Mo 



that provident apprehension of insurmountable danger, which 

 by rendering us circumspect, and prudent is necessary to the 

 prest'i vation of our frail existence, and even to the success- 

 ful exertions of heroic courage, may degenerate into pusil- 

 lanimous cowardice and contemptible dastardy, and all the 

 despicable crimes that follow in their train,— duplicity, false- 

 hood, meanness and treachery. 



These are the vices of infancy, and they may debase 

 and torture every successive stage of life. Those of youth are 

 intemperance and incontinency. Forced away by the extra- 

 vagance of his passions, strengthened perhaps by an un^ 

 meaning ambition ^ the self-immolated victim sacrifices his 

 health, his prosperity, his virtue^ and his happiness — at the 

 board, or in the bed — of debauchery. He forgets the charm 

 of the temperate and chearful meal, — and he has never 

 known the refined and exquisite intercourse of virtue and 

 love — that' fond hope, the first to be formed and the last re- 

 signed, by the warm imagination, pure heart, and culti^ 

 vated intellect. Habit rivets his fetters, — he grows old in a 

 taverrr or a brothel — the inroads of vice are traced withia 

 and without — he possesses the features and the feelings of a 

 satyr — and having devoted his life to the vain pursuit of hap- 

 piness, he remains to the last unacquainted with its nature 

 and incapacitated for its enjoyment. 



But there is something more to be observed than the mere 

 restraint of our passions. This probationary life abounds 

 with temptations, and we ought not to create them for ourr- 



VOL. XII. u 



