_they_ fall into the ruinous error that it is yet time enough for them to attend to spiritual matters, and that the prime and vigor of their lives are to be wasted in merely temporal pursuits unworthy the characters and disgraceful to the rational creatures formed for a state of eternal happiness? Far better would it be that they never had been born; or that the hand of misfortune--the saddest hours of unmitigated suffering, should continue to press on them with all their weight, until they could be brought to know their duty to God, to their fellow beings, and to themselves. Heaven forbid, my young friends, that such awful discipline should be necessary to bring _you also_ to a proper sense of all you owe to the Divine Author of your existence, and to that society of which you may become either the blessing or the curse. Heaven forbid that any of you should so far forget the high destinies for which you were formed--the glorious purposes to which your lives should be devoted--and the everlasting happiness promised in another world to all who fulfil their duties in this, as to neglect for a moment any of the means essential to improve your hearts and minds to the utmost attainable degree. Nothing--no nothing within the range of possibility can enable you to do this, but continual, earnest, heartfelt prayer to God for the aid of his holy spirit in all your undertakings; frequent and deep meditation on all the vicissitudes of life; frequent and serious forethought in regard not only to what you may probably enjoy in the present world, but to what you may possibly be devoted to suffer. Gay and happy as you all now are in the joyous anticipations so natural to youth and health, it _may_ be your fate (but God forbid it ever should,) to see one by one of your nearest and dearest connexions drop into the grave--some in the very blossom and promise of juvenile years--others worn down by care, disease and old age. It _may_ be your fate to be the very last of your race, reserved to mourn over all who have gone before to another world. All this, my children, and yet deeper affliction may possibly be _your_ lot--for it _has been_ that of thousands, aye of millions before you. Can it be of _no importance_ then; nay, is it not of _the last, the highest, the most vital importance_, that you should make at least some small preparation for such appalling contingencies, lest they befal you utterly unawares? Will you ask me what is that preparation? It is simply so to use all your good gifts as not to abuse them; so to cherish all the powers both of your bodies and minds that they may last as long as nature intended they should, and fulfil all the purposes for which they were designed; so to divide your time between useful occupation and necessary recreation, that none may be said to be wasted or lost; in a word, _so to live_ that you may never be found _unprepared to die_. The joys of heaven should ever be the beacon to