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that you have rushed headlong into hell, in spite of all that was done, to turn your feet into the way of heaven? Prevent such sad reflections, I beseech you. As ever you would find mercy at the bar of God, fly to the God of mercy now. Seek Jesus in these the fair days of your youth. I know with many young persons it is now an easy thing to slight the friendly warning that bids them follow the Saviour, and to avoid or deride the friend that gives it; but it will be dreadfully hard at last to remember slighted warnings-abused privileges-a gracious God forsaken a kind Saviour neglected a wasted youth-a heaven lost-a hell incurred-and a devil pleased instead of God. One way remains for you to escape all these evils; it is to go to Christ for life. May God lead you to him!

CHAPTER XIV.

The sorrows and dangers that attend the way of transgressors noticed, as a reason for the choice of early religion.

WHILE the various blessings which attend a knowledge of the gospel combine to form a motive for embracing early piety, a motive of an opposite nature, but of a most weighty kind, arises from the disappointments, and sorrows, and miseries that attend the path of transgressors. If you, my youthful reader, are still careless of salvation, allow me now to entreat you to yield yourself to Christ, not by showing you the charms of religion, but by convincing you "that the way of transgressors is hard." This is the testimony of the word of God, which also assures you that "there is no peace to the wicked;" and that God, to them, "distributeth sorrows in his anger."

Depravity and corruption have led you into the ways of sin, and blindness keeps you contented there. "The god of this world (Satan) hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine into them." While in this state, you resemble a blind man in the midst of treacherous enemies; he is unconscious of their being round him; and so he does not fear them. Thus, on the edge of destruction, you are unconcerned, because blind to your state; for did you see your real state, while uninterested in the Saviour, you might perceive yourself to be, as it were, hanging by a single thread over the mouth of hell; devils waiting to receive you; the eternal Judge frowning upon you! and nothing wanting to seal you up under endless despair but the command of God to snap the brittle thread of life asunder. You are blinded by Satan, and led captive at his will. Is not this a state of wretchedness? yet this is yours; though spiritual blindness prevents your perception of it.

But perhaps, though such is your truly dismal condition, you have not felt its danger. nor been alarmed at its horrors. You have thought, and still think, the ways of iniquity pleasing. Yes, unhappy youth, while the future is forgotten, and death and judgment out of sight, the young sinner may find in them a transitory though brutish pleasure. The profligate, the drunken, and the lewd may be gratified, for a few moments, with their base delights. The triflers in the giddy ball-room, or licentious theatre, or when wasting invaluable time over a novel or romance, may think themselves happy; but these are unsatisfying things. The sinner pursues them for happiness! and yet is not happy. Have you never known this? Have you never seemed happy in the view of others, when full of inward misery? In the vain round of pleasures and amusements, when intoxicated with worldly delights, conscience, like a still small voice within, often tells the sinner that the end of these things is death. Has not this sacred monitor thus at times followed you, and made you uneasy even in spite of yourself? has it not even at the playhouse, the card-table, or the dance, told you that death, judgment, and hell were at hand? The careless sinner, who seems so cheerful, who laughs so loud, who appears so merry, through these inward stings, often feels, in the midst of all his delight, a load of remorse and wretchedness. Not merely does sin bring destruction in the next world, but its fruits are commonly wretchedness and ruin in this life.

Sabbath-breaking has been mentioned as one of the most common sins of youth, and how sad are its fruits! it often takes the lead

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in a legion of crimes. The sabbath-breaker is not long merely a sabbath-breaker. The writer of these pages once attended a criminal, who suffered death for murder, and he spoke of sabbath-breaking as a sin that led him to others! and perhaps few criminals have reached the gallows, who had not to ascribe their destruction, in a great measure, to this crime. Many have expressly mentioned this as the source of their guilt and misery. Not long ago five men suffered on the gallows, at the same time, in the isle of Ely, one or two of whom had been in a decent situation, and who all bore this sad testimony to the effects of sabbath-breaking. most sincerely warn you all to avoid those sins, which have been the means of bringing us here. By all means, avoid irreligion and vice of all kinds; particularly swearing, drunkenness, and sabbath-breaking." of them declared that drunkenness, whoredom, and sabbath-breaking, had brought them all to their untimely end. The awful judgments of God on sabbath-breakers, have also proved their way to be a way of sorrows. Many have gone out in the morning, on sabbath-breaking parties of pleasure, who, ere the evening came, were cut off by a sudden and unexpected doom; and sent all unpre pared into the eternal world. Not long back,

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