140 EFISTLES TO STUDENTS. 



who have appeared to lose in moral purity, have in a great majority of 

 instances, doubtless, been deficient in moral principle before they came. 

 Young men, spoiled elsewhere, have acted out their principles and in- 

 curred disgrace, but they imbibed the poison before they entered the 

 walls of that institution, which is too often unjustly charged with their 

 offences. 



Upon you it will depend to determine whether your career shall be 

 honorable or dishonorable, whether you will finish your studies and 

 reap the reward of fidelity in the coronation and blessings of your mother, 

 or terminate it suddenly, midway, and disappear amongst the hisses of 

 the friends of virtue, whose principles you have desecrated, and the 

 mournings of your parent for her degenerate offspring. 



There is nothing within your reach — save an interest in the right- 

 eousness of the Son of God — more desirable than a youth unstained with 

 crime. In every future period of life, it will contribute greatly to your 

 happiness to be able to look back on the days of peculiar temptation and 

 to feel that, though not adorned with the graces of Christianity, you were 

 kept from the gross forms of transgression. It does not take long to 

 perform deeds which can never be obliterated. They may be unknown 

 to any human being, or but to few, who equally implicated, will have 

 the strongest motive to conceal, so that there can be no danger of di- 

 vulgement j they may be washed away in that blood which cleanses from 

 all sin, and the hope may be entertained on the best ground that the 

 vcni'-eance of God will not sniite on account of them, but notwithsand- 

 ino- all this, they will hang around the memory with chilling power, 

 and with sad periodical visitation harrow up with bitter anguish the 

 spirit. When the mind becomes fully prepared to measure moral de- 

 linquency, to test actions by the light of the divine law, it is then that 

 it sees and feels them in all their intensity. 



It is not the estimate which we may now make, it is not that which 

 is made by those whose moral sense has lost its power, but that which 

 is made by an enlightened conscience, which should be regarded as cor- 

 rect. It is, we are persuaded, the iniquities of the young which will 

 cause them to become their own tormentoi-s, and what others may have 

 pardoned, they will not be able to forgive. Great then should be your 

 solicitude to pursue such a course as will not destroy self-respect, as will 

 awaken no remorse in the future, as will call for no restitution in order 

 to case the pangs of a guilty conscience, as will subject to no dis- 

 grace, if it should become known. How important this is, is understood 

 by some, and has been deeply felt by those who have preceded you. 

 Could thcv tell you how God set their sin before them and troubled 



