young gentlemen of pleasure think of a whore and a bottle, a tainted health and battered constitution. Hold fast therefore by this sheetanchor of happiness, Religion; you will often want it in the times of most danger; the storms and tempests of life. Cherish true religion as preciously as you will fly with abhorrence and contempt superstition and enthusiasm. The first is the perfection and glory of the human nature; the two last the deprivation and disgrace of it. Remember the essence of religion is, a heart void of offence towards God

and man; not subtle speculative opinions, but an active vital prinThe words of a

ciple of faith.

heathen were so fine that I must give them to you: Compositum Jus, Fasque Animi, Sanctosque Recessus Mentis, et incoctum generoso Pectus Honesto.

Go on, my dear child, in the admirable dispositions you have towards all that is right and good, and make yourself the love and admiration of the world! I have

neither paper nor words to tell how tenderly,

you

I am yours.

LETTER V.

Bath, Jan. 24, 1754.

I WILL lose not a moment

before I return my most tender and warm thanks to the most amiable, valuable, and noble minded of youths, for the infinite pleasure his letter gives me. My dear nephew, what a beautiful thing is genuine goodness, and how lovely does the human mind appear, in its native purity, (in a nature as happy as yours,) before the taints of a corrupted world have touched it! To guard you from the fatal effects of

all the dangers that surround and beset youth, (and many they are, nam variæ illudunt Pestes,) I thank

so.

God, is become my pleasing and very important charge; your own choice, and our nearness in blood, and still more, a dearer and nearer relation of hearts, which I feel between us, all concur to make it I shall seek then every occasion, my dear young friend, of being useful to you, by offering you those lights, which one must have lived some years in the world to see the full force and extent of, and which the best mind and clearest understanding will suggest imperfectly, in any case, and in the most difficult, delicate, and essential

points perhaps not at all, till experience, that dear bought instructor, comes to our assistance. What I shall therefore make my task, (a happy delightful task, if I prove a safeguard to so much opening virtue,) is to be for some years, what you cannot be to yourself, your experience; experience anticipated, and ready digested for your use. Thus we will endeavour, my dear child, to join the two best seasons of life, to establish your virtue and your happiness upon solid foundations: Miscens Autumni et Veris Honores. So much in general. I will now, my dear nephew, say a few things to you upon a matter where you have surprisingly little