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reproach and inconvenience. You may be regardless of his morals; but you may be the person who will at last most severely feel the want of them.

2. You may be indifferent about his religion; but remember, dutifulness to you is one great principle of religion, and unless you promote such habits, by cultivating them in him, you may bitterly repent the omission when too late, and die miserable on his account, whom timely care would have made your joy and comfort. Therefore, in a case of such moment, let no false shame nor favourite passion prevail over you, but give your hearts wholly to the Lord who made you.'

3. Lay the foundation of your lives here on the firm ground of Christian faith; and build upon it whatever is just and good, worthy and noble, till the structure be complete in moral beauty. The world, into which your children are entering, lies in wait for them with a variety of temptations. Unfavourable sentiments of religion will soon be suggested to them, and all the snares of luxury, false honour, and interest, spread in their way, which, with most of their rank, are too successful, and to many, fatal.

4. Happy the few, who, in any part of life, become sensible of their errours, and with painful resolution, tread back the wrong steps which they have taken! But happiest of men is he, who, by an even course of right conduct, from the first, as far as human frailty permits, has at once avoided the miseries of sin, the sorrows of repentance, and the difficulties of virtue; who not only can think of his present state with composure, but reflect on his past behaviour with thankful approbation; and look forward with unmixed joy to that important future hour, when he shall appear before God, and humbly offer to Him a whole life spent in his service.

Youth, the proper season for gaining Knowledge.

1. THE duty which young people owe to their instructers, cannot be better shown than in the effect which the instructions they receive have upon them. They would do well, therefore, to consider the advantages of an early attention to these two things, both of great importance, knowledge and religion.

2. The great use of knowledge, in all its various branches, is to free the mind from the prejudices of ignorance; and to give it juster and more enlarged conceptions than are the mere growth of rude nature. By reading, we add the experience of others to our own. It is the improvement of the mind chiefly, that makes the difference between man and man, and gives one man a real superiority over another.

3. Besides, the mind must be employed., The lower orders of men have their attention much engrossed by those employments, in which the necessities of life engage them: and it is happy that they have. Labour stands in the room of education; and fills up those vacancies of mind, which, in a state of idleness, would be engrossed by vice. And if they who have more leisure do not substitute something in the room of this, their minds also will become the prey of vice; and the more so, as they have the means to indulge it more in their power. It is an undoubted truth, that one vice indulged, introduces others; and that each succeeding vice becomes more depraved. If, then, the mind must be employed, what can fill up its vacuities more rationally than the acquisition of knowledge? But, however necessary to us knowledge may be, religion, we know, is infinitely more so. The one adorns a man, and gives him, it is true, superiority and rank in life; but the other is absolutely essential to his happiness.

4. In the midst of youth, health, and abundance, the world is apt to appear a very gay and pleasing scene ; it engages our desires; and, in a degree, satisfies them also. But it is wisdom to consider, that a time will come, when youth, health, and fortune, will all fail us: and if disappointment and vexation do not sour our taste for pleasure, at least, sickness and infirmities will destroy it. In these gloomy seasons, and, above all, at the approach of death, what will become of us without religion? When this world fails, where shall we fly, if we expect no refuge in another? Without holy hope in God, and resignation to his will, and trust in him for deliverance, what is there that can secure us against the evils of life?

5. The great utility, therefore, of knowledge and religion, being thus apparent, it is highly incumbent upon us to pay a studious attention to them in our youth. If we do not, it is more than probable that we shall never do it; that we shall grow old in ignorance, by neglecting the one; and old in vice, by neglecting the other.

6. For improvement in knowledge, youth is certainly the fittest season. The mind is then ready to receive any impression. It is free from all that care and attention which, in riper age, the affairs of life bring with them. The memory too is stronger, and better able to acquire the rudiments of knowledge; and as the mind is then void of ideas, it is more suited to those parts of learning which are conversant in words. Besides, there are sometimes in youth a modesty and docility, which, in advanced years, if those years especially have been left a prey to igno

rance, become self-sufficiency and prejudice; and these effectually bar up all the inlets to knowledge. But, above all, unless habits of attention and application are early gained, we shall scarcely acquire them afterwards. The inconsiderate youth seldom reflects upon this, nor knows his loss, till he knows also that it cannot be retrieved.

7. Nor is youth more the season to acquire knowledge, than to form religious habits. It is a great point to get habit on the side of virtue it will make every thing smooth and easy. The earliest principles are generally the most lasting; and those of a religious cast are seldom wholly lost. Though the temptations of the world may, now and then, draw the well principled youth aside; yet his principles being continually at war with his practice, there is hope, that in the end the better part may overcome the worse, and bring on a reformation: whereas he, who has suffered habits of vice to get possession of his youth, has little chance of being brought back to a sense of religion and virtue. 8. There are persons, who would restrain youth from imbibing any religious principles, till they can judge for themselves; lest they should imbibe prejudice for truth. But why should not the same caution be used in sciences also, and the minds of youth left void of all impressions! The experiment, I fear, in both cases, would be dangerous. If the mind were left uncultivated during so long a period, though nothing else should find entrance, vice certainly would; and it would make the larger shoots, as the soil would be vacant. It would be better that young persons receive knowledge and religion mixed with errour, than none at all. For when the mind comes to reflect, it may deposit its prejudices by degrees, and get right at last but in a state of stagnation it will infallibly become foul.

