of thee, as many have already been. Take my heart, and make it thine. Take my youth, and let it be devoted to thee. Take me now in the flower of life, and let me live to thee alone; that while I live I may live to the Lord; and when I die may die to the Lord; and thus whether I live or die may be the Lord's. Grant these requests, O most merciful God, for the sake of thy dear Son, to whom I would flee as my only refuge, and to whom be the kingdom, power, and glory, for ever, and for ever. Amen.

CHAPTER III.

Some of the sins of youth enumerated.

SECT. 1. The Reader called upon to review life and reminded that the sins of youth are abhorred by God....s. 2. Pride.... s. 3. The pride of self-righteousness....S. 4. Disobedience to Parents....s. 5. Waste of Time....Novel reading noticed as one way in which much time is worse than wasted....s. 6. Wilful neglect of divine things....s. 7. Love of worldly pleasures....s. 8. Sabbath-breaking....s. 9. The leading of others into sin....s. 10. Affectionate appeal to young persons on their own sinfulness....s. 11. Prayer.

SECT. 1. IT was endeavoured, in the last chapter, to lead you to some knowledge of yourself; and to show you that you are, by nature, a fallen, depraved, and apostate creature. Now, great God, assist me, whilst I strive to convince my youthful readers, not merely of the corruption of their nature, but, of the error of their ways. Display to them whither the paths of sin lead; and bid them seek true happiness in thyself.

My young friend, I intreat you to follow me, while I point out to you, some of those sins, which undo multitudes. Among these evils, a thoughtless, inconsiderate spirit is, in young persons, one of the most common, and one of the most fatal. While open impiety slays its thousands, this sinks its ten thousands to perdition. A time is coming when you must consider your ways. From the bed of death, or from the eternal world, you must

take a review of life; but as you love your soul, defer not till that solemn period, which shall fix your eternal state, the momentous question; "How has my life been spent? Look back on your past years. They are gone for ever. But what report have they borne to heaven? What is the record made respecting them in the book of God? Will they rise up in the judgment against you? Possibly you may not see many instances of flagrant crime; but do you see nothing, which conscience must condemn; nothing which would fill you with alarm, if going this moment to the bar of your Maker? Perhaps you reply, "It is true, I cannot justify all the actions of my youthful years; yet the worst that I see were but the frolics of youth." My dear friend, let me deal plainly with you. Do they bear that name in heaven? Does your Judge view them in no worse a light? It has ever been the custom of this world to whitewash sin, and hide its hideous deformity; but know, that what you pass over so lightly, your God abhors as sins ;-sins the least of which if unforgiven, would sink your soul to utter, endless woe. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against ALL ungodliness and unrighteousness. The iniquities of youth, as well as of riper years, are abhorred by him. The sins of youth were the bitter things, which holy Job lamented; and for deliverance from which David devoutly prayed. Thou writest bitter things against me; and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth." Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy, remember thou me, for thy goodness' sake, O Lord.3

Take then another review of life. Begin with childhood. In that early period, so often falsely represented as a scene of innocence, the corruptions of a fallen nature begin to appear; and the early years of life are stained with falsehood, disobedience, cruelty, vanity and pride. Can you recollect no instances, in which your earlier years were thus polluted with actual sin? Can you bring to remembrance no occasion on which falsehood came from your lips; or vanity, pride, or obstinacy, was cherished in your heart; or when cruelty 3Ps. XXV. 7.

1Rom. i. 18. 2Job xiii. 26.

to the meaner creatures was your sport? Shrink not from the review; though painful, it is useful? It is far better to see and abhor your youthful sins, in this world, where mercy may be found, than to have them brought to your remembrance when mercy is no morc.

But you have passed the years of childhood; you have advanced one stage forward in your journey to an endless world. Has sin weakened as your years increased? Have not some sinful dispositions ripened into greater vigour? Have not others, which you knew not in your earlier years, begun to appear; and does not increasing knowledge add new guilt to all our sins?

Among the prevailing iniquities of youth, allow me to enumerate-

Sect. 2. Pride. This is a sin common to all ages; but it often peculiarly infects the young. It is abhorred by God. The proud he knoweth afur off.a

He resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.5 EVERY ONE that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord. He hateth a proud look." proud heart is sin.8

A high look and a

The proud are cursed.

