165 



vice is establised on foundations of adamant. Old age comes 

 at last, and habit reigns paramount. The knowledge al- 

 ready acquired is considered the ne plus ultr^ of human at- 

 tainments ; and innovations in philosophy, religion, or po- 

 litics, are regarded with horror. Before this period of life. 

 Vice has most commonly cut off her votaries. The hoary 

 profligate is an object as rare as disgusting. But even the 

 young and the gay, the thoughtless and giddy, the dissipated 

 and the vicious, unite to pay homage to the burden of years 

 tcdorned by virtue, and enjoying or prepared to enjoy the re- 

 wards of the virtuous. 



On a view of the whole of our subject, we well may con- 

 clude that it should be the constant solicitude and ardent 

 ambition of rational beings to improve the love of novelty 

 into a desire after knowledge and truth* and the in- 

 fluence of HABIT into the practice of virtue and 



PIETY. 



