will fhortly be levelled, gratification extinguished, poffeffion terminated, by death. After death cometh the judgement. As to future blessedness or misery, judgement but promulgates the sentence irrevocably fealed by death. The Lord is at hand to determine your everlasting doom: to receive his faithful foldier into glory, or to confign his irreclaimable enemy to perdition. The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore fober, and watch unto prayer.

There are two fubjects, commonly feducing to youth, to which the preceding reflections on moderation may briefly be applied; drefs, and amufements.

The minds of young men are engaged by the concerns of life, in employment more ferious and lefs frequently intermitted than the occupations which belong to their contemporaries of the weaker fex. And while women are lefs expofed than men to the affaults of the ruder paffions; the advantage is counterbalanced by a greater liability to temptations connected with perfonal appearance. Hence perhaps it is that the wifdom of God addreffes the female fex with feparate and emphatical admonitions. I will that women adorn themselves in modest apparel with fhamefacedness and Sobriety, not with broidered hair or gold, or CC 4 pearls,

pearls, or cofily array: not with the outward adorning of plaiting the hair, of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel (t). If the temperate ufe on fome occafions of the modes of ornament here fpecified be recognised as confiftent with the spirit of the injunction; no fuch confiftency can be allowed to a needlefs indulgence, or a vain delight, in any kind of fhewy or expensive decoration. And foppery or coftly array in young men is even more criminal than fimilar difregard of fcriptural precepts in young women. From both fexes, unobtrufive fimplicity in drefs, andrefolute oppofition to extravagance, and to every fashion, however prevalent, which borders on indelicacy, are indifputably required. To both fexes has Jefus Christ iffued the mandate; Take no thought what ye shall put on. To both fexes has he declared that to be folicitous concerning dress was one of the characteristics of the finful Gentiles. Remember that it is the principle, not the nation, which constitutes the heathen. Remember too that, if fin induced the neceffity of clothing; to be vain of our habiliments is indeed to glory in our flame.

(1) Tim. ii. 9. 1 Pet. iii. 3.

Amusements,

Amusements, finful in their own nature, or bringing with them temptations dangerous to young perfons in general or to yourself in particular, many virtues command you to renounce. Moderation advances a step farther in the path of forbearance; and requires you to exercise restraint as to indulgence in amufements neither blameable in themfelves, nor, within certain limits, detrimental to you. She pro

nounces

that amufement, transformed into bufinefs, becomes fin. She warns you that with moft amufements the feductions of vanity are blended; that with all, the fnares of indolence are interwoven. She bids you contemplate the irksome vacuity into which they, to whom a particular recreation has been rendered habitual, are plunged when it is cafually precluded. She tells you that in whatever proportion the time bestowed on any amufement is too great; exactly in the fame proportion too little is affigned to fome occupation of duty. She tells you that unless by uniform felf-command, and occafional felfdenial, you retain the complete mastery over yourself as to innocent and fafe indulgences; it is impoffible that you should withstand with eafe, it is improbable that you should actually withstand, the allure

ments

ments of reprehenfible gratifications. It is the unhappiness of many perfons, especially of the female fex, to experience fuch an education, to be accuftomed at home no lefs than abroad to fuch difcourfe and fuch examples, as to be led to regard amufements as an unruffled fea of pleafures, where, roving from one happy ifland to another, they are to be repaid for the thraldom of fchools and instruction.

wretched ignorance of human duties! O miferable estimate of the objects of human exiftence! If at any time you feel a fenfation of painful disappointment, when prevented from partaking in fome expected amufement; be affured that your heart rates amufement at too high a value. A child may be excufable if difconcerted when the butterfly, which it was on the point of feizing, eludes its grafp. Let the well-inftructed Chriftian be føber: let him eftimate trifles as trifles, and confider things indifferent with indifference.

There remains yet one fubject, with respect to which felf-government must be exemplified; purity.

Purity commands you to flee youthful lufts (u), under whatever form, and in whatever degree, they may prefent them

(4) 2 Tim. ii. 22.

felves;

felves; and to renounce all incitements to fin, all fociety, all scenes, all books, all difcourse, which tend to inflame the paffions or to pollute the imagination. No unclean perfan-ponder well the fcriptural comprehenfiveness of the term-No unclean perfon fhall inherit the kingdom of God (x).

Purity claims alfo the regulation of the demeanour and conduct of young perfons towards those of the other sex.

It was even on Timothy, the eminently virtuous Timothy, that St. Paul preffed the admonition, to treat the younger women as fifters, with all purity. The phrase implies not only a confcientious abhorrence of every action, of every word, which is an offence against the feelings of modefty; but a fcrupulous abftinence from indiscreet familiarity, a guarded forbearance from unbecoming levity, a cautious avoidance of every proceeding likely to impair the habit of delicate propriety. If fuch are the obligations incumbent on young men; what circumfpect referve, what fanctity of manners, does God require from women! Let each fex be aware that, by ftudied affiduities and particular attentions, to entrap through motives of vanity or felfifhnefs the affections of another, is among the most cruel species (x) Gal. v. 7. Cor. vi. 9, Sc.

of