your own inclinations to their pleasure; and that he at the final day will require this at your hands. You are bound also to remember, that the course which they have prescribed for you, though unhappily contrary to the strong bias of your inclinations, is in itself the wisest and best which is possible; and that the knowledge which they intended you should acquire, will, if actually acquired, be the greatest of all earthly blessings, which you can obtain. By the command of GOD you are bound to obey your parents in all things. If you reverenced your Maker; you would certainly obey them in this: for they are here eminently seeking your best good, and labouring most benevolently to raise you to usefulness and honour. Gratitude, therefore, adds all its strong claims to filial piety, and piety to God; and powerfully urges you to overcome with a manly struggle your reluctance to study. You may lawfully wish that your destination had been different. But nothing can vindicate your present neglect of your duty.

Another class of idlers in this Seminary is formed of those, who in their dispositions exactly resemble the miserable being whom Solomon saw, and whom he has made the subject of his reflections in the text. These are naturally lazy; just as others of our race are naturally passionate. The indulgence of sloth, so far as we are able to judge, is their supreme good: and exertion of every kind, the evil which they supremely dread. Address to them whatever arguments you please, for the purpose of rousing them to activity: rehearse to them the commands of GoD: repeat before them the loud calls of their own interest; of property, reputation, influence, and usefulness, ever attendant upon vigorous efforts, especially those for the attainment of valuable knowledge; and the worthlessness, insignificance, disgrace, and beggary, which follow hard on the heels of sloth: recall to their view the wounds which their parents will receive from the disappointment of all their hopes, and from the disgrace, wretchedness, and ruin, of their children: point to them their companions, honourably contending in the race of learning, worth and usefulness: the only answer which you will receive, is, "Yet a little sleep; a little slumber; a little folding of the hands to sleep."

To those of you, who sustain this deplorable character, if such there are, arguments can be addressed, only with emotions bordering on despair. What can be expected of those who have no ears to hear, nor hearts to understand; whose minds are diseased and torpid; and to whom the considerations of time and eternity are alike presented in vain? These persons do not walk, but slide, down the broad and crooked road. They do not go, but slumber, onward to perdition. Yet I will try once more, to discharge my own duty to them; however hopeless, however vain, may be the attempt. Remember then the sentence, which GoD has passed upon persons who sustain this miserable character. "If any will not work neither shall he eat," i. e. if any person will not do some useful business, allotted to him by Providence, he shall not eat. Whenever he receives his daily food, he violates the express command of GOD. Here every lazy man is expressly doomed by his Maker to starving, and death; and the very continuance of his life, and the reception of the food by which it is supported, are downright rebellion against his Maker. Of what other class of sinners are these terrible things said in the Scriptures? and what must be the views, what the detestation, of Him, by whom they are said concerning this character?

Remember also, that you are daily increasing the strength of this propensity. Every hour, in which you indulge it, it becomes a more and more powerful habit; and chains you down in a more and more hopeless bondage. Your efforts against it, your attempts at exertion, already so feeble and fruitless, will soon become the mere unmeaning struggles of a paralytic; a trembling of the limbs, instead of an effort; involuntary struggles of the system, made without the energy of the muscles, or the guidance of the mind; and only proofs that life is not entirely extinct. What then are you to become in the future periods of your earthly residence. Like the paralytic to whom I have alluded, you will become mere dependents on the bounty and protection of those around you: if any can be found, whom nature will compel to assume this care. In the same helpless state of imbecility you will need to be watched, and nursed, and fed, by

others; will be mere burdens on the industry and humanity of your connections; will be mere burdens to yourselves; will drag life onward as a load; and will ultimately expire under the

pressure.

Another class of idlers in this Institution, and that much larger than both the former, is composed of those, who are votaries to pleasure. These are not in the absolute sense slothful. It is not true that they do nothing. It is only true, that they do nothing to any valuable purpose; nothing which is of any use to themselves, their fellow men, or their God. They do much; but all which they do, is mischievous to themselves and to others; often, very often it is fatal to both. In describing them it would be neither proper nor possible for me to point out either particular persons, or facts, I shall therefore exhibit them, as they have always existed in such institutions; and shall leave it to those who are present, and are involved in the description, however few or many they may be, to apply it to themselves.