9. To conclude, our youth bears some proportion to our more advanced life, as this world does to the next. In this life we must form and cultivate those habits of virtue, which will qualify us for a better state. If we neglect them here, and contract habits of an opposite kind, instead of gaining that exalted state, which is promised to our improvement, we shall of course sink into that state, which is adapted to the habits we have formed.

10. Exactly thus is youth introductory to manhood; to which it is, properly speaking, a state of preparation. During this season, we must qualify ourselves for the parts we are to act hereafter. In manhood we bear the fruit, which has in youth been planted. If we have sauntered away our youth, we must expect to be ignorant men. If indolence and inattention have

taken an early possession of us, they will probably increase as we advance in life; and make us a burden to ourselves, and useless to society. If again we suffer ourselves to be misled by vicious inclinations, they will daily get new strength, and end in dissolute lives. But if we cultivate our minds in youth, attain habits of attention and industry, of virtue and sobriety, we shall find ourselves well prepared to act our future parts in life; and what, above all things, ought to be our care, by gaining this command over ourselves, we shall be more able, as we get forward in the world, to resist every new temptation, as

soon as it

appears.

Execution of Cranmer.

1. QUEEN MARY determined to bring Cranmer, whom she had long detained in prison, to punishment; and in order more fully to satiate her vengeance, she resolved to punish him for heresy, rather than for treason. He was cited by the Pope to stand his trial at Rome; and, though he was known to be kept in close custody at Oxford, he was, upon his not appearing, condemned as contumacious. Bonner, Bishop of London, and Thirleby, bishop of Ely, were sent to degrade him; and the former executed the melancholy ceremony, with all the joy and exultation which suited his savage nature. The implacable spirit of the Queen, not satisfied with the future misery of Cranmer, which she believed inevitable, and with the execution of that dreadful sentence to which he was condemned, prompted her also to seek the ruin of his honour, and the infamy of his name. Persons were employed to attack him, not in the way of disputation, against which he was sufficiently armed, but by flattery, insinuation, and address; by representing the dignities to which his character still entitled him, if he would merit them by a recantation; by giving him hopes of long enjoying those powerful friends, whom his beneficent disposition had attached to him, during the course of his prosperity.

2. Overcome by the fond love of life; terrified by the prospect of those tortures which awaited him; he allowed, in an unguarded hour, the sentiments of nature to prevail over his resolution, and agreed to subscribe the doctrines of the papal supremacy, and of real presence. The court, equally perfidious and cruel, was determined that this recantation should avail him nothing; and sent orders that he should be required to acknowledge his errour in church, before the whole people; and that he should thence be immediately carried to execution.

3. Cranmer, whether he had received a secret intimation of

their design, or had repented of his weakness, surprised the audience by a contrary declaration. He said that he was well apprised of the obedience which he owed to his sovereign and the laws; but that his duty extended no farther than to submit patiently to their commands; and to bear, without resistance, whatever hardships they should impose upon him; that a superiour duty, the duty which he owed to his Maker, obliged him to speak truth on all occasions; and not to relinquish by a base denial, the holy doctrine which the Supreme Being had revealed to mankind; that there was one miscarriage in his life, of which, above all others, he severely repented; the insincere declaration of faith, to which he had the weakness to consent, and which the fear of death alone had extorted from him: that he took this opportunity of atoning for his errour, by a sincere and open recantation; and was willing to seal with his blood, that doctrine which he firmly believed to be communicated from heaven; and that, as his hand had erred by betraying his heart, it should first be punished by a severe but just doom, and should first pay the forfeit of its offences.

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4. He was then led to the stake, amidst the insults of his enemies and having now summoned up all the force of his mind, he bore their scorn, as well as the torture of his punishment, with singular fortitude. He stretched out his hand, and without betraying, either by his countenance or motions, the least sign of weakness, or even of feeling, he held it in the flames till it was entirely consumed. His thoughts seemed wholly occupied with reflections on his former fault, and he called aloud several times, This hand has offended.' Satisfied with that atonement, he then discovered a serenity in his countenance; and when the fire attacked his body, he seemed to be quite insensible of his outward sufferings, and by the force of hope and resolution, to have collected his mind, altogether within itself, and to repel the fury of the flames. He was undoubtedly a man of merit; possessed of learning and capacity, and adorned with candour, sincerity, and beneficence, and all those virtues which were fitted to render him useful and amiable in society.

The Spaniard and Peruvian.

1.ON PEDRO MENDEZ was a Spaniard of noble extrac tion; but the extravagance of his progenitor had rendered him incapable of supporting himself in the rank to which he was entitled by birth. Whether it be from pride or sentiment, it is certainly mortifying for a man to walk as a stranger through

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