deep into a religious soil, they have become strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might; and are enabled to overcome the world, with all its enchanting pleasures, and all its fascinating charms.

But the case is directly reversed, with the irreligious portion of mankind. By rejecting a religious influence, and yielding to the dictates of passion and appetite, their corrupt dispositions become inflamed, and are easily excited. When allured by the seductions of sin, they are capable of making but a slender resistance. The attractions of vice become too strong for repulsion, and the young and irreligious are led away by them, as the ox goeth to the slaughter. Such was the course of the unhappy youth, to whom Solomon refers, in the language of the text: I discerned among the youths a young man void of understanding. We are led to remark, from these words,

I. A young man is void of understanding, who refuses to yield obedience to the reasonable requirements of his parents. The Scriptures of divine truth require children to obey their parents: Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right. Children, obey your parents in all things; for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord. Indeed, this is a subject of so much importance, that it was incorporated into the law of God, and made one of the ten commandments: Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. This requirement will appear reasonable, when we consider that young people need some guidance and government in their minority; and there are peculiar reasons to trust the prudence, care, and affection of a parent, in preference to any other person. It will appear reasonable, I say, that children, while in their minority, should obey their parents, provided, nevertheless, that the commands of parents are not inconsistent with the will of God. The evil consequences of transgressing the commands of parents, are many. They are not confined to the individual offender; they extend, by their influence, to the whole household.

1. It introduces disorder and confusion into the family. 2. It lays a foundation for greater crimes.

3. It destroys the happiness of the parent.

Permit me, before I conclude my remarks, on this head of my discourse, to make a few observations on the duty of parents to their children. The Scriptures lay a restraint on parents, with regard to the exercise of their authority. It is not to be attended with harshness and severity, lest they provoke their children to anger, and discourage them from attempting to fulfil their duty, under the idea that, whatever efforts they may use to please their parents, it will be a hopeless task. Parents have much to answer for, wher they produce such an effect as this on their children's minds. If, on the one hand, it be said, that there is much folly in the heart of a child, and that the rod of correction must drive it out, it must be remembered, on the other hand, that the mind of a child may soon

be cast down, and mat we may, 27 mrt

mens mut me *verty, zizment hat vary reselica wiCI VE MTV U SUMUE. There can be an toast bet that may ste ter mit ren's wears annst her anacrty, a te ir nunca mu mately against God himself purely by me grant which DET EXercise, and 17 the scctual Intaties CL ET ICCES = m.. m the last 117, they will be found a to many asados de arme Movers, and the real causes of their enitens elerin r

thers, se upon your gari, respecting ts: 22 Seat I us drung yor coudren to despondebeg, ebolatie u tong dem 10 in the mirture and admonition of the Leri. See a whĚ V17 30 dealeta with his enldren; how be bears with der pénzes, Ed consuits their best interests. So #DOGL: Voc on and like Aricam of oud, be solicitous of their eternal welfire.

IL A young man is void of coderstandzz, ris 12hrs taxi in the habit of profane vrearing. God has icrbedden is to use us name irreverently: Thou shalt not take the name of the Liri ay God in rain. Ínose who transgress this commandment, cõend against the majesty of heaven; and God has declared that be wil not hold such guitless. There is no greater mark of the corrup tion and depravity of a man's heart, than this practice; for no man can be tempted to profane the name of God. Temptation supposes the allurement of either pleasure or profit, but profane swearing administers to neither. When we commit some crimes, we plead the indulgence of passion, or the gratification of appetite: while we are tempted to the commission of others, in the hope of supplying our wants, or of increasing our treasures. But the profane swearer cannot justify or excuse himself, in this sinful practice, by either the one or the other. It must, then, be the offspring of pure wickedness; the overflowings of a corrupt and diabolical heart. It is a contempt of the authority of God, and an insult to the majesty of heaven. It is a perversion of reason, and a prostitution of those high and exalted faculties, which God has given to man for the best of purposes. It is a mark of vulgarity and low breeding. It ren ders our language obscene and incoherent. It has a tendency to corrupt and demoralize society.

III. A young man is void of understanding, who is accustome to intemperance. The sin of drunkenness draws along with it al most an endless variety of bad effects.

1. It betrays most constitutions into the extravagance of anger. or sins of lewdness.

2. It gradually undermines and destroys the constitution of man, and shortens life.

3. It impairs the faculties, stupifies the senses, and renders man unfit for business.

4. It is extremely difficult to break off from the habit when once formed.

5. It is a violation of the word of God. Wine is a mocker,

strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. Wo unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, that continue until night, till wine inflame them. Who hath wo? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine: they that go to seek mixed wine. Look thou not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his odour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright: at the last it biteth like the serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. And be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the spirit.

IV. A young man is void of understanding, who pursues the practice of gambling. The evil of gambling will appear evident if we consider the following propositions.

1. It is a waste of time. Time has been given to man for wise and valuable purposes, but when it is appropriated to gaming, it is totally lost. Gaming brings no valuable considerations to either body or mind: it does not refresh the body, nor invigorate the mind. It furnishes no valuable information: it adds no strength to the reasoning powers. It neither sweetens nor elevates the temper; but, on the contrary, sours it and renders it morose, and frequently inspires the spirit with envy and malice, which, when cultivated for any length of time, strengthens into habit. In the meanwhile, all the time employed in it is wasted and lost. This loss is immense. No man can answer for it to his Maker: no man can repair the injury that is done to himself. It cannot be too often said, nor too strongly realized, that time is the most valuable of all things; since on the proper employment of it depends every blessing, which we are capable of receiving. He who wastes it, as every gamester does, is guilty of a prodigality that cannot be estimated. All men are bound by the most solemn obligation to redeem their time; that is, to make the most profitable use of every day. But gaming is profitable for nothing; it is absolutely useless.

