the rags and starves on the crusts of beggary, because he is too lazy to dig. industry, or to settle Cicero, the greatest If you need authority to prompt your your opinions, that authority is at hand. genius, scholar, and man of his own, and of almost all ages, has declared, as the result of all his researches, "Diligentia vincit omnia." Solomon, a much greater and wiser man than Cicero, has written, or rather God has written by the hand of Solomon, "The diligent hand maketh rich;"—and equally in property, knowledge, eloquence, and virtue. Begin your course of professional studies, then, with a fixed determination to study closely, daily, and perseveringly. Read carefully books of the most respectable character, and read them thoroughly. Make diligent reading a business for life. Examine critically what you read. Bow not to the decisions of mere authority any longer, at least, than until you have opportunity to examine for yourselves. If the rulers and the pharisees do not believe, let their infidelity be no foundation for yours. Arrange in clear order the sentiments which you adopt. Meditate with and without the pen. Without method your thoughts, whether originated or imbibed, will never be ready for use. The store may be full, and the goods of great value; but if they be all thrown together from the bale and the box, it will cost you more time to find that for which you look, than it will be worth when found. Put up every thing in its proper place, that it may be ready for the first customer. Converse, also, freely with others, on the opinions which you embrace. They will view them in a different manner from that in which you view them. They will often detect your errors, discover the weakness of your arguments, and strengthen you in your just opinions. Should you in this way be sometimes mortified, let it not deter you from persevering. The profit will abundantly compensate for the pain. No man is wise with respect to every subject; all men are wise with respect to some subjects. The farmer will often improve the philosopher; nay, even the servant can in many things teach his master. Would you know men or things, converse freely Allow yourselves time to gain the requisite information. The first impressions concerning the character of a young man are usually of the utmost importance to his success in life. If they are favourable, moderate industry and prudence will preserve them; if unfavourable, great and long continued efforts will scarcely wear them away. You will not forward your real progress in life by hurrying yourselves into business. Like the tortoise in the fable, the slow and sure manner will usually first reach the goal. Three years are barely sufficient to furnish you with the necessary qualifications for either of the liberal professions. Straitened circumstances are the only excuse for a shorter period of preparation. Should such circumstances compel you to employ a less time in your preparatory studies, supply the deficiency, as much as may be, by superior application both before and afterwards. Make every day, and every hour, yield its advantages, by unremitted diligence. Like Jacob, wrestling with the angel, suffer not one to leave you till it shall have blessed you. Remember, that a little knowledge, gained every day, will make a rich year; that drops fill the ocean, and that sands form the shore. Methodise, for this end, your whole time. Appropriate its due part to recreation, to food, to sleep, and to business. Methodised time, like methodised business, goes on, not only easily, but advantageously. The Pensionary, De Wit, with more business on his hands than fell to any man in Europe, had always leisure for conversation and for amusement. For this end, also, decide, as soon as you can decide satisfactorily, on the profession in which you are to spend your lives. Indecision and delay in this concern will injure your happiness and your character. Destitute of any object to engross your attention and to employ your faculties, your minds will be harassed by suspense, benumbed by listlessness, and depressed by melancholy. At the same time, in a country where happily every man is a man of business, you will be viewed as wavering and indolent, as devouring the sweets of the hive, and adding nothing to the common stock. 2. When you are regularly admitted into the profession which you adopt, there will usually intervene an unhappy period between your first attempts to obtain employment, and your actual attainment of the business at which you aim. aim. At this period, you will have no present object to fill your attention and your time. At this period, the horizon of life will be overcast, and the clouds of the morning will appear to you to announce a gloomy and distressing day. In this uncertain, anxious situation, many worthy and promising young men are driven to the borders of despair, and either droop into inexertion, or plunge into vice and infamy. Be warned by their unhappy example, and shun the ruin in which they have been involved. While I give you this caution, I ought to assist you in adopting it, by furnishing you with both means and motives. Remember, First, That this is not a case peculiar to you; that it is not the effect of any fault, or inability of yours, but the natural result of the crowded state of the liberal professions. Divinity is indeed less crowded