As you advance in years and in understanding, other reflections may occur to your minds, and other words suggest themselves in your addresses at the throne of Heaven; and even at present it seems to me desirable that you should use this little work occasionally as a model, and gradually habituate yourselves to the giving of your own thoughts utterance. The The purpose of the ollowing pages will not be completely answered, until they shall not only have formed in you a habit of devotion, but shall also have taught you, without assistance, to express with propriety the gratitude which glows in your breast; or to seek the supply of those wants you may individually feel. This will be the case, if, with the habit, you gain any of the true spirit of devotion; without which the habit will be of little service. If you rest satisfied with the formal use of this little work morning and evening, the end for which it has been written will not be answered. If your love of the Supreme Being be increased, your desire of serving him enlarged, and your mind stored with useful sentiments and principles, then my purpose will be secured: I shall have contributed something to the honour of Almighty God, and to the good of my fellow-creatures..

Such is the nature and intention of the work here presented to you. If, my young friends,

you have ever thought upon the subject, you must be fully convinced of the great importance of a religious and devotional temper at your period of life. If you have never considered this, let me intreat you to delay no longer, but with the most perfect seriousness and candour, to accompany me in the reflections I am now going to lay before you.

In every age, and in every condition of life, the influence of devotion is highly needful and important. The adoration of the great Source of all enjoyment, by whose providence all exist, and from whose goodness all derive the comfort of their existence, is an employment worthy of the human faculties, reasonable in itself, and productive of the most excellent dispositions. In the day of prosperity, what more natural or becoming, than the language of praise at the throne of God; in the hour of adversity, what more suitable or consoling, than the expression of confidence in the divine. government, and the wish that devotion breathes, "Father, not my will, but thine be done;" in the whole conduct of life, in all the events of this evervarying scene, what more likely to keep the mind in a calm and tranquil state, or to render the present moral discipline efficacious in preparing us for future eminence and glory, than the habit of devout intercourse with the great Father of our spirits?

A practice so excellent in maturer life, is recommended to youth by reasons peculiarly forcible. Piety, a crown of glory to the hoary head, is an ornament of peculiar beauty upon that which has not seen many years. It is the language of the most absurd and fatal folly, that religion and its duties are not suited to the innocent gaiety of youth; that devotion belongs to those only who have passed that period; and that it will be sufficient to think of preparing for a future state, when we begin to lose our relish for the present. Such sentiments as these are not, I hope, adopted by any of those young persons who shall take this little work into their hands. The reverse are such as they ought to maintain; such as alone are worthy of a rational mind. Is it reasonable, my young friends, that living as you do upon the bounty of Providence, you should feel no gratitude, nor express any thankfulnes, for its bounties? that dependent as you are upon God for life, and health, and all things, you should live without any regard for your unceasing Benefactor, and think yourselves improperly employed, when celebrating his praise? Are the blessings you receive, undeserving of your thanks? Are you insensible of the value of kind relations, judicious friends, and wise instructers, of bodily strength and activity, of cheerfulness of mind, of all the numberless means by which life is not

only supported, but rendered happy? Is it possible that you should not see and feel the ingratitude of employing your best days, and your most vigorous powers, without one thought of God; and of contenting yourselves with the resolution of devoting to his service the imbecility of old age? With so many monuments of death around you, with so many awful warnings of the uncertainty of life, even at your period of it, is it not the height of presumption and folly, to defer the formation of a religious and devotional temper to a season which it is probable, or at least possible, may never arrive? Have you seen so little of life as not to know, that the feeling and conduct of maturer years, and of old age, are almost invariably marked by the character which distinguished the youth; that the man who neglected God and religious duties when young, becomes more averse from them as he advances in life, and leaves the world with the same irreligious temper with which he entered upon it; unimproved by the events that have happened to him, bearing no similitude to God, without the favour of his friendship, and unprepared for the joys of his presence? or, is this the envied character you desire to form? is this the happy end to which you aspire? is such the life you wish to lead, or such the death you hope to die? My young friends, let not any evil

suggestions enslave you, and prevent you from pursuing that conduct which Reason and Scripture pronounce to be honourable and safe. If it be an awful thing to die without hope of future happiness, it is an awful thing to live every moment liable to death, without those dispositions, which, by the wise appointment of Almighty God, are necessary to obtain the blessedness of the world to come.

You cannot be insensible of the value of devotion, without being totally ignorant of the nature of your present condition. You are beset with many dangers, you are surrounded with powerful enemies. In circumstances of the most hazardous nature, you have to provide for your future worth and happiness; amidst allurements to evil, you have to form a determined habit of acting well. If there be one period of life more dangerous than another, if there be one age in which attention to right conduct is peculiarly important and wise, it is that which intervenes between infancy and manhood. Passions most destructive of virtue generally arise, and are too frequently cherished in youth, when the habit of self-government cannot have been acquired, and reason wants that ascendancy which experience alone can impart. The impulse of nature, the effect of bad example, the allurements of pleasure, are all aimed against your innocence and your peace; and how will you