X.

MORAL PREVENTIVES.

N LOOKING over the great world of men and affairs, it sometimes strikes one like a vast penetentiary, a gathering of persons who have all gone out of the way of moral health and spiritual life and peace. Our farm schools and institutions for the reform of offenders, are full to overflowing. And hence, in another aspect, we are living amid a grand array of remedial agencies and restoratives; the earth is a mighty hospital, in which the sick, the lame, and the impotent are lying by a moral pool, waiting for some angel to stir the waters and heal their maladies.

But the friends of humanity ought, instead of standing by this sad spectacle idle observers, or spending all their thoughts and efforts to restore the guilty and cure the diseased, to be doing more to prevent the increase and perpetuity of moral evil. That is the point and purpose of this chapter. Its motto is, Prevention better than remedies. It was said of Fisher Ames, that "he needed not the smart

of folly to make him wise."

The true way of life's

moral husbandry is, not to wait until the weeds of sin overgrow the soul, but to preoccupy the ground with plants from the garden of God.

Hear the old Levitical law: "With all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt." That is, thy mind must be incorrupt, thy heart sincere, thy whole character seasoned by thine oblations; then will thy worship be acceptable to God. Have a principle within, that shall preserve you against moral taint and decomposition. Do not wait until you feel the sting of guilt, but begin right.

The first thing to this end, is to cherish true aims. Resolve to be, rather than seem. Daniel Webster, when a young man, was once offering a letter for the mail, when he paid more than the size of his letter seemed to demand. "I should not have noticed the difference," said the post-master. "I should," said young Webster; "I have always felt it is better to be honest than merely appear so." Let one graduate his course of life by that noble sentiment, and he too, if not intellectually distinguished, in the best sense of the words, will make a great man.

Common minds care only for the present day; the elevated aim to live grandly, to live in favor with their own difficult spirits. This purpose will give one decision, energy, power of achievement, unlimited

success.

He who has salt in himself, makes up his mind what he will do, and what he will be. He resolves to cherish motives on which God and man may look with approbation; and he then sets himself calmly to work. What man has done, man can do ; that is his watchword.

Among the surest preventives of evil, is self-respect. I do not counsel pride and conceit. But this is what you need, to stand as high in your own moral estimation as you desire to stand in that of others. You are anxious for a good name; but why should you wish to appear well in the world? "Because," you reply, "it will be for my interest." But have you any interest in doing wrong and concealing it? In the end, be sure your sin will find you out; and your interest will then suffer on and on. Do you wish to stand well for the sake of your own happiness? Then, I ask, is it for one's happiness to carry about an accusing conscience? If you do not inwardly and truly respect yourself; if you would despise in another what you are doing in secret; and in reality do despise your own motives of conduct, what can the confidence and the praises of thousands avail you? He who has no true peace, when he thinks of the course he is daily pursuing, is building his house, not on gold, silver, and precious stones, but hay, wood, and stubble.

We need, in early life, to feel constantly a sense of our individuality. "What am I," says the youth sometimes," among so many? All I can do is to float along with the mass, and think and act as they do." No; instead of doing this, take yourself out of the mass, and look at what you really are; created, not to be a mere atom of some majestic structure, your identity crushed out by the surroundings of your position, but a but a living soul, separate from every other soul in existence, with distinct traits and offices, methods of influence peculiar to yourself, and a mission of your own in this world.

For a young man to disregard this great truth, is to sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. It may lead him to give himself up to be cog or tooth in some wheel of a sect or a party; it may make him follow, -feeble creature, a knot of vile companions to the dens of sensuality; it often compels one to be profane, vulgar, a wine-bibber, a spendthrift of time, money, health, and morals in the haunts of the blackest vice and guilt. Why, as we look on, we ask, will not that young man stand up in his own personality, and say firmly, "I also am a man; I will not serve your gods."

And yet, there may be a false independence. In youth the feelings are ardent, and prompt us to precipitate action. We hence sometimes press forward

on the impulse of the moment, before plans are matured, or consequences foreseen. We are, perhaps, warned by some friend; but the word is unheeded. "We can see and judge for ourselves; it is not as you say. Caution, prudence, forecast, they are but old men's whims." There is an idea that it is better

to go wrong than be dictated by others. All honor to a true independence of character. But I must think that he, who, rather than hearken to his friends, will peril, not only his fortune, but his honor and virtue, is not independent, but self-willed. He has that spirit which brought Milton's hero down from glory to shame and woe. "It is wise," said an heathen, "to be taught even by an enemy." What, then, are his prospects who sets at naught the counsels of friends, who deems it derogatory to his pride to do a good thing, if it have been advised or suggested by another?

Let me caution the young against a habit of recklessness. If it be perilous to say, "I don't care," it is doubly so to rush on with the plea, “I did not mind." This is the root of a multitude of transgressions. Let it grow into a habit, and it will undermine the whole character. "He who is idle and frivolous in his apprenticeship," says another, "will, in nine cases out of ten, be an inferior workman ; he will stand low as a journeyman, and still lower