and energy of mind, and, whatever may be the other failings to which they are exposed, at least to save them from caprice and instability.

It is among those, to whom fortune and education have given every means to improve, and every power to bless humanity, that this character of weakness is, unhappily, most frequently to be found. They, who, in their early years, have never felt the necessities of life,-to whom "to-morrow has always been as to-day, and yet more abundant,"-and who see themselves, at once, in possession of all that other men are struggling to acquire,-are raised above the influence of those motives which animate the activity of the generality of men. The pressure is removed, which usually hardens the human character into any degree of consistence and solidity.

It may be right in others, they think, to labor;—it is right in them to enjoy. Others are bound to direct all their talents to one purpose or end;-they are happily free from the thraldom,—and the whole circle of human pleasures and pursuits is thrown open to them, in which they may range at will. It may be honorable in humbler men; they imagine, to devote themselves to the sober path of duty. In them, on the contrary, it is honorable to avail themselves of the advantages, which nature has given them; and, in a gay exemption from all serious pursuits, to exhibit to a lower world the envied privilege of their rank.

Amid such impressions, the first foundations of this fatal weakness of character are laid. While neither necessity nor duty seems as yet to compel them to form any settled plans of pursuit or of conduct, they naturally yield themselves to the more pleasing guidance of imagination; and the character of their understanding soon marks the incompetence of the guide. The regular paths of science seem too laborious and too tedious for their attempt. They satisfy themselves, therefore, with the acquisition of some loose and superficial knowledge. The sober details of business seem beneath their regard, and can always be devolved upon some inferior or friend; and even in the acquisitions which are made, it is the new, the splendid, or the fashionable, that is sought, instead of the solid or the useful. The habits of levity and

thus too naturally begun, gain insensibly a progresfluence over their minds; and thus youth, and the erable years of youth, are often passed, not in vice, , but in frivolous amusements, or, what is worse than n frivolous and unmanly pursuits.

LESSON XX.

The same,-concluded.

disposition of mind unfits men, in a singular manner, performance of their parts in social life. Whatever the opinions of youth, life cannot proceed far without g with it many serious duties to all;-scenes, where perseverance and self-denial must be exerted, and the character is brought to a severe and unsparing For these scenes of trial, the men of the unstable er, we are considering, are, unhappily, little fitted. ant all the habits of thought and of activity, which isite for honor and success. It is " an armor which ve not proved;" and they thus enter upon the eventful life, with all its private and public duties, unarmed rude struggle, which is every where prepared for

begin then, perhaps, to lament the levity and lessness of their former days; but youth and all its ole hours are gone; habits have acquired dominion; are passing them in the road of fame and honor ;inking from a contest in which they no longer dare - success, they finally retire to hide their disgrace in ce and obscurity. From this melancholy period, the er sinks every day more deeply down into insignifind uselessness. The poor remainder of life is given lous pursuits or capricious amusements; and, not ently, their gray hairs are disgraced, by vainly imihe follies and the levities of youth.

with still more fatal consequences that this disposition Hed, in respect to moral excellence. In a world such

as this, in which the beneficence of the Almighty hath opened so many sources of enjoyment, it requires, in every situation, the steady employment of faith and of fortitude to withstand their assault; and no discipline can ever lead to honor and to virtue, but that which inspires resolution, and habituates to self-command. In this respect, too, the men of this unstable character come singularly unprepared for the combat. The scenes, in which they have been engaged have nurtured no firmness or energy of mind. No great objects of pursuit have opened upon them, which might animate voluntary exertion; and, what is perhaps of more consequence, in the same proportion, in which the active powers of their minds have been unemployed, their passive sensibilities to pleasure have been increased.

To dispositions thus diseased, the simple pleasures, and the sober tranquillities of domestic virtue, are ill adapted. Their habits have accustomed them to freedom of pursuit, and variety of indulgence; and they tire, in the midst of happiness, merely from the sameness of possession. Other amusements are looked for ;-gayer associates are soon found; -and vice, ever in the rear of folly, begins, by unmarked steps, to take final possession of the heart. It is at this fatal period, that the sad effects of this disposition upon the happiness of social life begin to display themselves; and that all the sacred duties of domestic life are sometimes seen to be sacrificed without remorse.

