visions of
beneficence and honour, does the young man, just starting in the race
of life, conceive! There is no one in that period of existence, who has
received a reasonable education, and has not in his very nonage been
trod down in the mire of poverty and oppression, that does not say
to himself, "Now is the time; and I will do something worthy to be
remembered by myself and by others." Youth is the season of generosity.
He calls over the catalogue of his endowments, his attainments, and
his powers, and exclaims, "To that which I am, my contemporaries are
welcome; it shall all be expended for their service and advantage."

With what disdain he looks at the temptations of selfishness, effeminate
indulgence, and sordid gain! He feels within himself that he was born
for better things. His elders, and those who have already been tamed
down and emasculated by the corrupt commerce of the world, tell him,
"All this is the rhapsody of youth, fostered by inexperience; you will
soon learn to know better; in no long time you will see these things
in the same light in which we see them." But he despises the sinister
prognostic that is held out to him, and feels proudly conscious that the
sentiments that now live in his bosom, will continue to animate him to
his latest breath.

Youth is necessarily ingenuous in its thoughts, and sanguine in its
anticipations of the future. But the predictions of the seniors I have
quoted, are unfortunately in too many cases fulfilled. The outline of
the scheme of civil society is in a high degree hostile to the growth
and maturity of human virtue. Its unavoidable operation, except in those
rare cases where positive institutions have arrested its tendency, has
been to divide a great portion of its members, especially in large and
powerful states, into those who are plentifully supplied with the means
of luxury and indulgence, and those who are condemned to suffer the
rigours of indigence.

The young man who is born to the prospect of hereditary wealth, will
not unfrequently feel as generous emotions, and as much of the spirit of
self-denial, as the bosom of man is capable of conceiving. He will say,
What am I, that I should have a monopoly of those things, which, if
"well dispensed, in unsuperfluous, even proportion," would supply the
wants of all? He is ready, agreeably to the advice of Christ to the
young man in the Gospel, to "sell all that he has, and give to the
poor," if he could be shew