besieged, and if the smallest breach be made, in even the outworks of your character, the advan- tage will be plied against you till the whole is carried by storm, or capitulation. The first temp- SPECIAL ADDRESSES. 177 tation presented by your companions will be to small offences, to matters of doubtful or debateable propriety, and if these succeed, they will become more bold. Steel your heart against ridicule. Betray no irritability. Bear all with dignified meekness. Petulance will only provoke to greater annoyance. Forbearance on your part, will be most likely to induce them to desist. They will soon feel that it is useless to laugh at a man, who accounts their scorn his praise, and who glories in their reproach as his honour ; and they will at length respect that firmness of mind, strength of principle, and heroism of character, which their assaults can neither break nor bend. It will tend much to your defence and stability, by inspiring them with respect, if you are skilful in your busi- ness, and possess a well cultivated mind. Strive to be superior in all that constitutes the clever tradesman or professional man, and the man of knowledge. Convince them that although reli- gion is the enemy of sin, it is the friend of all that can benefit and adorn humanity. Study well, and deeply, the evidences of revealed religion, and make yourself intimately acquainted with the method of meeting all the objections of the popu- lar infidelity of the day. But especially be con- sistent. Let your piety be unvarying and uni- versal, and interwoven with the whole texture of your character. It should produce, not only the fear of God, but the love of man : it should blend the .amiable and the devout, the cheerful and the 173 SPECIAL ADDRESSES, serious, the useful and the happy. You should seek, by the steady, consistent influence of exam- ple, as well as by the occasional and well-timed persuasion of direct address, to reclaim those who are gone astray. You should judiciously, and affectionately, warn your associates, who are seek- ing the pleasures of sin, of their danger. You may be honoured to convert them from the error of their ways, and save their souls from death. It is astonishing what small means may sometimes do much good, even when nothing is said, and where it is only the power of example that operates. As a proof of this, I will mention a fact which I know to have occurred in the history of a well-known and successful minister of the gospel. At the time of leaving home, he was strictly moral, and had some veneration for godliness ; but soon be- came careless and indifferent. He could not, however, give up all attention to the welfare oi his soul. It was his custom to retire to his room for prayer on Sundays between the public services of religion; neglecting it at all other times, and being ashamed to pray in the presence of his fel- low-apprentice. Aware of the sinfulness of his conduct, and wanting the courage and resolution to change, he earnestly and sincerely besought God to raise up some one in the house to help and guide him in this momentous concern. After a time, a third apprentice was taken into the busi- ness. The first night he slept in the house, on retiring to bed, he fell on his knees, and continued SPECIAL ADDRESSES. 179 some time in prayer. The effect of this upon the mind of the youth whose history I am relating was instantaneous and powerful. It seemed to him as if a voice, in impressive accents, said, " Behold the answer of your prayer : there is the individual sent to guide you into the way of true religion." Serious reflection followed; his con- science was awakened ; his heart was interested ; and decided piety was at length the result. He was introduced by his companion to a circle of pious friends, and after a year or two exchanged secular for sacred pursuits, went to college, he- came a minister of the gospel, and has been greatly honoured by the usefulness both of his preaching and his publications. And I have heard him say, that he traces up all his usefulness to the prayer of that youth, who had the moral courage to bend his knee and acknowledge God before his new companions, from whom he plainly saw he should receive no countenance in the habits of piety. This fact should be a motive and an encourage- ment to those who have any sense of religion never to conceal it, but to let their light shine be- fore others, that they, seeing their good works, may glorify God their heavenly Father. PRODIGALS. By such, I mean those young men who find their picture drawn by the pencil of inspiration in that most touching and beautiful of all our Lord's 180 SPECIAL ADDRESSES* parables, usually denominated the " Prodigal Son," and which is contained in Luke xv. Oh could I hope that some of this class will read these pages, I should entertain the further expec- tation that what I now address to them would be the means, under the blessing of God, of conduct- ing them from the paths of sin to those of wisdom , piety, and peace. You have left your father's house, because, perhaps, you could not endure its rules and restraints, and have well nigh broken your father's heart, after having considerably im- poverished his circumstances by your idleness, extravagance, and dissipation: and you are still going on