Pride is the source of numberless mischiefs, and the parent of many other vices. It puts on a thousand forms; yet, unless subdued by religion, is found in the palace and the cottage; in the king and the peasant. You may see it displayed in the character of the young prodigal, Luke xv. 19, &c. Filled with self-conceit, he thought that he no longer needed his father's instructions, or his father's care; but had sufficient wisdom and prudence to be his own master. Has not this sin, which God so much abhors, crept into your heart? Perhaps it has made you haughty, when you should have been humble; obstinate, when you should have been yielding; revengeful, when you should have been forgiving. You thought it showed spirit to resent an injury or insult, instead of patiently bearing it, like him you call your Lord. Perhaps it has filled you with dissatisfaction, when you should have been all submission. You have thought it hard, in the day of affliction, that you

4Ps. cxxxvii. E. Prov. x. 4.

James iv. 6. Prov. xvi. 5. Prov. vi. 71. Psalm cxix. 21.

should be so tried; and even if you stayed the murmur against God from passing your lips, have you not felt it in your heart ? Pride has probably led you to neg

lect the counsels of wisdom, and to turn a deaf ear to those who wished you well for ever. Vain of the ornaments of apparel, have you not bestowed more thought on the dress you should wear, than on the salvation of your immortal soul; and been more concerned about the shape of a coat, or the fashion of a gown or a bonnet, than about life or death eternal? Perhaps you have been one of those who spend more time in surveying their own image in a glass, than in seeking the favour of their God. Ah! did pride never lead you to this self-idolatry? Did it never, never fill you with vanity, from the fancy of your possessing a pleasing face, or a lovely form, or manly vigour Ah! foolish vanity, when you must so soon say to corruption, Thou art my father; and to the worm, Thou art my mother and sister! Yet, foolish as it is, was it never yours? "Where is there a face so disagreeable, that never was the object of self-worship in a glass? And where a body, however deformed, that never was set up as a favourite idol, by the fallen spirit that inhabits it?""* Search your heart, and you may find pride, that heaven-abhorred sin, lurking there in dreadful vigour.

Sect. 3. One of the most prevalent and most baneful kinds of pride is that which I may term the pride of selfrighteousness. Our Lord, in the parable of the Pharisee and Publican, gives a most striking description of this sin. The Pharisee boasts that he was not like others; that he had not committed such flagrant crimes as they; and that he practised duties which they omitted. On this sandy foundation, his hope for eternity appears to have rested. Nothing like humility entered his heart; but in all the pride of fancied virtue, he approached his God. This is the exact spirit of multitudes in the present day; and where young persons have been restrained from open immoralities, how commonly does it exist among them! It is pleaded respecting them, "that they are not like many profligate youth around them; they have not given way to profaneness and lying; to drunkenness or dishonesty,

but they have been kind and dutiful, tender and obliging;, have good hearts, and are good young people." They may have lived all their lives careless of God and their souls, but this is not taken into account; others commend them, and they are willing to believe these commendations. They please themselves with their fancied virtue; think themselves very good young persons; and, proud of this goodness, go forward to meet that God who sees in them ten thousand crimes; and who abhors nothing more, than the pride of self-righteousness in a creature polluted by daily iniquities.

Sect. 4. Another common sin of the young is disobedience to parents. Honour thy father and mother, that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest live long on the earth. 10 This is the divine commandment. There is, it is true, one case, in which even parents should not be obeyed-when their directions and wishes are opposed to those of God; for we ought to obey God rather than men,11 and to love the Redeemer more than parents themselves.12 Parents are commonly the tenderest of friends; and pious parents among the surest guides that the young and inexperienced can have to lead them to the footstool of God. Your interests are theirs-your welfare their happiness; but ah has their kindness met with the return it demanded? Who, my young friend, so much deserve your obedience and affection, as those who gave you being, and who watched over your helpless infancy? The father, whose years have been spent in care for you; the mother, who tended you at her breast, and led you through the days of childhood. Have they received this obedience and affection from you?

Perhaps I address one, whose disobedience and unkindness have wrung with grief the hearts of fond and pious parents; and filled them with sorrow instead of gladness. Their desire has been, to see you walking in the ways of God. For this they have led you to his house. For this, their prayers have ascended, in public and in private. This, by their early instructions, and later admonitions, they have warned you to regard as the chief end of life; as that only concern which, 12Matt. x. 37, 38.

10 Ephes. vi. 2, 3. 11Acts v. 29.