Next to this, love your neighbour, which is all mankind, with such tenderness and affection as you love yourself; think how God loves all mankind, how merciful he is to them, how tender he is of them, how carefully he preserves them; and then strive to love your fellow-creatures as God loves them.

Let truth and sincerity be the only ornament of your language; and study how to think of all things as they deserve.

Let your dress be sober, clean, and modest. In your meat and drink observe the rules of christian tempérance and sobriety; consider your body as only the servant of best may your soul; and only nourish the one so as it form a humble and obedient service to the other.

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Let every day be a day of humility; relieve the wants, and rejoice in the prosperity of your fellow-creatures : compassionate their distress, overlook their unkindness, and forgive their malice.

you;

The time of practising these precepts, my child, will soon be over with the world will soon slip through your hands, or rather you will soon slip through it: it seems but the other day when I received these same instructions from my dear father, that I am now leaving with you.

LAW.

YOUTH THE PROPER SEASON FOR FORMING VIRTUOUS AND RELIGIOUS HABITS.

But

IN the midst of youth, health, and abundance, the world is apt to appear a very gay and pleasing scene; it engages our desires, and in some degree satisfies them also. it is wisdom to consider, that a time will come when youth, health, and fortune, will all fail us; and if disappointment and vexation do not sour our taste for pleasure, at least

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least sickness and infirmities will destroy it. In these gloomy seasons, and above all at the approach of death, what will become of us without religion? When this world fails, whither shall we flee if we expect no refage in another? Without a holy hope in God, resignation to his will, and trust in him for deliverance, what is there that can secure us against the evils of life?

Youth is the season to form religious habits; the earliest principles are generally the most lasting; and those ..of a religious cast are seldom wholly lost. Though the temptations of the world may now and then draw the well-principled youth aside; yet his principles being continually at war with his practice, there is hope, that in the end the better part may overcome the worse, and bring on a reformation: whereas he who has suffered habits of vice to get possession of his youth, has little chance of being brought back to a sense of religion. Some calamity must rouse him. He must be awakened by a storm, or sleep for ever. How much better it is, then, to make that easy to us, which we know is best! and to form those habits now, which hereafter we shall wish we had formed!

Youth is introductory to manhood, to which it is, properly speaking, a state of preparation. During this season we must qualify ourselves for the parts we are to act hereafter. In manhood we bear the fruit which has in youth been planted. If we have sauntered away our youth, we must expect to be ignorant men. If indolence and inattention have taken an early possession of us, they will probably increase as we advance in life, and make us a burden to ourselves and useless to society. If, again, we suffer curselves to be misled by vicious inclinations, they will daily get new strength, and end in dissolute lives.

But if we cultivate our minds in youth, and attain habits of attention and industry, of virtue and sobriety, we shal!

find ourselves well prepared to act our future parts in life; and what above all things ought to be our care, by gaining this command over ourselves, we shall be more able, as we get forward in the world, to resist every new temptation as soon as it appears. GILPIN.

On Providence.

A VOICE, from the celestial throne, loud as the sound of mighty thunders and many waters, has been heard saying, "Alleluia! for the Lord God omnipotent reigns."— But not to the material system is his government limited. In the moral as well as in the natural world, his pervading energy appears. What are the annals of nations, but a continued detail of its operations? The world is a great scene, where from age to age a series of providential interpositions has been displayed. How often has that great God, by whom Kings reign, punished national degeneracy with national disasters ? And it is worthy of particular notice, that even crimes are often over-ruled, so as to complete some great plan of the Almighty, and converted to some important end, far different from the intention of the actors in the scene. Did not the Roman couqueror, for example, when he invaded this island, imagine that he was only extending his conquests and adding fresh splendour to his military fame: while, in reality, he was but an instrument in the hand of Providence, for preparing a rude multitude of Pagans and Barbarians to embrace the Christian Faith! 66 Wonderful in counsel and excellent in working, is the governor among the nations"; who regulates all events, raises up unexpected agents to execute his decrees, and turns them, however unconscious of it, to the accomplishment of his purposes.-The measures adopted by the adherents of Popery, at the glorious era of the Re

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formation,

formation, instead of retarding, proved the very means, under Divine Providence, of advancing that great work, and of accelerating the overthrow of that fabric of superstition, which had been so industriously reared by the Church of Rome. Notwithstanding the various efforts of its enemies to crush the Protestant Faith, it braved all opposition. This beautiful plant, neither the furious storms of persecution, nor the malignant blasts of bigotry, were able to destroy. Nourished by the blood of the martyrs, it flourished and grew to maturity, till multitudes repaired to its refreshing shade, and sought repose under its branches. The arm of arbitrary power could not arrest its progress; dignified ecclesiastics trembled in secret; sovereigns themselves looked on with dismay. The review of events like these prompts us to declare, "It was the doing of the Lord, and is marvellous in our eyes. The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad, and the multitude of isles rejoice. He causeth the very wrath of men to praise him, and the remainder thereof he is able to restrain. It is consolatory to think, that all human affairs are overruled by that Almighty Being, who sits on his throne in the Heavens, and wields the sceptre of universal empire. This arrangement, with respect to the wonderful revolutions of nations, furnishes a subject of interesting meditation. Some states, once the seat of arts and sciences, of empire and glory, have sunk into ignorance, weakness, and contempt; while others, which they once despised, have risen high in the scale of renown. Our own country, once so insignificant among the nations, gradually acquired independence and fame. Britain, once a region of barbarity, by the blessing of Providence, became the residence of liberty, (for even a slave setting his foot on British ground becomes free), of literature and the various arts of polished life. To mark the hand of Providence regulating events

in the lot of mortals, putting down the mighty from their seats, and exalting them of low degree; making the world in short assume in the course of a few years so many new appearances around you; is an exercise of the mind truly important. Yes, my friends, it is of importance to read in the operations of Providence, that," the world and the fashion thereof passeth away,” that, while man is flourishing fair like a palm in the spring, death comes great wind from the wilderness,” and lays his head low.— A family, the most ancient, and once the most illustrious in Europe, which possessed the same throne above eight centuries, has exhibited in our own day a sad example of the instability of all human greatness. LAURIE.

A Word in Season.

as a

IT hath been declared by some, who have travelled over a great part of the known world, and have had an opportunity of observing the deportment of its inhabitants, that were they to choose their religious principles from the general practice of any individual class of mankind, christianity would be the last to which they would adhere.

I mean not to make any remarks upon the sentiment; but if I were to inquire what it is that so distinguishes the professors of Christianity from other classes of mankind, as to induce any person to talk of them with such an air of contempt, one thing that I would fix upon would be their malicious slandering and abusing each other with their tongues. But whether I am right in my conjecture or not, I am sure somebody will concur with me in saying that the base practice of back-biting, or abusing our neighbour with lies and calumnies is so exceedingly prevalent in this age, that there are few things calling

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