and soberness. hered to, and never permitted to escape from your memory. So shall you be saved from deep degradation and wo.

Let them be believed and ad

These are a few of the many temptations which beset young men. Guard against them as deadly foes to your happiness. Remember that vices assault the young in gangs. Admit one vice, and it will exert all its influence to make way for another, and another—increasing in strength as they multiply in numbers, until you fall a prey to every species of iniquity :

"The first crime pass'd, compels us into more,

And guilt grows fate, that was but choice before."

"With many persons," says D'Argonne, "the early age of life is passed in sowing in their minds the vices that are most suitable to their inclinations; and the middle age goes on in nourishing and maturing these vices; and the last age concludes in gathering in pain and anguish, the bitter fruit of these wretched seeds." The only safe method to prevent reaping this wretched crop in old age, is to avoid sowing the seed in youth. Let the seed you now plant in the moral soil, be temperance, honesty and virtue, and in advanced years, they will afford you a harvest of respectability and ease.

CHAPTER III.

THE HABITS.

Habit is the cherishing of certain emotions and the practicing of certain actions, until they become a second nature. It has justly been said that 66 man is a bundle of habits." From early infancy to mature manhood, he is forming habits which will more or less influence his enjoyments through life. Youth, in this respect, is a most important period. When the young man has arrived at years of reflection, and has become capable of meditating seriously on his future plans, then is the favorable time, when the mind is still tender and pliable, to correct improper habits formed in childhood, and to lay the foundation for those useful ones, that will tend greatly to his future prosperity.

That it is all-important for young men to look well to the habits they are now forming, is a position so evident, that little exertion is necessary to establish it. What enabled Franklin, the poor printer-boy, to arrive to an eminence which none in modern ages have surpassed? It was the

acquisition in his youth, of habits of industry, economy, perseverance, and patient research. Why does one man ascend from obscurity and indigence to fame and wealth, despite all obstructions, while another commences life surrounded by every advantage that riches and influential friends can bestow, and yet sinks into insignificance and poverty! This diversity is mainly caused by the difference in the formation of their habits. The one depended upon his own powers and exertions, and laid the foundation of his prosperity, by acquiring industrious, persevering, and economical habits--the other, relying upon his expected wealth or influential friends, failed to qualify himself for any useful avocation, and loaded himself with habits of indolence, carelessness, and prodigality.

Young men can cause their habits to become of whatever character they resolve. Firmly determine to be frugal, industrious, and temperate, and you easily become so. A Cesar, a Napoleon, a Washington, a Cicero, a Canning, a Brougham, a Wirt, could never have arrived at their celebrity, had they not framed the outlines of their career in youth, and formed habits which enabled them to fill up these outlines with so much success. Youthful habits, as was remarked in the preceding chapter, are the seed of a crop which must be reaped in after life. If your seed be of the true kind—if you obtain habits of activity, perseverance, and economy—your crop

will be bountiful and gratifying. But if your habits be the reverse, your harvest will be of a corresponding character.

run.

"Habits are easily formed—especially such as are bad; and what to-day seems to be a small affair, will soon become fixed, and hold you with the strength of a cable. That same cable, you will recollect, is formed by spinning and twisting one thread at a time; but when once completed, the proudest ship turns her head towards it, and acknowledges her subjection to its power. Habits of some kind will be formed by every youth. He will have a particular course, in which his time, his employments, his thoughts and feelings will Good or bad, these habits soon become a part of himself, and a kind of social nature. Who does not know, that the old man who has occupied a particular corner of the old fire-place, in the old house, for sixty years, may be rendered wretched by a change? Who has not read of the release of the aged prisoner of the Bastile, who entreated that he might again return to his gloomy dungeon, because his habits there formed were so strong that his nature threatened to sink under the attempt to break them up? You will probably find no man of forty, who has not habits which he laments, which mar his usefulness, but which are so inwoven with his very being, that he cannot break through them. At least he has not the courage to try.' 99*

*Student's Manual.

In order to be useful to yourself and your fellow-beings, it is necessary that you enter upon some profession or occupation. Even the most wealthy, should not be without a definite calling. Riches the most immense, often "take wings and fly away"—and when he who is thus dispossessed of them, is without an occupation, his condition in such circumstances, is truly deplorable. The occupation or profession, should be chosen in accordance with the abilities, taste, and circumstances of each individual—remembering that all honest and useful employments are alike honorable. It is, however, far better to be a good mechanic or agriculturist, than a poor professional man- -it is more desirable to be in the respectable class of the former, than in the lowest grades of the latter..

The habits necessary to insure success and respectability, are many. I will enumerate a few of the most prominent.

Industry is one of the most necessary and useful of the habits. Says St. Paul--" This we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat." It is the first law of our nature, that every true comfort we enjoy, must be purchased by exertion. And it is a law equally well established, that all well directed industry, shall receive an ample remuneration in health and vigor. Of all habits that fetter human powers, indolence is the most unmanly and debasing. Every thing around you--the earth, air and wa