2. It is connected with many entanglements. The truth of this position may be illustrated by the relation of a single historical fact: I allude to the case of Samson and the Philistines. A wager was laid by Samson with thirty Philistines relating to his riddle. Seven days were allowed them in which to solve it. The forfeiture was thirty sheets and thirty changes of garments. After three days fruitless inquiry, the pride of these thirty companions was greatly mortified, and their covetousness excited to a most fearful degree. Not being able to endure the thought of losing their wager, they were filled with indignation, and threatened to burn his wife, together with her father's house, if she did not get the secret from her husband, and reveal it to them. She, partly through fear, and partly from a partiality for them, labored inces

santly to gain from her husband the solution of his riddle. With this view she wept before him the remaining days of the feast, pretending that his reserve was a proof of his want of affection for her; and at last, having quite wearied him with her importunity, she obtained from him the secret, and then revealed it to them, and enabled them to gain the wager. He might justly have disputed the point with them, because they did not find out the riddle themselves, but obtained the knowledge of it by treachery. But, though he told them, If ye had not ploughed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle, yet he determined to pay the wager. But what a terrible resolution did he adopt! He determined to kill thirty men of the Philistines, and with their garments to pay the wager that he had lost. It is said, indeed, that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he went down to Askalon and slew them; nor can we presume to question, for a moment, the justice of God in inflicting such judgments on the enemies of his people; he may cut them off by whom he will, and when he pleases. But viewing the action by itself, we see in it altogether a most dreadful exhibition of the effects of gaming: in his friends, pride, covetousness, wrath, cruelty, and a confederacy to gain by fraud what they could not obtain any other way; in his wife, hypocrisy, deceit, and treachery; in Samson, revenge, robbery, and murder. Perhaps, in the annals of the whole world, we shall not find a more striking display of the manner in which debts of honor, as they are called, are contracted, acknowledged, and discharged. They are contracted at friendly and convivial meetings; they are acknowledged as of greater obligation than all the common duties of justice and charity; and the peace of whole families, that were wholly unconnected with the transactions, is invaded; yea, many are reduced to poverty, to prison, and to death, in order to discharge the debts contracted by the cast of a die, or by the turning up of a card. And, on the other hand, the winner in the game, having obtained the property of his companion, discards all thoughts of his domestic troubles, and rejoices over the spoils he has gotten. Thus the gambler, having lost his property, and having been abandoned by his friends, seeks shelter from his troubles by the commission of suicide. Indeed, of all the sources of suicide, this is by far the most fruitful. As to the endearments of friendship, or the sweets of conjugal affection, gaming almost invariably produces the same result as in Samson's case, who left the place in disgust, deserted his treacherous wife, and had the mortification to find her afterwards in the embraces of one who had just before professed himself his greatest friend. If there is a gambler present on this occasion, I hope he will duly consider this piece of history, and reflect upon the evil and hazard that attend his course, and endeavor, from this time, to refrain from it.

3. It is infatuating; a man never comes to a period in its prosecution. Gaming is a most bewitching vice. When the passion

for gaming is once excited, it is seldom allayed; it most generally increases in strength and ardor, till every valuable consideration is made a sacrifice to it. "The Germans," says Tacitus, "addict themselves to dice when sober, and as a serious employment; with such a mad desire of winning or losing, that when stripped of every thing else, they will stake at last their liberty, and their very selves. The loser goes into a voluntary slavery; and, though younger and stronger than his antagonist, suffers himself to be bound and sold. And this perseverance in so bad a cause, they call a point of honor." And what Tacitus here says respecting the ancient Germans, is true, in general, respecting all gamblers. When men are thus intoxicated with so frantic a spirit, laws have been found of little avail to check them; because the same false sense of honor that prompts a man to sacrifice himself, will deter him from appealing to the magistrate. Hence the duellist and the gambler resemble each other: the one resolves to kill or be killed; and the other to ruin or be ruined. Thus, when this passion is once fairly lit up in the breast of a man, it bears him onward like a resistless torrent; and neither the laws of his country, nor the cries of a distracted wife and helpless children, nor his own personal safety, will arrest him in his progress.

4. Finally, gaming is an amusement wholly unworthy of rational beings, having neither the pretence of exercising the body, of exerting ingenuity, or of giving any natural pleasure, and owing its entertainment wholly to an unnatural and vitiated taste;-the cause of infinite loss of time, of enormous destruction of money, of irritating the passions, of stirring up avarice, of innumerable sneaking tricks and frauds, of encouraging idleness, of disgusting people against their proper employments, and of sinking and debasing all that is truly great and valuable in the mind.

Let me, then, my young friends, warn you against this vice! Let me entreat you never to enter this dreadful road! Shun it as you would the road to destruction. Never take the first step; if you do, all may be lost. Do not say that you can command your-. , selves, and can stop when you approach the confines of danger. So thousands have thought as sincerely as yourselves-and yet they fell. The probabilities that we shall fall where so many have fallen, are millions to one; and the contrary opinion is only the dream of lunacy, the imagination of a mind carried captive by a spirit of frenzy.

When you are inclined to think yourselves safe, consider the multitudes who once felt themselves equally so, but who have been corrupted, debased, distressed, and ruined by gaming, both for this world, and that which is to come. Think how many families have been plunged by it into beggary, and overwhelmed by it in vice. Think how many persons have become by it liars at gaming-tables; how many perjured; how many drunkards; how many blasphemers; how many swindlers; how many robbers; how many sui