I am now in the second place, to offer you a few plain directions, how to live with the world. And on this subject I shall be but brief. For, being once initiated into the true enjoyment of your own nature, and actuated by a deep sense of God's universal presence, all your other actions will be duly influenced thereby.

With regard to benevolence, that great law of Christ, and fruitful source of all social virtue, why should I recommend it to you? If you truly love God, you must necessarily love all his creatures for his sake, and disdain a narrow unfeeling heart, coiled up within its own scanty orb. Your charity will be of the most exalted and fervent kind; extending itself beyond the vulgar attachments of family and friends, embracing the whole human species and ready to sacrifice every temporal consideration to their good.

Actuated by such liberal sentiments as these, you will always be ready to do good and communicate freely your superior knowledge. Your counsel and your assistance, your hand and your heart-will never be refused, when demanded for the benefit of others, and in a virtuous cause. Or rather, you will never let them be demanded, but freely prevent the readiest wish. Modest merit will be the object of your peculiar regard; and you will always rejoice when you can produce it to public view, in an amiable and advantageous point of light.

Believe me, my dear youths, you can acquire no authority so lasting, no influence so beneficial, as by convincing the world that you have superior talents,

joined to inflexible virtue, and unconfined benevolence. Compared to such a foundation as this, the proud structures of vulgar ambition are but rottenness, "and their base built on stubble." A confidence placed as above, will give you a kind of dominion in the hearts of others, which you will, no doubt, exert for the noblest purposes; such as reconciling differences, enforcing religion, supporting justice, inspiring public virtue, and the like.

To this benevolence of temper, you are to add prudence, and a strict regard to the grace of character and proprieties of life. If you would be very useful in the world, beware of mixing too indiscriminately in it, or becoming too cheap in the vulgar eye. But, when you are in it, be affable to all, familiar with few, cautious in contracting friendships, stedfast in preserving them, and entering into none without the clearest virtue for their foundation and end.

Maintain such dignity of conduct, as may check the petulance of vice, and suffer none to contemnyou; yet shew such modesty of temper, as may encourage virtue, and induce all to love you. Preserve a cheerfulness of countenance, never affecting to appear better than you are; and then every good action will have its full weight. It is dishonouring God, and discouraging goodness, to place virtue in a downcast look, or in things external. The Christian life, far from being gloomy and severe, was meant to exalt the nature of man, and shew him in his best perfection-happy and joyful!

When you mix in company, you will often have occasion to be disgusted with the froth and levity,

'tis well if not the vice, of the general run of conversation. Strive, therefore, as often as you can, to give it a chaste and instructive turn; regarding always the propriety of time and place. And if, on any occasion, an ingenuous honesty of nature, and an abhorrence of vice and dissimulation, should oblige you to bear your testimony against what you hear; let it be evident to all that you are offended, not at the persons but at the things. Great delicacy is requisite in such cases; and you must blame without anger, in order to remove the offence, and not to wound the offender.

'Tis true, sometimes an animating conviction of a just cause, an undisguised love of divine truth, and a consciousness of superior knowledge, will, in the best of men, on such occasions, produce a seeming warmth of expression, and keenness of expostulation; especially when heated by opposition. But if, from the general tenor of your conduct, you have convinced the world of the goodness of your heart, such starts of passion will be forgiven by your friends, or considered only as the fire from the flint; " which, being smitten, emits its hasty spark, and is straightway cool again."

It will be your wisdom, however, to preserve the serenity of your temper; to avoid little disputes; and to raise yourselves above the world, as much as possible. There are really but few things in it, for which a wise man would chuse to exchange his peace of mind; and those petty distinctions, that so much agitate the general run of mankind, are far from being among the number.

But some things there are, nevertheless, which will demand your most vigilant attention; and some occasions, when to be silent or consenting would be a criminal resignation of every pretension to virtue or manhood.

Should

your country call, or should you perceive the restless tools of faction at work in their dark cabals, and plotting against the sacred interests of liberty; should you see the corrupters or corrupted imposing upon the public with specious names, undermining the civil and religious principles of their coun

try,
and gradually paving the way to certain slavery,
by spreading destructive notions of government—
then, Oh! then, be nobly rouzed! Be all eye, and ear,
and heart, and voice, and hand, in a cause so glori-
ous! " Cry aloud, and spare not," fearless of danger,
undaunted by opposition, and little regardful of the
frowns of power, or the machinations of villainy. Let
the world know that liberty is your unconquerable
delight, and that you are sworn foes to every species
of bondage, either of body or of mind!

These are subjects for which you need not be ashamed to sacrifice your ease and every other private advantage--For certainly, if there be aught upon earth suited to the native greatness of the human mind, and worthy of contention; it must be--To assert the cause of religion and truth; to support the fundamental rights and liberties of mankind; and to strive for the Constitution of our country, and a Government by known laws, not by the arbitrary deci. sions of frail impassioned men.

If, in adhering to these points, it should be your lot, as, alas! it has been the lot of others, to be borne down by ignorance, to be reproached by calumny, and aspersed by falshood, let not these things discou– rage you

All buman virtue, to its latest breath,
Finds envy never conquer'd but by death.
The great Alcides, every labour past,
Had still this monster to subdue at last.

POPE.

While you are conscious of no self-reproach, and are supported by your own integrity, let no earthly power awe you from following the unbiassed dictates of your own heart. Magnanimously assert your private judgment where you know it to be right, and scorn a servile truckling to the names or opinions of others, however dignified. With a manly and intrepid spirit, with a fervent and enlightened zeal, persevere to the last in the cause of your God, your King and your Country. And, though the present age should be blind to your virtue, or refuse you justice, let it not surprize you

The suns of glory please not till they set; POPE.

and the succeeding age will make ample amends to your character, at a time when the names of those who have opposed you will be forgotten, or remembered only to their lasting dishonour.

Nevertheless, though you must not expect to escape envy, or to receive the full applause of your