“True wisdom, early sought and gained,
      In age will give thee rest;
      then improve the morn of life,
      To make its evening blest.”

The youthful live much in the future.  They are fond of gazing into its unknown depths, and of endeavoring to trace the outline, at least, of the fortunes that await them.  With ardent hope, with eager expectation, they anticipate the approach of coming years—­confident they will bring to them naught but unalloyed felicity.  But they should allow their anticipations of the future to be controlled by a well-balanced judgment, and moderated by the experience of those who have gone before them.

In looking to the future, there is one important inquiry which the young should put to their own hearts:—­What do I most desire to become in mature life?  What position am I anxious to occupy in society?  What is the estimation in which I wish to be held by those within the circle of my acquaintance?

The answer to these inquiries, from the great mass of young people, can well be anticipated.  There are none among them who desire to be disrespected and shunned by the wise and good—­who are anxious to be covered with disgrace and infamy—­who seek to be outcasts and vagabonds in the world.  The thought that they were doomed to such a condition, would fill them with alarm.  Every discreet youth will exclaim—­“Nothing would gratify me more than to be honored and respected, as I advance in years; to move in good society; to have people seek my company, rather than shun it; to be looked up to as an example for others to imitate, and to enjoy the confidence of all around me.”

Is not his the desire of the young of this large audience?  Surely there can be none here so blind to the future, so lost to their own good, as to prefer a life of infamy and its ever-accompanying wretchedness, to respectability, prosperity, and true enjoyment?  But how are these to be obtained?  Respectability, prosperity, the good opinion of community, do not come simply at our bidding.  We cannot reach forth our hands and take them, as we pluck the ripe fruit from the bending branch.  Neither will wishing or hoping for them shower their blessings upon us.  If we would obtain and enjoy them, we must labor for them—­earn them.  They are only secured as the well-merited reward of a pure and useful life!

The first thing to be aimed at by the young, should be the establishment of a good character:  In all their plans, anticipations, and prospects for future years, this should form the grand starting-point!—­the chief corner-stone!  It should be the foundation of every hope and thought of prosperity and happiness in days to come.  It is the only basis on which such a hope can mature to full fruition.  A good character, established in the season of youth, becomes a rich and productive moral soil to its possessor.  Planted therein, the “Tree of Life” will