ly
inculcates, but that it is man's highest interest not to violate or
attempt to violate the rules which Infinite Wisdom has adopted; and
that every violation of his laws brings punishment along with it? Do
you study the laws of God, as revealed in the Bible? And do not they,
too, aim to inculcate the necessity of constant and endless obedience
to his will, at the same time that their rejection is accompanied by
the severest penalties which heaven and earth can inflict? What, in
short, is the obvious design of the Creator, wherever and whenever any
traces of his character and purposes can be discovered? What, indeed,
but to show us that it is our most obvious duty and interest to love
and obey Him?

The young man whose highest motives are to seek his own happiness, and
please his friends and neighbors, and the world around him, does much.
This should never be denied. He merits much--not in the eye of God, for
of this I have nothing to say in this volume--but from his fellow men.
And although he may have never performed a single action from a desire
to obey God, and make his fellow men really _better_, as well as
happier, he may still have been exceedingly useful, compared with a
large proportion of mankind.

But suppose a young man possesses a character of this stamp--and such
there are. How is he ennobled, how is the dignity of his nature
advanced, how is he elevated from the rank of a mere companion of
creatures,--earthly creatures, too,--to that of a meet companion and
fit associate for the inhabitants of the celestial world, and the
Father of all; when to these traits, so excellent and amiable in
themselves, is joined the pure and exalted desire to pursue his studies
and his employments, his pleasures and his pastimes--in a word, every
thing--even the most trifling concern which is _worth_ doing, exactly
as God would wish to have it done; and make the _means_ of so doing,
his great and daily study?

This, then, brings us to the highest of human motives to action, the
love of God. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God supremely, and thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself, are the two great commands which bind the
human family together. When our love to God is evinced by pure love to
man, and it is our constant prayer, 'Lord what wilt thou have me to
_do_;' then we come under the influence of motives which are worthy of
creatures destined to immortality. When it is our meat and drink, from
a sacred regard to the Fath