1/93] REV. WILLIAM SMITH, D. D. 389 



Creator, ordained to bear his head on high, and to liold sacred inter- 

 course with the Father of all — is not to stifle the sigh for happiness im- 

 planted in his bosom, nor bury the vital principle of action, in the in- 

 ordinate pursuit of animal gratifications, which serve for little else but 

 to enervate the soul and depress its native aspirations after the divine 

 life. It is not to drink the deadly draught of poison, although served 

 up to us in a golden cup. It is not to dance the giddy round of noisy 

 revel, thoughtless whence we came, or whither we are going ! It is not 

 to riot in broad day, in practices which our sober fathers would have 

 blushed to witness in secret. It is not to pursue phantom after phan- 

 tom, like airy bubbles, bursting in the grasp. Nor is it to torture inven- 

 tion after invention, in contriving expedients to keep animal joy alive, 

 till the palled sense recoils, and refuses the hated load ! No, says the 

 wise Solomon, who spoke from experience, and had sought pleasure and 

 happiness through every avenue of life — no, says he — "Thou mayest re- 

 joice, O young man, and thy heart may cheer thee in the days of thy 

 youth, whilst thou walkest in the ways of thy heart; but for all these 

 things, know that God will bring thee into judgment" * — yea, certainly 

 judgment in another world, and probably judgment in this — for if we 

 take a step among the sons and daughters of worldly pleasure, though 

 all seems so gay and joyous without, yet how different if we could look 

 within ! What distraction, weakness and dissipation of thought? What 

 fretfulness, jealousies and heart-burnings of disappointed pride, dim- 

 ming the fair eye of fairest beauty? What incumbrances of fortune, 

 what embarrassments of business, what shame, remorse and painful re- 

 flections for neglected duties and deserted families; only to be avoided 

 by suppressing or drowning the voice of reason, conscience and religion 

 by a speedy return to the round of giddy revel, till at last health and 

 fame and the fair paternal inheritance are shipwrecked at their feet. I 

 tremble to speak the rest. What can we behold, then, but wretchedness 

 complete? "Ancestors disgraced, posterity ruined; behind, nothing 

 but guilt and shame, and before, nothing but inextricable misery! ..." 



The true pleasures, the sacred, substantial never-fading bliss of all who 

 are born into this world — high and low, old and young, is to exert the 

 first efforts of their reason, guided by religion and revelation, to con- 

 sider for what end they were sent into it, and to discharge their part in 

 this life faithfully, seeking to prepare, and not afraid to take their de- 

 parture for a better, always bearing in mind that the short and transient 

 now bears on its fleeting wing an eternity of bliss or woe. 



Let no age or condition of life thrust these serious truths from the 

 heart. Trust not to your youth or strength, ye whom I now more im- 

 mediately address. Look but a few months back, and consider how 



*Eccl. xi. 9. 



