of reason diverted. Vice gains its power by insinuation. It winds gently round the soul without being felt, till its twines become so numerous that the sinner, like the wretched Laocoon, writhes in vain to extricate himself, and his faculties are crushed, at length, in the folds of the serpent.

If the first entrance of vice is so easy, every successive act, which is to form the habit, is easier than the last. The taste of pleasure provokes the appetite. If conscience receive no aid, when the temptation returns the victory will be easier, and the triumph more complete. If no evil consequences immediately follow, if the sentence of reproach, of infamy, or of natural punishment be not speedily executed, conscience, thus unsupported, is not heard or not credited. If, however, reproach should follow, or infamy be apprehended, the culprit may either be driven to the society of the shameless, or attempt some new vice, to conceal, or varnish, or vindicate the former.

This leads me to observe, further, that no evil habit can long exist alone. Vice is prolific. It is no solitary invader. Admit one of its train, and it immediately introduces, with an irresistible air of insinuation, the multitude of its fellows, who promise you liberty, but whose service is corruption, and whose wages is death. "Enter not," then, "into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away."

PARENTAL EXAMPLE.

Before I conclude, however, I cannot but make one remark, of great practical importance, that, though a child may be secured from the contagion of innumerable examples of depravity in others, one unequivocal violation of rectitude, discovered in the parent, may paralyze the influence of all past and all future instruction. What, then, is not to be apprehended from an habitual transgression of the laws of virtue! You cannot, you will not, put lessons into your children's hands, every line of which condemns you; you will not hear them read from books whose pure pages make you blush; you will not teach them prayers, who never heard you pray; nor send them regularly to the weekly services of the sanctuary, to see your seats empty, and hear your irreligious habits condemned. This, I acknowledge, would be too much to expect of you. Walk, then, within your houses, with a perfect heart. Then may you teach diligently to your children the holy truths and precepts of your

religion. You will neither be unwilling to talk of them, "when thou sittest in thine house, when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, nor when thou risest up;" "that the generation to come may know them, even the children which shall be born, who shall arise and declare them to their children," and their children to another generation.

TEMPTATIONS OF THE YOUNG.

It is true that every age and employment has its snares, but the feet of the young are most easily entrapped. Issuing forth, as you do, in the morning of life, into the wide field of existence, where the flowers are all open, it is no wonder that you pluck some that are poisonous. Tasting every golden fruit that hangs over the garden of life, it is no wonder that you should find some of the most tempting, hollow and mouldy. But the peculiar characteristic of your age, my young friends, is impetuosity and presumptuousness. You are without caution, because without experience. You are precipitate, because you have enjoyed so long the protection of others that you have yet to learn to protect yourselves. You grasp at every pleasure, because it is new, and every society charms with a freshness which you will be surprised to find gradually wearing away. Young as you are upon the stage, there seems to be little for you to know of yourselves; therefore you are contented to know little, and the world will not let you know more till it has disappointed you oftener.

Entering, then, into life, you will find every rank and occupation environed with its peculiar temptations; and, without some other and higher principle than that which influences a merely worldly man, you are not a moment secure. You are poor, and you think pleasure and fashion and ambition will disdain to spread their snares for so ignoble a prey. It is true, they may. But take care that dishonesty does not dazzle you with an exhibition of sudden gains. Take care that want does not disturb your imagination by temptations to fraud. Distress may drive you to indolence and despair, and these united may drown you in intemperance. Even robbery and murder have sometimes stalked in at the breach which poverty or calamity has left unguarded. You are rich, and you think that pride and a just sense of reputation will preserve you from the vices of the vulgar. It is true, they may; and you may be ruined in the progress of luxury, and lost to society, and, at

last, to God, while sleeping in the lap of the most flattering and enervating abundance.

The last resource against temptation is prayer. Escaping, then, from your tempter, fly to God. Cultivate the habit of devotion. It shall be a wall of fire around you, and your glory in the midst of you. To this practice the uncorrupted sentiments of the heart impel you, and invitations are as numerous as they are merciful to encourage you. When danger has threatened your life, you have called upon God. When disease has wasted your health, and you have felt the tomb opening under your feet, you have called upon God. When you have apprehended heavy misfortunes, or engaged in hazardous enterprises, you have, perhaps, resorted to God to ask his blessing. But what are all these dangers to the danger which your virtue may be called to encounter on your first entrance into life? In habitual prayer you will find a safeguard. You will find every good resolution fortified by it, and every seduction losing its power, when seen in the new light which a short communion with Heaven affords. In prayer you will find that a state of mind is generated which will shed a holy influence over the whole character; and those temptations to which you were just yielding will vanish, with all their allurements, when the day-star of devotion rises in your hearts.

