power to move. His mind is in darkness; his thoughts are confufed; he longeth for knowledge, but hath no application. He would eat of the almond, but hateth the trouble of breaking the fhell. 8. His houfe is in diforder; his fervants are waftful and riotous; and he runneth on towards ruin; he feeth it with his eyes; he heareth it with his ears; he fhaketh his head, and wifheth; but hath no refolution; until ruin cometh upon him like a whirlwind; and fhame and repentance defcend with him to the grave. Addrefs to a Young Student. I. OUR parents have watched over your 2. Their folicitude ftill continues, and no trouble nor expenfe is fpared, in giving you all the inftructions and accomplishments which may enable you to act your part in life, as a man of polished fenfe and confirmed virtue. 3. You have then, already contracted a great debt of gratitude to them. You can pay it by no other method, but by using properly the advantages which their goodness has afforded you. 4. If your own endeavours are deficient, it is in vain that you have tutors, books, and all the external apparatus of literary purfuits. You must love learning, if you would poffefs it. 5. In order to love it, you must feel its delights; in order to feel its delights, you must apply to it, however irksome at firft, clofely, conftantly and for a confiderable time. 6. If you have refolution enough to do this, you cannot but love learning; for the mind always loves that to which it has been long, Readily, and voluntarily attached. Habits are formed, which render what was at firft disagreeable, not only pleasant but neceffary. Enough. voluntarily? attached? 7. Pleasant, indeed, are all the paths which literature? lead to polite and elegant literature. Yours then, is furely a lot particularly happy. Your fcope? education is of fuch a fort, that its principal fcope is to prepare you to receive a refined principal. pleasure during your life. 8. Value duly the opportunities you enjoy, and which are denied to thousands of your fellow creatures. Without exemplary diligence you will make but a contemptible proficiency. You may, indeed, pafs thro the forms of fchools and univerlities; but you will bring nothing away from them of real value. exemplary. contemptible. proficiency ? univerfities? efforts? hours. 9. The proper fort and degree of diligence, you cannot poffefs, but by the efforts of your own refolution. Your inftructor may, indeed confine you within the walls of a fchool, a certain number of hours. He may place books before you, and compel you to fix your eyes upon them; bu: no authority can chain chain. down your mind. 10. Your thoughts will efcape from every external reftraint, and, amidst the moft ferious lectures, may be ranging in the wild purfuits of trifles or vice. 11. Rules, reftraints, commands, and punishments, may, indeed, affift in ftrengthening your refolution; but without your own voluntary choice your diligence will not often conduce to your pleafure or advantage. 12. But the principal obitacle to your improvement, at fchool, is a perverfe ambition of being diftinguished as a boy of fpirit, in compel. pursuits. trifles. diligence. conduce? obfacle? perverse ? Mifchievous. mifchievous pranks, in neglecting the tasks and leffons, and for every vice and irregularity which the puerile age can admit. puerile? gaiety. malignant? detraction? sidicule? mifapplied. recourfe? elegant. principles. fail. received. fouree? onfolation fublunary? viciffitude? aboive. affociation 13. You will have fenfe enough, I hope, to difcover, beneath the mask of gaiety and good nature, that malignant fpirit of detraction, which endeavors to render the boy who applies to books, 2nd to all the duties and proper bufness of the fchool, ridiculous. 14. You wu ice by the light of your reason, that the ridicule is mifapplied. You will therefore effectually repel the attack, by a dauntlefs fpirit, and unyielding perfeverance. Though numbers are against you, yet, with truth and rectitude on your fide, you may, though alone, be equal to an army. 15. By laying in a ftore of ufeful knowledge, adorning your mind with elegant literature, improving and establishing your conduct by virtuous principles, you cannot fail of being a comfort to thofe friends who have fupported you, of being happy with yourfelf, and of being well received by mankind. 16. Honour and fuccefsin life will probably attend you. Under all circumftances,you will have an internal source of confolation and entertainment, of which no fublunary viciffitude can deprive you. 17. Time will fhow how much wifer has been your choice, than that of your idle companions, who would gladly have drawn you into their affociation, or rather into their confpiracy, as it has been called, against good senfpiracy? manners, and against all that is honorable and ufeful. 18. While you appear in fociety, as a ref pectable and valuable member of it, they will, perhaps,have facrificed at the fhrine of vanity, pride, and extravagance, and falfe pleasure their health and their fenfe, their fortune and facrificed? farine? extravagance, their characters. Life is a flower. mower. "THE blooms are fallen, and the beds of flow- Scythe. I, ers fwept away by the fcythe of the mower." This is a fcene to which we are accuftomed at this feafon of the year. We fee the grafs fall by the mower's fcythe, and the gay flowers that adorn the meadows, unregarded, fwept away. 2. The green, the yellow, the crimson, the fucculent, fall undiftinguished before the fatal inftrument that cuts them off. They are fcattered on the ground, and withered by the intenfe heat of the day. fcene. meadows. green. fucculent? intense? verdant? meridian? 3. That blooming flower which flands the pride of the verdant field, glowing in beautiful colours and fhining with the dawn of the morning, ere the fun gains its meridian height, falls a facrifice to the fevering fteel, and fades in height. the fcorching rays of noon. 4. Thus it is with human life-The thread is cut and man falls into the filent tomb. Nothing can ward off the fatal ftroke-The aged, old and infirm-manhood, in ftrength and vigor-youth, in bloom and beauty--the infant, weak and helpless,are without distinction swept away by the fcythe of the greatest deftroyer, Death. 5. The active youth, who in the morning rifes with health and vivacity, may at noon lie pale and motionlefs, at the feet of this great victor; and at the fetting of the morrow's fun, be configned to the dark and lonefome manfions of the dead. Cities and nations are fubject to the fame fate. 6. How foon is a flourishing town depopulated by a peftilential difeafe. How foon is a nation cut off by the raging of a direful war. - B tomů. ward. weak. defroyer. vivacity? configned? manfions. depopulat ed? direful? |