It is almost unnecessary, I feel, to add, that this instability of character is equally fatal to human happiness. If it be in such vices as have been described, that the character finally ends, it were a treachery to nature and to virtue, to speak of happiness along with them. Even upon the most favorable supposition, though nothing more than weakness and indolence should be the result, there are still considerations which it is hard to bear. Every man has some sense of what God and the world require of him ;—some consciousness, however indistinct, of the purposes for which the mighty advantages of nature and fortune were given: and to every man, time, as it passes, has a voice which no mortal heart can forget. It seems to ask us what we have done, and what we are doing; and, in every periodical return, it leaves,

ly, "that bitterness of wo which the heart alone

painful to us all, we know, to lie down at night, and at the duties of the day have not been done. It is inful to close the year, and to think that it has been in idleness and folly. But what, alas! must be the of those, who lie down at last upon the bed of death, k back upon their past lives with no remembrances< ness! who can recall only riches wasted, and power and talents misemployed,-and see that grave openeceive them, upon which no tear will be shed, and no al of virtue raised!

then be remembered, even in the midst of youth and perity, that life hath its duties as well as its pleasures; t no situation can exempt the Christian from the obs of labor and of exertion. Let it be remembered, akness is ever the parent of vice; and that it is in the hours of youth, that all those habits of thought and of - are acquired, which determine the happiness or the of future days. Let it, lastly, be remembered, that honors of time and of eternity belong only to wisdom

severance.

LESSON XXI.

Stability of Character.-ALISON.

[LITY of character is, in all pursuits, the surest founf success. It is a common error of the indolent and rudent, to attribute the success of others to some talents, or original superiority of mind, which is not ind in the generality of men. Of the falseness of ion, the slightest observation of human life may satThe difference of talents, indeed, and the varieties al character, may produce a difference in the aims he designs of men; and superior minds will naturally themselves superior objects of ambition. But the nt of these ends, the accomplishment of these de

signs, is, in all cases, the consequence of one means alone,— that of steadfastness and perseverance in pursuit.

"It is the hand of the diligent," saith the wise man, that maketh rich." It is the same diligence, when directed to other ends, that maketh great. Every thing which we see with admiration in the world around us, or of which we read with delight in the annals of history,—the acquisitions of knowledge, the discoveries of science, the powers of art, the glories of arms, the dignities of private, or the splendors of public virtue, all have sprung from the same fountain of mind, from that steady but unseen perseverance, which has been exerted in their pursuit. The possession of genius alone, is, alas! no certain herald of success; and how many melancholy instances has the world afforded to us all, of how little avail mere natural talents are to the prosperity of their possessors, and of the frequency with which they have led to ruin and disgrace, when unaccompanied with firmness and energy of mind!

This stability of character is the surest promise of honor. It supposes, indeed, all the qualities of mind that are regarded by the world with respect; and which constitute the honorable and dignified in human character. It supposes that profound sense of duty, which we every where look for as the foundation of virtue, and for the want of which no other attainments can ever compensate. It supposes a chastened and regulated imagination, which looks ever to "the things that are excellent," and which is incapable of being diverted from their pursuit, either by the intoxications of prosperous, or the depressions of adverse fortune. It supposes, still more, a firm and intrepid heart, which neither pleasure has been able to seduce, nor indolence to enervate, nor danger to intimidate; and which, in many a scene of trial, and under many severities of discipline, has hardened itself at last into the firmness and consistency of virtue.

A character of this kind can never be looked upon without admiration; and, wherever we meet it, whether amid the splendors of prosperity, or the severities of adversity, we feel ourselves disposed to pay it a pure and an unbidden homage. The display of wild and unregulated talents may sometimes, indeed, excite a temporary admiration; but it is the admira