SECTION VI. 49 relates to God and religion ; how stands the case with youno*? Do you pay more honour to God in the world than is practised by your neighbours.? Do you maintain a greater reverence to things sacred, and do you walk more closely with God ? The examples as well as the advices of your parents have been con-. tinually set before you ; you have been instructed in all the rules of honesty and virtue, of sobriety and kindness, one would ex- pect that you should have been a considerable blessing to the world, and honourable instances of all that is pious towards men under such happy advantages ; enquire therefore, what is the frame of your heart, and whist has been the conduct of your life ? llave you forgot the labours and cares of your parents, and the religious practices which they introduced into your youngest years of life ? Are you grown weary of them already ? Lo you despise all these serious things in the wanton'gaiety. of your youth, as the follies of childhood, and the errors of the nursery, and the weaknesses of your infant state ? This is the 'reproach, this the scandal which Some wild young rebels have insolently: cast on all the pious cares of their parents, and the forms of a religious education : but we hope better things of you, and that you have grown up from the !ewer class of instruction to some of the more manly and advanced lessons of godliness and virtue? . Surely you can show a fair and honourable super-structure, since you had so happy ,a foundation ? Are you not arrived at higher degrees of religion and goodness than your neighbours, since your early blessings did so far exceed theirs.? This ought to have been your character, and we hope this has been indeed your practice. Methinks some ofyou should say thus to yourselves, " Am I not a branch of an ancient pious family ? An I not- a young descendant of the people of God through many generations ? What'care ought I to take to`support the honour of my ances- tors, and the dignity of my family in the sight of God and man ? It is not enough for me to compare myself with others, and con- tent myself to be as pious and as sober as they are who never enjoyed such early blessings; but I am bound to maintain a visible superiority in the several instances of piety and virtue, if possible, above my neighbours, that the ancient reputation and credit of my name and family among the churchesof Christ may not sink into disgrace, or lie buried in forgetfulness, lest the world and the church should join in the deserved reproach and infamy of so degenerate a plant as I am." Can you not remember the wise counsels and compassionate advices which came daily'dropping from a father's lips, and from the fondness of his pious heart ? Can you not remember the ten- der admonitions that a mother has given you rising and going to rest, while she softened every word with a tear of love? llave
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