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2. From these general considerations, let me request you, in the second place, to look to the actual scene of life, and to the characters which The history of your

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it presents to your view. country records to you the trious great,-of many who have added virtue to rank, and genius to distinction; and the arduous days in which you live, have, 1 thank God, well supported whatever was great or dignified in national character. Such are the models which it becomes you to study, the distinguished characters which rise as it were from the mass of mankind, to court you to follow them ;-and if, in regarding them, your bosoms swell with admiration;-if you form the secret wish, in your day, to resemble them ;-if hope whisper its anticipations of success,-suffer not, for any pleasures which life can offer you, these invaluable emotions to pass from your minds. Remember, that such also is the part which you may perform ;—that such are the honours you may win,-and that, even when life is passed, and all the momentary distinctions of mortality are at an end, the same grateful tear which you now pour upon the grave of illustrious virtue, may in return fall upon yours.

Alas! my brethren, there is another prospect; and if there be examples in your condition which are fitted to animate, there are others which are fitted to chill and to alarm. You have read in the

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annals of every country, the history of vicious greatness and profligate wealth. You have heard, in former days, of the arrogance of privileged orders, of the injustice of hereditary power,-of that corruption of manners into which they may fall, who are exalted above the censure and the indignation of the world. You have seen, even in this country, rank degraded, and power abused, riches dissipated amid every ignoble pleasure,— influence devoted only to the dissemination of base or vicious manners, and all the fairest gifts of Heaven, converted, as by the spell of an enchanter, into the elements of more than mortal death. On such examples, it becomes you well to pause. There was a time, when the lost beings you now behold were innocent and pure,-when life opened to them with all the prospects of usefulness and honour,—and when the promises of youth afforded no presage of the baseness of their maturity, or the ignominy of their age; and it is for you well to consider, whether theirs be the career that you would wish to run, or theirs the death you would wish to die.

3. There is yet one other consideration, my young brethren, which I would wish to represent to you, and which it is of the deepest consequence you should, in the present hours, impress upon your minds. The time we live in is itself eloquent. The ages are past, in which power can constitute right, or wealth embellish corruption,--

in which authority can take the place of virtue, or the honours of distinction be maintained amid the profligacies of individual character. Whatever is the importance of the distinction of ranks to the general welfare of society;—whatever, in this great and envied country, is its importance to the preservation of our unrivalled constitution ;— whatever, in private life, is its influence upon the purity and dignity of national manners, all these now depend upon the conduct of those who possess them. The progress of national prosperity, -the searching inquiries of science, above all, the diffusion of the spirit of the gospel, have broken the spell which formerly rendered the great invulnerable; and the eye of the patriot is now raised with silent anxiety to the contemplation of the conduct of the higher conditions of society, to know whether he is to prophesy peace or anarchy to his country.

To this mighty scene of trial and of duty you are now approaching. Let me then entreat you to look at the fall of another country,-to that mighty ruin which now covers the first of European monarchies, and which has buried every thing, that, but a few years ago, was noble or elevated, in one promiscuous grave. Alas! while you look upon this sepulchre of human greatness, is there not a voice which arises from the tomb, and which seems to tell you also to beware ;— which tells you, that if the great have their rights,

they have also their duties ;-that, in the present circumstances of the world, the inheritance of wealth, and the pride of ancestry, can only be supported by personal dignity, and that the fabrick of society itself can only be maintained by the progressive improvement of every rank in knowledge and in virtue. It is the melancholy truth of history, that the corruption of every people has begun with the great; and, if ever that dread day shall come, when this constitution, so long the subject of our pride to men, and our gratitude to God, shall also perish, it will be when the higher orders are more corrupt than the lower;-when, in the security of vanity, or in the baseness of vicious pleasure, they shall at once have undermined the respect of the vulgar, the confidence of the wise, and the hope of the virtu

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Such then, my young brethren, is that arduous but animating state on which you are about to enter. It is, in truth, no state of luxury and ease, --no privileged scene of exemption from that labour, which is at once the lot and the prerogative of man. You are called by the providence of God to the first rank in the society of men ;-you are called by the same Providence to the first duties; and the voice of nature coincides with the voice of the Gospel, in the solemn assurance, "that of those to whom much is given, much also "will be required." Do you then wish, with the

natural generosity of youth, to fulfil in after years the duties to which you are called? Now is the time for this sacred preparation. It is now, in the spring of your days, that you may acquire the knowledge, and establish the habits which are to characterize your lives; and that and that you may elevate the temper of your minds to the important destiny to which the Father of Nature has called you. The world, with all its honours and all its temptations, is before you;-the paths of virtue and of vice are equally open to receive you ;-and it is the decision of your present hours, which must determine your character in time, and your fate in eternity.

I pray God, that you may decide like Christians and like men;-that you may take, in early life, "that good part which will never be taken from 66 you ;"—and that neither the illusions of rank, nor the seductions of wealth, may lead you to forget what you owe to yourselves, to your country, and to your God.

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