52 THE MANSE GARDEN. 



them never suffers to be broken with impunity. It 

 is no matter on what pretence or from what cause 

 the violation is made ; ill health, disease, or death, 

 will be the consequence. Piety seeks seclusion, and 

 thinks it does well; but the mind becomes vapid, 

 the frame nervous, the imagination gloomy, and the 

 loved seclusion is soon completed in the grave. Igno- 

 rance fares no better : in the merry dance, a draught 

 of cold water is surely a harmless luxury, being the 

 ready cure of burning heat ; but the cure is followed 

 by inflammation and sudden death. The most help- 

 less innocence fares no better : the lovely child, in his 

 playful way, drinks the wrong vial, and quickly dies. 



Why is this life, the dawn of an immortal existence, 

 the all that we have in this world, and chiefly given 

 as a preparation for eternity, so badly guarded from 

 a thousand causes of destruction, by the non-obser- 

 vance of those laws which are ordained for its advan- 

 tage, but of which the violation is fatal ? Why does 

 the knowledge of those laws not form a part in the 

 elementary process of every school and seminary of 

 learning? why should not ministers contribute to a 

 boon so essential to the designs of their calling, and 

 the welfare of all men ? and why should they, in all 

 other respects so learned, disregard this branch of 

 knowledge, the most momentous of all, because that 

 on which their life, their usefulness in time, and their 

 fitness for eternity, depend? 



Let the subject be viewed according to these tre- 

 mendous realities, and you will subscribe to tlie ne- 

 cessity of diversifying your pursuits of having for 

 bodily exercise such an object as may withdraw the 

 attention from graver studies, and hold you in suffi- 