One subordinate class of these persons is made up of those, who are devotees to dress and appearance. They were sent hither to adorn their minds with learning, science, and virtue. They spend their time in adorning their persons with fine clothes. Not books, but fashions, are the objects of their study: and their lessons of instruction are all taken from the tailor. The human mind is, of course, under the government of one controlling object. By him, to whom dress is this object, knowledge is of course forgotten. In vain does a teacher labour to pour instruction into this vessel of the Danaides. It is every where pierced with holes; and whatever it receives merely passes through. How miserably do parents err, how deplorably must parents be disappointed, who send such children to a seminary of learning? How much less expensive, how much less mortifying, would it have been to dress them at home. They are sent hither to become men; and they leave the place of their education fops and beaux. No human character is, perhaps, more diminutive; no resemblance to an insect more impressive. The minds of all such persons are uncultivated, and desolate: the field of the

slothful, grown over with briers and thorns; in which not one thing of use is permitted to spring. !

In this class is found, to a great extent, a subordinate one, who spend a great part of their collegiate life in visiting. These waste their time in displaying their persons and dress to others; and in trifling conversation about subjects of no value; apparently believing, that their souls were formed only to trifle; and that their final account, although made up of nothing but trifling, will be accepted by the Judge of the quick and the dead. How distant an approximation is this towards the character of a rational being a being, formed to know, and love, and serve God; a being, fitted to become a blessing to mankind; and destined, during this period of probation, to secure immortal glory beyond the grave!

But all idlers in this and other seminaries of the same nature, do not spend life in mere trifling. There are those, and the proportion is not small, who employ a great part of their collegiate existence in keeping company with each other. Most of these aim at vice in more solid forms, and on a more significant scale. All do not indeed commence their career with direct designs of this nature. Some are drawn to such scenes merely by social propensities: Others, by indisposition to study, and the consequent necessity of finding some employment in which they may spend their time less heavily and less gloomily than in absolute inexertion. The mind is in its nature incapable of being totally stagnant; and instinctively demands some engagement, by which its faculties may in some degree at least be occupied. Those, who in the literal sense are willing to do nothing, are few; are perhaps always diseased; and usually may be regarded as inhabiting diseased bodies. The rest, particularly those of the class now under consideration, although idle with respect to every thing which is good are sufficiently active in doing evil. First or last this becomes the great object of their association. The cluster is originally gathered, perhaps, in the hours of relaxation; but afterwards and at no distant periods, in those of study; and, ultimately, at late and untimely seasons of the night. At first it

is assembled in the Collegiate rooms: ultimately, it is collected in rooms abroad; particularly in those buildings which are unoccupied by families; buildings which in the night become solitudes, where no witnesses of what is passing within approach nearer than the street. In these meetings youths are trained up to sin, in form; with the combined efforts of a multitude sedulously helping each other onward with their united ingenuity, arts, and labours, to corruption and disgrace, beggary and ruin, in this life, and to perdition in that which is to come.

Here profaneness runs speedily through all its changes, from the half formed language of irreverence, babbled by the young adventurer in licentiousness, whose conscience has not yet been stupified, and who still hesitates under the impressions of a religious education, to the rank oath; the curse, which invocates damnation on himself, and his companions; and the outrageous blasphemy, which deliriously assaults the throne of God. In these dark retreats, also, pollution is generated in all its malignant forms. Here the tongue learns to vibrate through every degree on the rank scale of licentiousness, from the obscure innuendo to gross, bald, sickening, obscenity. The imagination, at the same time, is here set on fire of hell: and the soul, tainted and rendered putrid with impurity, becomes a lazar-house of corruption, and sends up rank and poisonous fumes to heaven. Here, also, purposes and habits of pollution are formed, which fix the miserable wretch who is the subject of them, beyond the hope of reformation or recall; and invoking on his head a judicial sentence of reprobation, begin his perdition on this side of the grave.

In these cells of sin, also, is begun and carried on a regular course of Gaming. Books, learning and science, character and virtue, are here bartered for cards and dice. The money, given by the parent as the means of supporting the honourable education of his child, earned with his own toil, and often spared from his own comfort, is ungratefully hazarded, fraudulently won, and foolishly lost. Here the spirit of sharping and dishonesty commences: and the fair mind is darkened with the stains of hell. VOL. II. 17