DEAR CHILDREN:--If you were walking, in a dark night, along a road full of sloughs, and pits, and snares, and dangers of every kind, what would you do for safety? You would naturally, if you could obtain it, take a _light_ in your hands. You would also, if possible, engage a _guide_, strong and faithful, well acquainted with the road, and qualified to conduct and defend you. And, besides all this, you would vigilantly _look around you_ at every step, and eagerly mark and avoid every spot that had a suspicious or doubtful appearance. Your situation, dear children, in the journey of life, is precisely such as I have described; or rather, I ought to say, "the half has not been told you." You are just entering on a world, dark, corrupt, and full of allurement and danger. On every side enemies lie in wait to deceive and betray. You are and will be exposed to a thousand temptations and perils from which you have no wisdom or strength to deliver yourselves. You need direction and guidance at every step. Now the BIBLE presents the only complete and perfect map of the road which you are travelling. It was given us to be "a light to our feet, and a lamp to our path." It exhibits, with unerring fidelity, every enemy, every snare, every danger which beset your path. It gives all the information, all the warning, all the caution, and all the encouragement which you need. It tells you, more perfectly than any other book, all that you have to fear, and all that you have to hope for. There is not a form of error, or of corruption, against which it does not put you on your guard; nor an excellence or a duty which it does not direct you how to cultivate and attain. "Wherewith," asks the Psalmist, "shall the young cleanse their way?"--"By taking heed thereto," he replies, "according to thy word." No one ever made this holy Book the guide of his life, without walking wisely, safely, and happily; without finding the truest enjoyment in this world, and eternal blessedness in the world to come.