Permit me to enumerate a few of the more important habits, which the young should seek to cultivate.

First of all—­the most important of all—­and that, indeed, which underlies and gives coloring to all others—­is the habit of TEMPERANCE.  Surely it is needless for me, at this day, to dwell upon the evils of intemperance.  It cannot be necessary to paint the bitter consequences—­the destruction to property, health, reputation—­the overthrow of the peace of families, the want and misery, to which its victims are frequently reduced.  The disgrace, the wretchedness, the ruin, the useless and ignominious life, and the horrid death, which are so often caused by habits of intemperance, are seen, and known to all.  No one attempts, no one thinks of denying them.  The most interested dealer, or retailer in intoxicating drinks—­the most confirmed inebriate—­will acknowledge without hesitation, that intemperance is the direst evil that ever cursed a fallen race!!  The deleterious consequences of other vices may sometimes be concealed for a season, from outward observation.  Not so with intemperance.  It writes its loathsome name, in legible characters, upon the very brow of its wretched victim. "I am a drunkard!" is as plainly to be read as though a printed label was posted there!

Need I warn—­need I exhort—­the young to avoid the habit of intemperance.  Perhaps there is not a youth present, who is not ready to say, “To me this exhortation is needless.  I have not the slightest expectation of becoming a drunkard!” Of course not.  There never was a man who desired, or expected, to become a victim to intemperance.  The great danger of this habit is, that it creeps stealthily and imperceptibly upon the unwary.  It does its work gradually.  The most besotted inebriate cannot tell you the day, nor the month, when he became a confirmed drunkard.  It is in the nature of this habit, that those who expose themselves at all to its assaults, become its victims, while they are entirely unaware of it.

The only safeguard and security, against this scourge of man, is total abstinence from all intoxicating drinks!!  Here is the true, the safe ground for the young.  There is no other condition of entire security.  No man who drinks, however sparingly, has assurance of a sober life.  He needlessly, and foolishly, places himself in danger—­turns his footsteps into the only path that can possibly lead to the drunkard’s ruin and the drunkard’s grave!

Drink the first drop that can intoxicate, and your feet stand at the very brink of the ocean of intemperance.  Its briny waters are composed of human tears.  Its winds, the sighs of those made poor and wretched by the inebriation of husbands, fathers, sons.  Its billows, ever tossing, are overhung with black and lowering clouds, and illuminated only by the lightning’s vivid flash, while hoarse thunders reverberate over the wide and desolate waste.  Engulphed in this dreary ocean, the wretched drunkard