pect to your behaviour to your parents? We cannot judge of your future conduct, since that remains to be tried; but your present and past actions must be the presumptive evidence of what is hereafter to be expected. Hence arises the consequence of reputation to our well-doing in the world, and that reputation begins to be in some degree established from the first dawn of reason; for, as Solomon observes, "Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right." In short, he will be ever liable to suspicion, who has violated this first obligation of society. Can we trust him as a friend, who has failed in gratitude to those who were the friends of his earliest hours ? Will he be hereafter supposed an eligible partner in the state of marriage, who has been wanting in the relation of a son? and how can he recommend or expect obedience from his children, who is conscious that he never paid it to his own parents? Consider, therefore, my young reader, that the effects of your present inattention, perverseness, and opposition, will be extended to the remotest period of your existence, and be of the most serious consequence to your happiness. It will be too late to repent, when

you suffer the punishment of your ill conduct; too late to retrieve your faults, when evil habits have taken root; too late to lament the loss of reputation, when you have incurred reproach; too late to make your parents happy, when, by your neglect and disobedience, you have pierced their affectionate hearts with anguish, or perhaps brought down their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. The date of human life is always uncertain, and in the course of nature you must be expected to close those eyes which beheld yours first open to the light; but nothing is more likely to accelerate the period of dissolution than the uneasiness of seeing the darling they love behaving in a manner unworthy of their care; and what must be the sensations of an undutiful child, when struck with repentance and remorse, and incapable of making any reparation to those from whom he is separated for ever in this life? What a weight of distress must such a reflection diffuse over his remaining years! And though you, my dear reader, are now young and inconsiderate, yet you should reflect that your parents' lives may not be long protracted, and therefore you cannot be too assiduous

to observe their admonitions, and promote their happiness. No pleasure can be more delightful to an honest heart, than that which results from the approbation of such tender relatives. "Children's children are the crown of old men, and the glory of children are their fathers." When you bear with the infirmities of age, you discharge the obligations of your infancy. When you strive to enliven the drooping spirits which are nearly exhausted by the cares of life, you prepare a kindly relief for your own decaying frame, and may have just ground to look forward to a like support from your descendants, when you shall arrive at the same enfeebled state. But you have surely a present recompence in the discharge of this duty, you must surely feel a satisfaction in finding yourself useful to those to whom you are so inexpressibly indebted ; and though sometimes their dispositions may be rendered more serious than is agree. able to your vivacity, yet you should consider the needful restraint of this circumstance rather as a trial of your love than as a cause of vexation. If you regard it in this light, I am persuaded, my young friend, you would rejoice to submit to any inconve

nience in order to show your tenderness to your parents: but from the want of reflec. tion you may perhaps become impatient under these circumstances, which that consideration alone would tend to sweeten and allay. If they should labour under bodily disease, who should pity their sufferings or excuse their complaints, if not the child they have attended in pain?

God has formed the human race, as it were, to be the nurses and assistants to each other; the parents, in their full strength, sustain their offspring before they are ca. pable of assisting themselves: and what sight can be more delightful than to see an amiable child, in return, administer to the comfort of that venerable age, whose youth was exerted in his support? And when the last closing scene of their lives shall arrive, whether at an earlier or later period, to obtain the blessings of a dying father, or the ardent benediction of an expiring mo. ther, must undoubtedly be the desire of every heart. How will you then, my young friend, regret that ever you have grieved or disobeyed them! how will you wish to recal every unguarded expression of disrespect, every petulant complaint, every

repining murmur !

then wish to have

power to do.

And what you would done, it is now in your We find the last words of

the patriarchs, recorded in Scripture, as having been usually a solemn blessing, and frequently a prophecy of what should happen to their children; and I know of no history more pathetic than that contained in the 48th and 49th chapters of Genesis. The pious and venerable Jacob, sensible of his approaching death, though weak with sickness, and exhausted by a long life of a hundred-forty-and-seven years, yet" strengthened himself, and sat up. on the bed," resolved to exert all his endeavours to talk once more with his beloved son Joseph. How truly affecting is the recital which he makes of the events of his past life, and his earnest prayer for his excellent child, and his grandsons! And he blessed Joseph, and said "God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk; the God which fed me all my life long unto this day; the angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." And in the following chapter, when he had his sons assembled round about his bed, who would have borne the reproof which he justly made to Simeon and Levi? and who but must wish for the testimony of a dying father,