in the career of vice and destruction. Permit me to plead with you, first on your own account. I need not ask if you are happy ; for it is impossible you should be, unless folly, sin, and shame can make you so. Oh no, there are mo- ments when you are awakened by reflection to the horrors of your situation, and, under the uni- ted influence of remorse and despair, are ready to put an end, by suicide, to your miserable exist- ence. You have proved the deceitfulness of sin, which promised you pleasure, and has inflicted unutterable misery. You have found the yoke of Satan to be galling iron to your neck, instead of the happy freedom under which his service was set forth to captivate your youthful imagination. Rise, deluded, degraded, and half-destroyed youth, against these murderous tyrants, who have brought you to the brink of the pit, but have not yet, with SPECIAL ADDRESSES. 181 all their artifice and cruelty, thrust you in f o it. You are not yet irrecoverably ruined for earth, nor inclosed in the prison of hell. Bad as you are, there is hope for you ; yes, even for you. Turn, turn, from the road that leadeth to destruction. Think, I beseech you, upon your parents, not quite, but almost crushed into the grave by your evil ways. It is not yet too late to restore their peace of mind, so long broken by your miscon- duct ; nor the elasticity of their frame, so heavily pressed down by years of trouble, brought on by your guilty wanderings. "None but a parent's heart can know the anguish of parting with a sweet babe." But there is an agony deeper and more inconsolable than that. It is occasioned by a vicious son. I have seen one of the tenderest and best of mothers console her mind on the death of a darling child by the hope that it was with Christ in a better world. On the same day 1 have seen another mother pour forth, from a heart which no consolations could reach, tears of bitterness over a perverse and wicked son, and have heard her say, " The death of an infant is nothing to this : would that my son had died in his infancy !" Hasten, hasten, young man, that by your reformation you may spare your mother the anguish of saying with her last breath, " I am dying of a broken heart ; my son, my wicked and unhappy son, has killed me.'* Unless you soon repent, and arise, and go to your father, and say, "Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and in 16 182 SPECIAL ADDRESSES. thy sight, " you will lie down in the grave of a parricide, and have inscribed, by the finger of public infamy, upon your tomb, if a tomb shall be given you, " Here lies the murderer of his father and his mother." The last stab, however, is not yet given to them ; the dagger of your unkindness, and your profligacy, has not yet reached the vital part, and all the other wounds, if not perfectly healed, may be mollified by your reformation. Yes, that venerable pair may yet say, if you will permit them to do so, by your conversion to God, and consequent holiness, " It is meet that we should make merry : for this our son was dead, and is alive again ; was lost, and is found." Brothers, who had long since disowned you, as far as they could do it, may yet restore to you their fraternal love. Sisters, who once regarded you as their joy and boast, when they saw you leave your father's home, a fair and promising youth, but who, in your fallen condition, could never hear your name pronounced without blushes and tears, shall again, if you repent, exclaim with throbbing hearts, "My brother!" O prodigal, return; return by true repentance and faith to God, your Father in heaven, and in the same state of mind to your father on earth. Both are looking out for you ; both will receive you ; both will rejoice over you. Numerous instances might be mentioned to awaken hope, arid encourage this return. Do not despair of amendment. Do not say there is no hope. None, not even ?/ow, are too bad to be re- SPECIAL ADDRESSES. 183 claimed. Read the beautiful parable to which I have already referred. What prodigal can wan- der farther, sink lower, or seem more out of the way of recovery, or more remote from the region of hope, than he was ; yet he was restored. And why was the parable spoken, and why was it written, but to encourage hope, in cases seem- ingly the most deplorable and abandoned ? I knew a case, which is both a salutary warn- ing against sin, and an encouragement to those who have gone far and long astray, to consider that it is never too late to repent. One winter evening, as I was sitting by the fire, I heard a knock at the door, and the servant announced that a person in the hall wished to speak to me. I went out, and found a shabby-looking, dirty, squalid creature, who, after some apology for the intrusion, introduced himself as - , the son of . I had heard for many years of his career, and lamented it, for his father's sake, who was an eminent minister of the gospel, as well as for his own. Although I had known him in his better days, I did not recognise him in his pro- digal appearance. As soon as he was seated in the dining-room, and I had the opportunity more clearly to see his degradation and wretchedness, I burst into tears, and he too was affected to see that the knowledge of his career had not extinguished all my sympathy for his misery. I