ACTIVE AND INACTIVE LEARNING.

The history of letters does not, at this moment, suggest to me a more fortunate parallel between the effects of active and of inactive learning than in the well-known characters of Cicero and Atticus. Let me hold them up to your observation, not because Cicero was faultless, or Atticus always to blame, but because, like you, they were the citizens of a republic. They lived in an age of learning and of dangers, and acted upon opposite principles when Rome was to be saved, if saved at all, by the virtuous energy of her most accomplished minds. If we look now for Atticus, we find him in the quiet of his library, surrounded with books, while Cicero was passing through the regular course of public honors and services, where all the treasures of his mind were at the command of his country. If we follow them, we find Atticus pleasantly wandering among the ruins of Athens, purchasing up statues and antiques, while Cicero was at home, blasting the projects of Catiline, and, at the head of the senate, like the tutelary spirit of his country,

as the storm was gathering, secretly watching the doubtful movements of Cæsar. If we look to the period of the civil wars, we find Atticus always reputed, indeed, to belong to the party of the friends of liberty, yet originally dear to Sylla, and intimate with Clodius, recommending himself to Cæsar by his neutrality, courted by Antony, and connected with Octavius, poorly concealing the epicureanism of his principles under the ornaments of literature and the splendor of his benefactions; till at last this inoffensive and polished friend of successive usurpers hastens out of life to escape from the pains of a lingering disease. Turn now to Cicero, the only great man at whom Cæsar always trembled, the only great man whom falling Rome did not fear. Do you tell me that his hand once offered incense to the dictator? Remember, it was the gift of gratitude only, and not of servility; for the same hand launched its indignation against the infamous Antony, whose power was more to be dreaded, and whose revenge pursued him till this father of his country gave his head to the executioner without a struggle, for he knew that Rome was no longer to be saved. If, my friends, you would feel what learning, and genius, and virtue should aspire to in a day of peril and depravity, when you are tired of the factions of the city, the battles of Cæsar, the crimes of the triumvirate, and the splendid court of Augustus, do not go and repose in the easy chair of Atticus, but refresh your virtues and your spirits with the contemplation of Cicero.

UNPROFITABLENESS A CRIME.

It is everywhere the natural tendency of a life of retirement. and contemplation to generate the notion of innocence and moral security; but men of letters should remember that, in the eye of reason and of Christianity, simple unprofitableness is always a crime. They should know, too, that there are solitary diseases of the imagination not less fatal to the mind than the vices of society. He who pollutes his fancy with his books may, in fact, be more culpable than he who is seduced into the haunts of debauchery by the force of passion or example. He who by his sober studies only feeds his selfishness or his pride of knowledge may be more to blame than the pedant. or the coxcomb in literature, though not so ridiculous. That learning, whatever it may be, which lives and dies with the possessor, is more worthless than his wealth which descends to his posterity; and, where the heart remains uncultivated and

the affections sluggish, the mere man of curious erudition may stand, indeed, as an object of popular admiration, but he stands like the occasional palaces of ice in the regions of the north, the work of vanity, lighted up with artificial lustre, yet cold, useless, and uninhabited, and soon to pass away without leaving a trace of their existence. You, then, who feel yourselves sinking under the gentle pressure of sloth, or who seek in learned seclusion that moral security which is the reward only of virtuous resolution, remember you do not escape from temptations, much less from responsibility, by retiring to the repose and silence of your libraries.

JOEL BARLOW, 1755-1812.

JOEL BARLOW, the author of the "Columbiad," was born in Reading, Fairfield County, Connecticut, in 1755. He entered Dartmouth College in 1774, but soon left that institution, and entered Yale, where he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1778. He entered at once upon the study of law, but he soon exchanged that for theology, and received a license as chaplain to the army, in which he remained till the close of the war. While in this situation, he composed, with his friends, Rev. Timothy Dwight and Col. Humphreys, various patriotic songs and addresses, which exerted no little influence upon the minds of the soldiery. He commenced, also, at this time, "The Vision of Columbus," which afterwards formed the basis of his larger work, "The Columbiad."

After the peace in 1783, Mr. Barlow went back from the gospel to the law, for which he was much better suited, and settled in Hartford. To add to his income, he established a weekly gazette, called "The American Mercury," which gained for him considerable reputation by its able editorial management. About this time, he revised and published the Psalms and Hymns of Dr. Isaac Watts, and two years after, in 1787, gave to the world his first large poem, on which he had been laboring for many years, "The Vision of Columbus." To increase the sale of these, he gave up his newspaper and opened a book-store. But his books not doing as well as he expected, the next year he went to England as agent of a fraudulent land company, of the nature of which he was at first ignorant; but he relinquished his agency as soon