cess, he presses forward in his enlarged and enlar ging schemes of business, till he is in danger of being swallowed up in them. Occasionally, for a moment, he turns his eye towards home, and thinks of his father and his mother; but by no means with that frequency, steadiness, and intensity with which they think of him. They wonder how he does, when far away from the society of parents, brothers, and sisters; in company only with strangers or new-made acquaintances. They do not forget him at the throne of mercy, in their private or family devotions, but commend him to the merciful guidance and keeping of Him from whom they received him, and to whom, from his birth, he was devoted.

If a person arrive from that city, he is met with the anxious inquiry, "Do you know?" "Yes, I know him well; he resides but a few doors from me." "How is he doing?" "I believe well— very well." And suppose they hear in addition, "There is one thing which I have observed always promises well for a young man. He never opens his store, or goes down to it, on the Sabbath. He never goes out to ride, or visits places of amusement or dissipation on that day. He is always at church, morning and evening." How safe, comparatively, those parents feel, and how delighted! They do not expect to hear any thing very bad of their son. While he keeps the Sabbath, they hope and expect that the God of the Sabbath will keep him. that is God's way to keep men, and even young men, in that most trying and dangerous of all periods, from the time when they leave their father's dwelling, and the endearments and restraints of home, to the time when they obtain that last best earthly gift-a prudent wife from the Lord, and have a family of their own to throw its kind endearments around them, and fill them with the riches of its bliss.

For

But suppose they hear the following answer to

their affectionate and anxious inquiry: "I do not know. I am not much acquainted with him. He does not reside near me, nor does he associate much with our sort of people. There is one thing, however, which always makes me fearful about a young he does not keep the Sabbath. I observe, he sometimes opens his store on that day, or goes down to it. He sometimes rides out, or goes to places of He is not in the habit of attending

a man

amusement.

church."

What will those parents hear next?

None can tell. It may be, that he has failed in business; or that he has become intemperate, or licentious, or in other respects abandoned; that he is a gambler, or a thief, or has committed some enormous crime.

"

THERE IS NO SAFETY TO THE YOUNG MAN WHO DOES NOT KEEP THE SABBATH. He has forsaken God, and turned from his ways. He is on the devil's ground, tempting that old murderer to tempt him, provoking God to leave him in his hands to eat the fruit of his own way, and to be filled with his devices. Thus many a youth, before whom was opened the path of life, that way of pleasantness," that "path of peace," has voluntarily turned aside and gone down to death. He had within him an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. He may have uttered or echoed to himself the old serpent's lie, "Thou shalt not surely die ;" or flattered himself that it was the part of manly independence to trample on the Sabbath; to look upon the wine when it is red, and giveth its color in the cup; or indulge those propensities which God has implanted in our nature for wise and beneficent purposes, but the gratification of which he has restricted to the limits which his wisdom and goodness have prescribed, and which he has solemnly commanded should be confined to married life. In defiance or forgetfulness of God, the heedless youth may have chosen-foolishly, meanly, and wickedly

chosen to follow her "whose mouth is smoother than oil, but whose end is bitter as wormwood;" "whose feet go down to death, and whose steps take hold on hell; "whose house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead;" whose "house is the way to hell, leading down to the chambers of death." But he will find that as the fishes are caught in an evil net, and as birds are caught in a snare, so he has been taken by the destroyer, and snared with a bait, which "at the last biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder." Her voice was "the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps; "the adder's

"None

poison was under her lips." "The dead are there, and her guests are in the depths of hell." that go in unto her return again, neither take they hold of the path of life."

Let any man, young or old, despise or trample on MARRIAGE, that great fundamental institution which God established to secure and perpetuate the existence and social purity of our race, and through which to make known himself and manifest his goodness to man; and let him seek those gratifications without, which it is his revealed will should be enjoyed only within its sacred enclosure; or let him openly and presumptuously neglect and desecrate the SABBATH, that other great and fundamental institution, which, like marriage, God established at the creation, as a help meet for families, and through whose hallowed influences they can alone accomplish the end for which they were established; and as certainly as God reigns in heaven, who judgeth upon the earth, such men, even here, will be visited with his curse. He has established laws, fixed as the pillars of his throne, which no mortal can annul or evade, by which those sins, continued, will work out destruction.

If they do not lead, as is often the case, to other gross outward crimes, which bring the culprit to an untimely end, they will keep him away, ordinarily,

from the remedial influences of the gospel, and all the appointed means of grace, or, if continued, will counteract their efficacy and prevent their saving effects an evil infinitely greater than the loss of all merely earthly things. Such men may expect to live in impenitence, and in impenitence to die; in hardness of heart and blindness of mind to go to the judgment, and under accumulated treasures of wrath to sink to an awfully aggravated condemnation.

But let a man, even a young man, in this most perilous period of his probation, keep in mind the lessons of heavenly wisdom; let him hear God say, "Whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and be quiet from the fear of evil;" and to the inquiry, "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?" let him hear his answer, "By taking heed thereto according to thy word; " let him treat the word of God as "a lamp to his feet, and a light to his path;" let him keep the Sabbath day holy, as a day of worship and of spiritual improvement; let him regard marriage as the institution of God, a holy union of one man with one woman for life; let him seek of the Lord, and use proper means to obtain a suitable companion for himself, and enter into that state early after he is settled for life in his appropriate business, — and he will find that he has indeed, beyond what he could in any other course, "obtained favor of the Lord." He will know, from their blessed effects, that both MARRIAGE and the SABBATH were made for man,' and are conducive, in the highest degree, to his present and future good, and the good of all who may feel his influence. While those who despise either of these institutions despise their own mercies, contemn the wisdom and goodness of Jehovah, and oppose the advancement of his glory and the great interests of the universe. But they who regard these institutions, and treat them according to the revealed will of God, will more and more taste and see conNo. 3. 8

tinually of his wisdom and goodness, and will become co-workers with him in promoting the great object for which he stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, made man, gave his Son as a Savior, and the Holy Spirit as a Sanctifier, and appointed the preaching and ordinances of the gospel, and is carrying on all his operations in the kingdoms of nature, providence, and grace.

And when the final results shall be unfolded, and great voices shall be heard, as the voice of many waters and of mighty thunderings, from multitudes that no man can number, crying, "Glory to God in the highest," they will be witnesses of his "good-will to men," and will mingle their ascriptions with those of all who have believed on and obeyed him, of BLESSING, AND HONOR, AND GLORY, AND POWER, UNTO HIM THAT SITTETH ON THE THRONE, AND UNTO THE LAMB FOR

EVER AND EVER.