relieved him, and he departed. This youth, after being spoiled by his mother, whose only child he was, and who, 184 SPECIAL ADDRESSES. though she erred in this instance, was in most others an admirable woman, became wayward at home, and unsettled abroad. He served his time with a professional gentleman, and at this period formed some bad associations, and contracted some bad habits, among which was a fatal propensity to drinking. By various plans formed, and broken, about settling in business, he wasted all his patri- mony, and became dependent on his friends, still retaining his habits of idleness and drinking. One situation after another was found for him by those whose kindness he defeated in all their attempts to serve him; till at length, wearied in endeavour- ing to serve a man who would not serve himself, they were obliged to give him up. His ruin now was complete. He became a perfect vagabond, and roamed through the country, herding with the lowest wretches, sometimes begging, and resorting to all kinds of methods to procure a meager suste- nance, and drag on his miserable life. On one oc- casion, he called upon a friend of his father's in London, in such a beggarly, filthy condition, that before he could be admitted into the house a tub of water was placed in an out-building, that he might cleanse himself, a suit of old clothes was given him, and his rags instantly consumed. Thus clothed and relieved, it was hoped he might now do better, according to his promise : but in a few days, all was pawned, and he again clothed in rags, that he might drink with the few shillings obtained as the balance in this barter of decent ap- SPECIAL ADDRESSES. 185 parel for that which merely covered his limbs. Thus he went on, till he had seen the interior of workhouses, lock-up houses, and prisons. He had associated with the offscouring of society, had be- come hardened in vice, and almost stupified by want and wo ; and, one should suppose, had been long lost to every sense of decency, and every hope or desire of reformation. Yet, this prodigal of prodigals did at last find his way back to his heav- enly Father's house. In his wanderings, he ram- bled into a town, where he made himself known to a minister of the gospel, who felt an interest in him for his revered father's sake. This gentle- man, not discouraged or disheartened by the nu- merous disappointments which had already oc- curred, took him under his care, clothed him, and procured him support. The prodigal's heart melted under this distinguished kindness ; his mind open- ed to religious instruction ; and repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ followed. He lived long enough to make a consistent profes- sion of true religion, and died in the peaceful hope of that blessed world into which " nothing enter- eth that defileth, or worketh abomination, or maketh a lie." His repentance, however, came too late to gladden the spirit of his mother ; (his father died before his vicious course commenced;) her constitution was impaired by grief, and she sank broken-hearted to the grave. What a meet- ing in the heavenly world who can imagine it? cf this hopeless disappointed, and sorrow-stricken IS* 186 SPECIAL ADDRESSES. mother, and this returned prodigal, the source of her deepest grief, and the bastener of her death ! Prodigal son, was there ever a seemingly more hopeless case than this? Is yours more hopeless? Turn, then, from your evil ways. God's mercy, through Christ, is great enough to pardon even your sins, if you truly repent and unfeignedly be- lieve in the promise of salvation. The Holy Spirit can change even your hard heart, if you wish to he changed, and if you pray in faith for the grace that is necessary to effect it. If your parents yet live, return to your father's house, reformed, and do all that can be done to heal the wounds of his bleeding heart, and to wipe away the tears from a mother's eyes. Make them yet rejoice that you are their son. In the evening- tide of their existence, let there be light. Let their gray hairs go down to the grave, not in sor- row, but in joy ; and let it be a consolation to them on their death-bed, that they have received you, penitent and reformed, to their earthly home, and hope to meet you, and dwell with you for ever in their heavenly mansion. Or, if your repentance comes too late to stay their progress to the tomb, or cheer their hearts, sickened and saddened with the foreboding that they are parting from you for ever, go sorrowfully all your days, at the thought of having shortened their existence by your sins $ but still comforted and sustained by the hope that they were among the spirits in heaven that re- joiced over your repentance, and that they gave SPECIAL ADDRESSES. 187 utterance to their joys among the angels of God, saying, " Rejoice with us : for this our son was dead, and is alive ; was lost, and is found." There is a home for all truly penitent prodigals, in heaven; and there is a home for all impenitent ones, but it is in hell. DPTTTTT 14 DAY USE V FROM WHICH BORROWED X) > ^ i r- ol |_ s^ 5 171 70 1 5 50 5 c o 8. ^ 1 pQ ^n ^^^ 1 S n ,a ? Cn NO \S "* \l \ " Q > M CO GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY BQ0032TS2S M175550 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY