While these will grow upon you, by insensible degrees, you will gradually become less thoughtful, your purposes and resolution will become weaker and weaker; till at last, you will probably give over all trouble and care about the matter; and settle into a fatal ease, and security of mind, in which a neglected God may suffer you to remain, till your case be beyond remedy.

Your misery will then be sharpened by every comfort you have enjoyed, by every affliction you have suffered, and by every admonition you have neglected.

Or, should it please God, by a singular act of mercy, to interpose and rescue you from your danger in advanced life, which however no one has reason to hope for, after deliberately trifling and sinning away the season of youth, should that be the case, what difficulties will you then have to encounter, that would now be avoided; what agonies of conscience, at the remembrance of your wasted youth, and the mercy of God so long slighted and abused; and how often will you be filled with gloomy doubts of your state, and alarming fears of being left at last, by the God you so long neglected, "to reap the fruit of your doings!"

"Now then, is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation.”

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Seize the kind promise while it waits,
"And march to Zion's heavenly gates,
"Believe, and take the promis'd rest,
"Obey, and be forever blest."

Watts.

Having premised the great qualifications necessary for your acting a safe, useful, and honorable part in life, I proceed to the next thing in or der, and that is

II. To fix early on some useful employment. This is equally a matter of duty and importance, which I hope will appear to you, from the following considerations.

1. Action and business are necessary for the health of the body, and for cheerfulness of the mind. The body is so framed, as to require frequent and vigorous action to keep the several parts of it in a state suited to perform their respective offices to advantage, for the good of the whole. Habitual inactivity weakens the springs of life, nourishes the seeds of pain and disease, and is ever accompanied with a languor and flatness of the spirits, which always render life, in a measure insipid, and often tedious and burdensome.

Nor will amusement, however active and varied, be sufficient to preserve the mind in a state of cheerfulness, and calm enjoyment. Where it is incessantly pursued, as the main business of life, it ceaseth at length to excite any high emotions of pleasure, and more certainly fatigues and

wears out the spirits, than most of the usual em ployments of life, pursued for the same length of time.

In a steady application to business, should it be even of the harder and more laborious sort, while vigorous action keeps the channels of life open, and the moving powers of the body properly braced up, firmness of thought and resolution, joined to self-approbation and the prospect of advantage, serve to keep the mind in an habit of cheerfulness, to which the idle and dissipated are utter strangers. It is thus that "the labouring man's sleep is sweet, whether he eat little or much." And on these considerations it is, that no class of mankind seem, in general, to have more real enjoyment of life, than they whose circumstances oblige them to "earn their bread by the sweat of their brow."

2. Early employment is necessary, in order to make a competent provision against the evils of want and dependence.

These are circumstances to which no man can patiently submit, but either by an insuperable indolence, or meanness of spirit, or by hard necessity. Besides the hardships and sufferings of the body in a state of want, the mind is subject to distressing anxiety, to fretfulness, to secret murmuring against the providence of God, and often prompted to fraud and violence towards others, as

the means of relief. And therefore Agur, with great propriety, makes it a part of his memorable prayer, that he might be kept as well from the evils of poverty, as of riches, "lest I be poor and steal, and take the name of my God in vain." But seperate from these, which are the greater evils of such a state, the slights, grudging and insults to which it is exposed, are always painful and mortifying to those who have not lost their sensibility, by the habits of suffering. While "the rich hath many friends," to caress or flatter him, to the shame of human nature, "the poor is hated, even of his neighbors."

To provide against these evils is a duty which every man owes to himself; and will always be the aim of those who are possessed of any true greatness of spirit.

And considering how full our life is of accidents, that are calculated to disappoint our pursuits, and how liable every employment is to be interrupted by pain, disease, infirmity, and a variety of other circumstances, against which no prudence can defend us; it is necessary to begin early to business, and to go on with diligence, while we have the means in our hands. This is especially necessary for those who have nothing or little to depend on, but their own care and good management. To idle away the prime of life, in such circumstances, is an argument of a mind des

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titute of all prudence and forecast, and less attentive to its own good, than the inferior animals of the creation, who, as soon as they are capable, begin to do something towards their own support. What have such to expect, but to live always in want, without any just claim for those aids of charity, to which the helpless, and industrious poor are always entitled. "This we command you, saith the apostle to the Tessalonians, that if any would not work, neither should he eat." And it generally happens, that where men suffer in consequence of idleness and dissipation, they meet. with less pity than others, and are more sparingly supplied.

Nor is early industry less a matter of prudence and duty, for those who begin the world, with the most favorable prospects. These are so liable to change, by causes, against which no human caution can provide, that he is very unwise, who trusts to their continuance, without endeavoring to furnish himself with some resource in case of the worst.

But, independent of other causes, the best capital on which a man can set out, must unavoidably waste, without attention and care on his part, to preserve it.

Many who might always, with a little care, have lived in ease or affluence, by an idle and careless youth, have been obliged at last, either