EPISTLES TO STUDENTS. * 233 



membraiice, that whatever disinclination may be obtruded by the flesh, 

 it will be sufficiently counteracted by the spirit, and you shall not be 

 deprived of the benefit of communications, which would derive no ad- 

 ditional force from an avowed authorship, the authorship of which you 

 will not be likely to determine. 



You were left, in the last epistle, in full membership in llie institu- 

 tion, having passed through an honorable probation, with the College 

 oath bound on your conscience, your truth and honor pledged to respect 

 your calling, and an exposition of your duties, as presented in the ma- 

 triculation vow, in your hands. Tliis commentary on the fundamental 

 law of your College, the earliest which has yet appeared, or at any rate, 

 been reduced to writing, may serve to guide you in future decisions, in 

 regard to points of duty, on which you may have doubt, and it may 

 be profitably preserved for reference and kept as a vade mecum during 

 your sojourn in academic bowers. Occupying this "stand-point," as the 

 Germans are wont to say, you should determine that the brief but most 

 important period of your life now before you shall be faithfully con- 

 secrated to the purposes of your own advancement in knowledge and 

 virtue. 



Time is a talent entrusted to us by our Maker, of inestimable value, 

 and you are bound, as all men are, by your interests, by your conscience, 

 and by your God, to employ it well and to use it sparingly, and "to pay 

 no moment, but in purchase of its worth." Many young men, and many 

 old men, have regretted and bitterly regretted the loss of time. No 

 proof has ever yet appeared, in the annals of the world, that any one's 

 life has been rendered sorrowful by the recollection of well,spent hours. 

 To enable you to make your time subservient to your good, you should 

 fix in your minds a deep conviction of its value, and that it flies irrevo- 

 cably. As nothing is more consumptive of time than company, and 

 that company is unprofitable from which we can learn nothing, be upon 

 your guard against forming a fondness for society, which whilst it swal- 

 lows up your precious hours, furnishes no equivalent for them. It is 

 an exceedingly unwise plan for any young man, during his College 

 course, to lay himself out for special attention to young Ladies. It is 

 unprofitable to him, it is so to them. The implication in this is not that 

 he is to hold no intercourse with womankind — far from it — but that is not 

 to be a stated employment, his periodical business from week to week. 

 An hour spent, occasionally, during the suspension of study, which the 

 College laws allow, ought to be regarded as a quantum sufficit. If on 

 special occasions two or three times in a College course more should be 

 allowed, all reasonable expectations should be considered gratified. 

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