JO I rdroduction 



to accomplish good things for all men ; that unceasing 

 effort to benefit all mankind, the memory of which 

 will live after them. 



We may then turn popular attention with much 

 benefit from the military and political idols that now 

 fill its eye, to the contemplation of man as he ought to 

 be, — to the nobleness of virtue which sanctifies 

 knowledge. Oh! it is a holy duty, while selfishness 

 and impiety go hand in hand through the world 

 seeming to constitute the only essential qualifications 

 to respectability, the only passports to renown, to 

 place before it the character of one who laboured for 

 the good of all, and earnestly before God and for 

 God ; one in whom there was no selfishness nor guile 

 Thus youth may be able to contrast the character 

 of the worldling with that of the man of God. 



The first endeavours, by his example, to prove 

 that man may live independently of his Creator; 

 the latter, while he proves our absolute dependence 

 on Him who called us into being, teaches the infant 

 heart the secret by which the fountains of God's 

 goodness may be opened. The first teaches youth 

 to scoff; the latter, to pray, under the sublime 

 conviction that the prayer offered up by the child 

 at its mother's knee, is the same prayer that is 

 uttered by the myriads of the angels around the 

 throne of the Eternal: — the same prayer taught 

 here below that it will repeat when, having "shaken 

 off this mortal coil," it will return to the household 

 of its Father who is in Heaven. 