than law or medicine; but the older, more improved, and more respectable parishes, which most naturally invite the attention of a young gentleman, will present to his eye a moderate number of vacancies. Secondly, bear in mind, that others who have gone before you have struggled with the same evils, and surmounted them. They surmounted them by industry and perseverance. The same industry and perseverance will enable you also to surmount them. Mankind will always need the services of the wise and the good, and will always possess sufficient ability to discern those who are furnished with wisdom and goodness. If you labour for these attributes, you will certainly possess them; and if you possess them, you will be, for no very long period, unnoticed or unemployed. Thirdly, In this unhappy interval, seek for any honest employment, to fill up the painful vacuity: any employment, I mean, which will not retard your professional progress. Should it gratify ambition less than you wish, it will supply that deficiency by its usefulness to your character and to your peace. In this country, all employments being voluntarily given, are given of course to those in whom confidence is placed. Confidence is always placed in men who prove themselves to be persons of ability and integrity. This proof is found only in the previous conduct. Our countrymen, with that good sense for which they are distinguished, uniformly insist on the high evidence of facts, as the proper proof of that worth which is to be rewarded with their confidence. Hence, Fourthly, results a rule of life of the last importance,-To do whatever business you undertake as well as you are able. As you have acted in the last station which you have holden, you will be expected to act in the next. From the character which you sustained, where you last lived, will be formed the estimate of those among whom you now live. If you have discharged the trusts heretofore reposed in you, and performed the business which you have heretofore undertaken, with skill and faithfulness, your fellowcitizens will, with confidence, intrust and employ you again. Let not the smallness or humbleness of the employment induce you to neglect, nor to slight, the duties which it brings. Whatever it is, you have thought proper to undertake it; and have thus furnished unanswerable reasons why you should discharge it faithfully. In this world, also, as well as in that to come, you are to remember, that he who has been faithful over a few things may expect to be called to superintend many. Throughout that period of your lives, which will precede the age of forty, you ought to view yourselves as apprenticed by the public; and to feel the fullest conviction, that whenever your countrymen have become satisfied of your skill and fidelity in the subordinate gradations of character and business, they will cheerfully employ you as master workmen. 3. When you have begun the business of life, your chief duty will be fidelity in the business of your profession. One of the first requisites to this end is diligent study through life. The immense importance of this requisite is unhappily insufficient, in many cases, to engross the necessary attention. Multitudes of hopeful youths, and many of them originally studious, for one reason and another, quit, by degrees, this desirable course, and become so indolent, or so occupied, as, after their entrance into business, to increase, scarcely at all, their understanding, or their reputation. Some professional men are so poor as to be destitute of books, and obliged to labour daily for subsistence. Others are too much engrossed by their active employments. The physician has too many patients; the lawyer too many clients; and the clergyman too large a parish. Others are already possessed of both business and character, and feel themselves to stand in need of no further application. From these, and the like causes, there are comparatively few studious men in any profession. In neither of these instances is found a sufficient excuse for the neglect of study. The demands of poverty are, indeed, irresistible; but these demands are rarely so violent as necessarily to produce the alleged consequence. Men in small circumstances have much time, which is spent in employments neither so useful nor so entertaining as study. Social libraries are, or may be, established, with a small expense to individuals, in every neighbourhood; and books may be frequently and conveniently borrowed. The other classes are totally inexcusable. What unstudious clergyman might not with study preach better sermons? What lawyer of the same character might not do more justice to his causes? What physician to his patients? In addition to what has been already urged on the subject of study, let me advise you to aim, when you commence business, at distinguished character. Be not satisfied with merely escaping blame, or mingling with the mass. Determine to excel, not from the envious wish to look down on others, but from the generous love of excellence, and from the evangelical desire of doing good. Let sloth, ignorance, and insignificance, jog quietly on in the downward track, so congenial to their character. Lift your eyes to the hills of science, dignity, and virtue, and consider the rocks and the steeps as obstacles placed there merely to be gloriously overcome. Halt not on |