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gences, to hurtful and sinful excesses. Associate with the wicked, the latent spark is kindled; the desires, which virtue would suppress, are called forth, and fuel is added to the rising flame.

The ruin of many an amiable, promising young man, warns us of the fatal consequences. A little reflection may make you fully apprehensive of the danger. Let it be supposed, that your education has been regular and pious; that your hearts are hitherto uncorrupted; that your dispositions are amiable and good; and that your manners have been pure and innocent. These, it is granted, are the fair beginnings of a virtuous and respectable character;-but what are they more than the beginnings? It is an unavoidable circumstance attending early life, that habits of goodness are not formed; that the character is not fixed. It is only the commencement of your warfare. Your resolutions may, of course, be more easily overset; your' virtue more easily foiled. Will ye then, raw and undisciplined, enter into the field of battle? Will ye expose yourselves where dangers lie thick? Will ye, scarcely able to "run with

the footmen, venture to contend with the horses?"—This would be folly and rashness.

For once more, as the necessary consequence of not having yet established your principles and habits, the proneness to imitation is as strong and lively in you now, as it ever was in any former period of your lives, and more than it will be in any future stage. As ye are beginning to mix with the world, ye now enter into social connexions with the highest relish; now the desire of making yourselves agreeable, operates with peculiar force. This, of all the stages of your existence, is that which ye are most likely to take your colours from those near you, and to be moulded by the manners of those to whom ye are affectionately attached, and with whom ye most constantly associate. Such is the danger arising from your own age.

The age of your companions is equally hazardous to you. Must it not be at your peril, to borrow your notions and maxims from those whose wisdom has not been matured by years; whose errors have not been corrected by experience; whose volatility has not been reduced nto sober sedateness by trials? What must not

be the consequence, if ye give yourselves up to the guidance of such, whose youth doth not render the most able to guide themselves? Your real friends will be full of apprehensions for your safety, when they observe the deference yc pay to such, who, though they want the judgment and knowledge to qualify them to be skilful and sure pilots, are not deficient in other qualities, that will probably gain your confidence and win your assent.

They are generally expert in the use of those weapons, which are suited to their years, and adapted to yours. Ye will find such companions bold and assuming; so that your feeble, timid virtue will shrink away before them. Ye will find them forward to secure your intimacy; warm and cordial in their professions; the fervour of your own unsuspecting hearts will beat in unison with their friendly overtures. Their vivacity renders them pleasing companions. Their arguments, flowing from this lively vivacity, and addressed to yours, will be almost irresistible. They will not accost you, as your grave friends do, by admonitions on the distant consequences of

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haviour, and by the solemn remarks of aged wisdom. They will accost you in a way more insinuating, because the way in which young minds argue.-Sprightly sallies of wit, pointed ridicule, superficial remarks, a loud laugh, the chearful glass, a jest passed on the prejudices of education, the lewd song, and the pleasures of the present moment-these are the captivating charms of their eloquence; these, their powerful artillery, well adapted to gain a conquest over ignorance and levity, and to kindle latent passions.

The more various lights under which we view this subject, new and stronger conviction of the peril, of the contaminating influence of evil communications, must be produced in your minds. See how dangers thicken; how inconveniences press around you, if ye avoid not the way of evil men; who leave the paths of righteousness to walk in the ways of darkness. We lament the fallen glory, the lost felicity of those amiable, promising young men, whose history seals the truth of these reflections. We drop a tear over the sad fate of a lively young rince, Eugene de Sorssons, who, at the age

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of fifteen, by the most engaging affability and sweetness of temper, a quick understanding, an heroic ardour, and a skill in the sciences and other parts of polite literature, raised the most exalted hopes. The greatest care was taken of his education. He was fond of a military life, and inured himself to its severities. At a distance from court and public diversions, he gave himself up to the study of philosophy and ma-` thematics, under the care of a nobleman, dis-` tinguished as much by his science as his station, and under the instructions of an ecclesiastic, an excellent scholar, and a very wise man. This was his character in the year 1729.After this, bad examples found him unable to withstand them. When the vicious were his companions, their manners were no longer his abhorrence. By associating with them, he soon became as bad as the worst of them. In the year 1734, he was the reverse of his former character; lost his virtue-and with it his life *.

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The history of king Charles II. furnishes another painful memorial of the pernicious in

* Dean Bolton's Letters, Preface, p. 10.

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