PARTING ADVICE, &c.

MY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND,-Often, very often, have I addressed you, and with much affection, on things of the greatest importance; and now that you are going to leave this school I cannot bid you farewell without expressing my sincere concern for your real welfare.

As I have no object in view but your good,— your own good,-your present and eternal good,I may reasonably ask you attentively to listen to me, and carefully to weigh those sentiments which I would now again impress upon you; and may I not hope that you will calmly consider them, and that too, not only once or twice, but many times, and in secret, where no eye is on you but that of God.

Think not, because you are leaving the school, that now your concern for improvement is to end. A man who feels as he ought is learning something every day of his life. Comparatively speaking, you are but just beginning to live. When a vessel is built, it is to be launched on the wide water, and to be taken into actual service. You are commencing your life, and all the great principles you have learned will be needed in your daily practice. If you feel as you ought, there will be a delightful harmony in your senti

You ments, your temper, and your conduct. will not be one thing in profession, and another in action. Your love to God, your concern to please him, and your benevolence to your fellow creatures, will be shown in your whole deportment.

If these last admonitions are of any service to you, it must be by the Divine blessing. Lift up your heart then, my dear young friend, in prayer to God, that every sentiment I may advance, agreeably to the Divine will, may be deeply written on your mind, by the gracious operations of the Holy Spirit,

CHAPTER I.

READ THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

Ir a young man wishes really "to cleanse his way," that is, to act so that he may be holy, useful, and happy, he must prize the Sacred Scriptures, and frequently consult them. The Bible is the best volume, since it is God's own book. The young man, who really loves its holy truths, has obtained a greater prize than thousands of gold and of silver. With great propriety we might write on every copy of the Bible, The way to usefulness, the way to happiness, the way to true honour, the way to see God, and to dwell with him, the way to eternal riches, and to eternal pleasures.

The best and the wisest of monarchs have

found their noblest enjoyments in studying these hallowed pages: they have counted their trea. sures, and all their glory but as vanity, compared with the everlasting riches to be found in the Gospel of the Divine Redeemer. Prophets, and righteous men, and the great, and wise, and good, of every age, and of every nation, have bound this holy volume to their hearts; have found in it the "pearl of great price," and have been enriched for ever. It is the mark of an ill-informed, or contracted, or of a vicious mind to neglect or despise the book of God. See to it, my young friend, that you never do so, even in thought.

God is to be seen, and I hope you, my dear friend, will see him in the hills and in the valleys, in rocks, and mountains, and fields, and flowers, in the seasons as they roll, in the mighty ocean, in the heavens covered with his glory, and in the earth, which is full of his praise. But it is in the volume of the Scriptures that God is seen more clearly than any where else: there, "God" is seen "in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them."

Let not any one induce you to think lightly of the Scriptures. Their origin is Divine. Many decisive arguments prove the truth of this assertion. You will do well to treasure some of these up in your memory. The contents of them could never have been discovered by the greatest human genius. Dr. Young was so

struck with this sentiment, that, in a conversation which he had with Dr. Cotton, he used

these remarkable words: "My friend, there are three considerations upon which my faith in Christ is built, as upon a rock. The fall of man, the redemption of man, and the resurrection of man, the three principal articles of our religion, are such as human ingenuity could never have invented: therefore, they must be Divine. Another argument is this:-The fulfilment of the prophecies." (Cowper's Letters.)

And there are four classes of predictions on which we may safely rest the truth of the Scriptures. The first is, the dispersion of the Jews. For nearly two thousand years they have been scattered among the nations of the earth, and yet they have been preserved a distinct people, a circumstance unparalleled in universal history: this event, which could have been known only to God, was foretold, particularly, many hundreds of years before it took place.

The second class of prophecies are those which refer to Babylon; the third, to the character of the Messiah, and the fourth to the destruction of Jerusalem. These have all received a striking and a minute fulfilment; the book, therefore, which contains them, must have been from Him who "knew the end from the beginning."

The moral precepts of the Bible are so excellent, that if they were carried into universal practice they would transform the world and render it happy. The Scriptures every where enforce the grand sentiments of the angelic hymn, "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, and good will to man." Doubtless, a book so

benign in its tendency must have been from Him, who is the "giver of every good, and of every perfect gift." Well then did Sir Robert Boyle say, "The Bible is a matchless volume; it is impossible we can study it too much, or esteem it too highly."

The admirable Lady Jane Grey, the evening before she was beheaded, sent a Greek Testament to her sister Catharine, with the following note written on a leaf at the end of it :-"I have here sent you, good sister Catharine, a book, which although it be not outwardly trimmed with gold, yet inwardly it is of more worth than precious stones. It is a book, dear sister, of the law of the Lord. It is his testament and last will, which he bequeathed unto us wretches, which shall lead you to the path of eternal joy; and if you, with a good mind, read it, and with an earnest mind do promise to follow it, it shall bring you to an immortal and everlasting life. It shall teach you to live, and teach you to die. Applying diligently to this book, and directing your life after it, you shall be an inheritor of such riches, as neither the covetous shall withdraw from you, neither thief shall steal, neither yet the moths corrupt.'

Read this inestimable volume, my dear young friend, read it carefully; humbly supplicating the gracious influences of God's Holy Spirit; without which you will never properly value or understand its precious truths. Make it the guide of your youth, the directory of your life. Then, it will be your joy in prosperity, your