red it that
success, prosperity, and happiness through life, and a respected and
"green old age," are to be enjoyed only by careful preparation,
prudent forecast, and assiduous culture, in the earlier periods of
our existence.

"True wisdom, early sought and gained,
In age will give thee rest;
then improve the morn of life,
To make its evening blest."

The youthful live much in the future. They are fond of gazing into
its unknown depths, and of endeavoring to trace the outline, at
least, of the fortunes that await them. With ardent hope, with eager
expectation, they anticipate the approach of coming years--confident
they will bring to them naught but unalloyed felicity. But they
should allow their anticipations of the future to be controlled by a
well-balanced judgment, and moderated by the experience of those who
have gone before them.

In looking to the future, there is one important inquiry which the
young should put to their own hearts:--What do I most desire to
become in mature life? What position am I anxious to occupy in
society? What is the estimation in which I wish to be held by those
within the circle of my acquaintance?

The answer to these inquiries, from the great mass of young people,
can well be anticipated. There are none among them who desire to be
disrespected and shunned by the wise and good--who are anxious to
be covered with disgrace and infamy--who seek to be outcasts and
vagabonds in the world. The thought that they were doomed to such a
condition, would fill them with alarm. Every discreet youth will
exclaim--"Nothing would gratify me more than to be honored and
respected, as I advance in years; to move in good society; to have
people seek my company, rather than shun it; to be looked up to as
an example for others to imitate, and to enjoy the confidence of all
around me."

Is not his the desire of the young of this large audience? Surely
there can be none here so blind to the future, so lost to their
own good, as to prefer a life of infamy and its ever-accompanying
wretchedness, to respectability, prosperity, and true enjoyment? But
how are these to be obtained? Respectability, prosperity, the good
opinion of community, do not come simply at our bidding. We cannot
reach forth our hands and take them, as we pluck the ripe fruit from
the bending branch. Neither will wishing or hoping for them shower
their blessings upon us. If we would obtain and _enjoy_ them, we
m