succeeding year; begin, then, my young reader, to establish the foundation of that respectable character, to which every day may add some valuable attainments, and your latest age may be rendered more illustrious by the actions of the present period. Consider the purposes of your creation ; what your Maker expects from you, and how highly he will recompense the improvement of those talents his bounty has entrusted to your care. If it has pleased him to consign ten talents to your hands, he will no more forgive the negligence that shall hide one of them, than if that one had been the whole treasure deputed to your charge. The answer of the slothful servant in the gospel, "I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth," will meet with the same dreadful sentence he there received; "Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou oughtest to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury; and cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

The inference of what has been urged is, to incite your gratitude to that Power who

has distinguished you by the peculiar favour of his Providence, and " placed you in a pleasant place, and given you a goodly heritage." The present indulgence with which you are blessed, is, if you use it rightly, but an earnest of his future and greater blessings; and, however difficult it may be to persevere in the path of duty, he has promised his assistance to support you in it. 66 Ask, and ye shall receive," every supply, both of wisdom to direct, and grace to improve, those endowments you already possess; and if you constantly act with a design to God's glory, he will most certainly direct every event to the promotion of your felicity. May these reflections have a due influence on your youthful heart, that, encouraged to devote your early years to his service, he may hereafter vouchsafe you that crown of righteousness, which he has promised to his faithful servants!

92

SUNDAY XLI.

THE PECULIAR OBLIGATIONS OF THOSE IN

A MIDDLE STATION OF LIFE.

It is often urged in excuse for our vices or failings, that they arise from the particular station in which we are placed: thus, the young imagine they should be less negligent, if they had the same serious inclination as they observe in their elders; the poor are apt to fancy, that if blest with greater affluence, they should behave with more generosity to their inferiors, and show more kindness than they receive; and the rich, who abound in plenty, do but too frequently reprobate the discontent of the needy, and flatter themselves, that, in a change of circumstances, they should be more easily contented.. Persons in a retired state are apt to boast of the good they should do, if their connexions were more extensive; while, on the contrary, others, whose lives pass in the continual hurry and dissipation of business, ascribe all their defects to the want of leisure. However reasonable such arguments may be in a degree, they are certainly wrong, when ap.

plied to exculpate the faults or passions of our character.

The circumstances of each individual are appointed by an all-wise Governor, and, though some may have more advantages than others, yet the opportunity of being virtuous, and the grace needful to become so, is vouchsafed to all; and those who steadily exert themselves to perform their duty, will never want the necessary encouragement from Divine Goodness. Every allowance proper to be made for human frailty, and the trials resulting from our situation, will be attended to by a righteous Judge; but then, as that Judge is the searcher of hearts, he can never be deceived by any false pretences. It is however usually allowed, that the middle rank of life is, in some respects, the most favourable to the regularity of conduct, and the least. exposed to temptation, of either of those three estates into which society is commonly divided. If therefore, my dear reader, you are so happy as to be removed, by your condition, from the powerful seductions to which flattery, adulation, and pomp, expose the minds of those about you, and are freed from the temptations to envy, dishonesty, and

VOL. II.

I

discontent, which strongly assail the needy; the praise of your situation belongs not unto you, but unto the mercy of your God; and it ought to inspire you with a spirit of candour and compassion, for the errors of those whose faults may arise from such solicitations to evil as you have the blessing to escape. You, my young friend, in a comfortable mediocrity of fortune, have every motive to excite your diligence and application.

The advantages of education and science are afforded to improve every generous af. fection, and the precepts of religion are laid open to your mind, to strengthen every native virtue. The talents with which Providence has endowed you, are not smothered, as it were, by the indolence and voluptuousness of an unbounded indulgence, and the false splendour of an elevated rank; nor are they depressed by the chilling coldness of neglect, and the want of needful leisure or instruction. Your genius is not left to wither and decay in unprotected indigence; nor will it be fostered by the undeserved commendation of the world, into vanity and self-conceit.

Be especially mindful, therefore, to improve the felicity of your station; and as that is placed in the intermediate space between