does not. They are dealt out to you as precious things: the number of them is written down amongst the records of Omniscience, and in that day when the throne shall be set, and the books shall be opened, the improvement of each will be demanded, by a voice at which the universe shall tremble. You will not be tried as one that had only the feeble glimmering of natural reason to guide his perceptions, and his conduct; but as one that walked amidst the noontide splendour of divine revelation, as one that occupied just that station in the moral world, where the light of heaven fell with the clearest and the steadiest brightness.

Do fancy yourself called into judgement to answer for your religious privileges: summoned by a voice which it is impossible to resist, from the throng of trembling spirits waiting for their doom; fancy you hear the voice that commanded the universe into being, saying to you, "Child of the righteous, son of many prayers and much anxiety, give an account of thyself; exhibit the fruits and improvement of all thy rich and innumerable advantages for a life of piety. Ye parents who taught him, bear witness. I intrusted him to your care. Did ye bring him up in the fear and nurture and admonition of the Lord? Resign your trust; deliver your testimony; clear yourselves." Impressive and awful spectacle !! There you

stand before the tribunal of God, confronted by the mother that bore you, and the father that loved you. If you have neglected your advantages, and lived without piety, what a testimony will they bear. "Thou art our witness, O God, and that unhappy individual in whom

we once delighted as our child, but whom we how renounce for ever, with what affectionate solicitude, and unwearied perseverance; with how many tears and prayers we laboured for his salvation. But all was useless. This is not the season of mercy, or we would still pour over his guilty head one more fervent prayer for his salvation; but forbidden to commend him to thy mercy, we can now do nothing but leave him to thy justice." Miserable man, what can he say? He is speechless. Conscious guilt leaves him without excuse, and despair seals up his lips in silence. One piercing, agonizing look is directed to his parents, one deep groan escapes his bosom, as the ghosts of murdered opportunities rise upon his vision, and crowd the regions of his fancy. As his distracted eye ranges o'er the millions who stand on the left hand of the Judge, there is not one whose situation he does not envy. The Pagan, the Mahometan, the poor peasant who sinned away his life in a benighted village, even the infidel, going up to receive his doom for blaspheming the God of revelation, appears less guilty, less miserable than he.

But were my pen dipped in the gall of celestial displeasure, I could not describe the weight of the sentence, nor the misery which it includes, that will fall upon the ungodly child of righteous parents. Who shall portray the hell of such a fallen spirit, or set forth the torments with which it will be followed to the regions of eternal night? We all know that no sufferings are so dreadful as those which are self-procured; and that self-reproach infuses a bitterness into the cup of wo, which exasperates the anguish of despair. Disappointment of long and fondly

cherished hopes is dreadful; but if there be no reason for self-reproach, even this is tolerable: but to suffer, through eternal ages, in the bottomless pit, with no prospect but of misery, no employment but that of numbering over the advantages we once possessed for escaping from the wrath to come--this is hell. My children! my children! my heart agonizes as I write. I groan over these lines of my book— these pictures of my fancy. Do take warning. Hearken to these sentiments. Let them have their due weight upon your minds-treasure up this conviction in your minds-that of all lands on the earth, it is the most dreadful to travel to the bottomless pit from a Christian country; and of all the situations in that country, it is the most awful to reach the bottomless pit from the house of godly parents. Let me be any thing in the day of judgement, and in eternal misery, rather than the irreligious child of religious parents.*

CHAPTER VI.

On the most prevailing obstacles which prevent young people from entering on a religious life.

OUR Lord has most explicitly taught us, my dear children, that the entrance to the path of life is not unattended with difficulty, nor to be

*There is a little repetition in this chapter, of some of the sentiments in the first; but as the subject led to it, the author was not anxious to avoid it.

accomplished without effort. Into that road, we are not borne by the pressure of the thronging multitude, nor the force of natural inclination. No broad and flowery avenue attracts the eye; no syren songs of worldly pleasure allure the ear: "but strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth to life, and few there be that find it." Hence the admonition"Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many shall seek to enter in and shall not be able." This implies that there are obstructions to be removed, and difficulties to be surmounted.

The fundamental and universal obstruction with which every one has to contend, and which can be removed only by the power of the Holy Ghost, is the darkness and depravity brought upon human nature by the Fall; and the in dulged sensuality, prejudice, and enmity of the carnal mind. But this prevailing depravity manifests itself in various specific forms, according to the different circumstances, constitutions, ages, and tempers of its subjects. It is an inward, and universal evil, exhibiting its opposition to religion in an immense variety of

ways.

1. Self-conceit is not uncommonly to be met with in the character of the young, and is very much opposed to the spirit of true piety.

This is a sort of epidemic disease, which finds a peculiar susceptibility in persons of your age to receive it. Young in years and experience, they are very apt, nevertheless, to form high notions of themselves, and to fancy they are competent judges of all truth and conduct. They decide, where wiser minds deliberate; speak, where experience is silent, rush forward

with impetuosity, where their sires scarcely creep; and think themselves quite as competent to determine and to act, as those who have witnessed the events of three-score years and ten. This disposition shows itself oftentimes in reference to business; and the bankrupt list has a thousand times, revealed the consequences. But it is seen in more important matters than business. In the gayety of their spirits, and in the efflorescence of youthful energy, they see no great need of religion to make them happy; or if some religion be necessary, they do not think it requires all that solicitude and caution with which older Christians attend to its concerns: they are not so much in danger as some would represent; they shall not take up with the humbling, self-abasing, penitential religion of their fathers, but adopt a more rational piety; they have reason to guide them, strength to do all that is necessary, and therefore, cannot see the need of so much fear, caution and dependance.

My children, be humble; pride and selfconceit will otherwise be your ruin. Think of your age, and your inexperience. How often, already, have you been misled, by the ardour of youth, in cases where you were most confident that your were right. When the Athenian orator was asked, What is the first grace in oratory? he replied, Pronunciation; the second? Pronunciation; the third? still he replied, Pronunciation: so, if I am asked, what is the first grace in religion? I reply, Humility; the second? Humility; the third? still Humility: and self-conceit is the first, and the second, and the third obstruction.