them of all power to impart happiness.  Wealth secured by extortion, fraud, or any practice or business of a corrupting nature, injurious to the morals, and destructive to the well-being of community, will be of no more value to him who thus obtains it, as far as his happiness is concerned, than so much dust.  It is the consciousness of having obtained riches in honest and useful pursuits, that gives zest and relish to the enjoyments they procure.  Without this consciousness, the man of wealth has less of pure peace and happiness than the poorest honest man in the wide world.  In the very nature of things, as a wise and holy God has constituted us, this must inevitably be so.  All past history and experience furnish indubitable proof of the correctness of this position.  If I can impress this single truth on the hearts and memories of the youthful, I shall do them a service of a value beyond all human computation.

These considerations, I trust, will tend to convince the young of the vital importance of obtaining now, at the commencement of their career, the direction and influence of well-grounded and enlightened religious views and principles.  I would have them become neither fanatics nor bigots; but would urge them to place themselves under the pure and divine light of the gospel of Christ, that they may be exalted to the highest and noblest principles of human action, and to the summit of human enjoyment.

To what sources should the young apply for correct religious doctrines and principles?  While they should give due heed to the instruction and advice of the learned, the wise and good, within whose influence they may be thrown, yet they should not depend wholly upon these sources for the attainment of truth.  The wisest and best among religious teachers, differ materially on fundamental points.  To rely solely on the convictions of others, however exalted their talents or sincere their opinions, would be injustice to yourselves, and to the truth you would obtain.  Let no man think for you.  He who would persuade you to allow him to do so—­who would have you distrust the convictions of your own reason, throw aside the decisions of your judgment, and allow him to judge and decide for you, in religious matters, does in fact assume to be your master, and would reduce you to a poor and pitiable spiritual bondage.

Let not the young overlook the fact, that they have been endowed by their Creator with the faculties of reason, judgment, and discrimination.  These must necessarily be exercised in forming enlightened religious opinions.  Those who fail to do this, fall an easy prey to every error that will but commend itself by something novel and startling.  Christianity is pre-eminently, a reasonable system of doctrines.  There is no topic claiming the attention of man, in the investigation of which it is so important to exercise with all deliberation, the highest capacities of reason and reflection, as religion.  From the great multiplicity