parents. After a thousand admonitions and innumerable supplications for his welfare, he was committed to the care of a most excellent minister of the Gospel, to finish his education, and fit him for commercial life. Here he had every advantage and privilege which could be wished. But as soon almost as he entered into business, he chose a thoughtless young man, of no religious principle, for his friend. After some hesitation and scruples of conscience, he accompanied him on Sunday excursions, and then to the theatre. Here he met with some of those abandoned creatures who "hunt for the precious life;" whose steps "lead down to death, and take hold on hell." He was prepared to become their easy prey. Expostulation and reproof were addressed to him in every form, but in vain. His habits became more decidedly dissipated and vicious. The career of vice, however, is seldom of long duration. He soon destroyed his fine constitution, and became an awful illustration of that striking passage, "The wicked shall not live out half his days." a short illness, he expired, at the age of twenty, in bitter anguish for his folly, and in dreadful terms deploring the hour in which he had seen the person who had been the means of his ruin. "Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death."

After

Thus this promising young man was undone, to the great grief of all his respectable connections, and he brought down the gray hairs of his pious father "with sorrow to the grave."

And will you, my dear young friend, imitate so

wretched an example? I trust not. By all that is impressive and solemn-by your welfare through time and eternity, I charge you, "my son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. "Enter not into their path;" shun it as you would a house infected with the plague.

CHAPTER X.

AMUSEMENTS.

You must be perpetually on your guard, my young friend, in reference to your recreations. Should you be inattentive to me on this point, all my concern and all my efforts for your real welfare will be utterly useless. I therefore most particularly charge you to be careful here. Temptations surround you on every hand;

"The gates of hell are open night and day, Smooth the descent, and easy is the way." Approach not these gates, I beseech you. As the house of God is the gate of heaven, so the theatre is the gate of hell. Many of the scenes exhibited in the drama are decidedly vicious. Even some of its best performances are objectionable, since God's holy name is often profaned in them for the amusement of his creatures. Even the editors of newspapers have not unfrequently remarked of many of the most attractive plays, that no father of a family could take his children to see them without endangering their morals. Plain, innumerable, stubborn

facts, prove the theatre, beyond controversy, to be the school, not of good morals, but of vice. Thousands and tens of thousands of youth, who were once happy, and the comfort of their parents and friends, and who bade fair to be useful and respectable in society, have been pervert. ed, irreparably injured, and even ruined for this world, and that which is to come, by the company they have met with, and the sentiments they have learnt at a theatre. Within the wretched enclosure of a theatre, vice with its boldest front appears in every form; and by the common consent of all of its votaries, holy men and women are utterly excluded. The avowed friend of God dare not show his face within those walls, where vice sits enthroned, and where she reigns.

Gambling is another of the high roads to ruin. Every species of it is justly to be censured. The mind cannot be easy or fit for the common duties of life, and much less for the service of God, which is distracted with the anxiety inseparable from games of chance. They lead to idleness, dishonesty, to bad company, and profligate habits of every kind. He who gains any thing by gambling can only do so by another's loss; and this generally excites envy, hatred, revenge, and all the worst passions of the human heart.

The victims to this destructive species of amusement have not been few. How many a promising youth has lost the confidence of his master, and ruined his character by this vice. How many broken-hearted parents have been obliged to cast off, and almost to disown a child,

on account of this pernicious vice! And how many, even in the higher circles of life, have, in moments of distraction, brought on by losses at the gaming table, put an end to their existence! "Sin, when it is finished," says an inspired writer, bringeth forth death.”

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The tradesman who would be respectable or prosperous, must be cautious, frugal, honest, temperate, diligent in his business; and these are virtues which are altogether incompatible with habits of gaming.

I feel it also to be my duty, my young friend, to warn you against seeking enjoyment at particular seasons of the year, at assemblages of dissipated people; such as are to be found at races, and similar scenes of riot and revelry. Like the theatre, these are scenes of great temptation. Many thoughtless young persons have gone thither for amusement, and have been injured and ruined for life. Levity, lewdness, cursing, and swearing are to be found there; and is it reputable for a Christian to be seen at such places? Could you ask God to give you a blessing, just before you were going to such a scene of revelling and wickedness? Is it lawful to mingle with such abandoned society? Has not God charged you to keep out of it? Has he not said, "My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not?" Do not "evil communications corrupt good manners?" Do you not daily pray, not to be led into temptation? How then can you, wilfully, and in defiance of God's commands, run into it? Will not the Almighty call

us to an account at the day of judgment for our time? And what account could you give of that which is misspent amidst such scenes of profane revelry?

Do not reply to me, as some would be ready to do What! would you deprive me of all pleasure? Certainly, I am very far from wishing to do this; but I would fain shield you from those scenes which, however alluring they may be made, will assuredly destroy your usefulness and peace, injure your character, and ruin your soul. "No pleasure!" exclaims the Christian poet, Cowper

"Are domestic comforts dead?

Are all the nameless sweets of friendship fled?
Has time worn out, or fashion, put to shame,
Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good
fame ?

All these belong to virtue, and all prove

That virtue has a title to your love.

No pleasure? Has some sickly eastern waste
Sent us a wind to parch us at a blast?
Are sweet philosophy's enjoyments run
Quite to the lees? And has religion none?"

Let your duty be a pleasure to you, and then you will never be at a loss for enjoyment. Cultivate a taste for simple gratifications; these every where abound. Especially, you will find in the service of God, pleasures which at once satisfy and enrich the deathless spirit. The ways of true piety have been proved by the experience of every age to be ways of pleasantness and paths of peace. The real Christian, even on earth, is sometimes conscious of joys