He therefore who is on healthy ground will be safe. Suffer your children then on no occasions to become the companions of loose, immoral persons. Of them your children will learn to lie, of course; and that, however faithful may be your instructions, and however unspotted your example. Remember yourselves, and teach them, that the companion of fools shall be destroyed.

3. If your children are at any time guilty of deceit, endeavour by the best means in your power to prevent every future transgression of the same nature.

Rehearse to them solemnly and kindly all the interesting considerations which I have mentioned, and every other useful thought which your own minds may suggest. Present to them particularly clear, affecting views of their guilt and their danger; and forcibly exhibit to them the ruinous efficacy of falsehood on every interest of time and eternity. If the transgression demands a punishment, never administer it in a passion. Delay the administration, not only until you are free from every resentful emotion, but until you are secure of preserving your equanimity in spite of any incidental provocation, and are absolutely collected and self-controlled. In this state of mind, accompany the discipline with solemn instructions, calm reproofs, and affectionate testimonies of the mingled pain and pity with which you regard the guilty transaction.

If one punishment, if, (for example) correction, fails of producing a reformation, vary your inflictions successively through the several modes of discipline, until you have gained the object. Shame or confinement will often accomplish what correction cannot. If these prove ineffectual, the denial of favourite indulgences, and the deprivation of customary privileges, will often produce reformation. A string may almost always be struck, which will accord with the state of the heart; an effort made which will ensure a victory.

In the mean time, if your child is charged with some other fault, and frankly tells the truth concerning it, remit either the whole or a part of the punishment due to his crime, discretionarily, as a proof of the high value which you place upon his veracity.

4. Commend them to the constant care and blessing of God.

Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh in

vain. As God alone can preserve them, so, if you ask him in earnest, you have every reason to hope that he will.

I shall now address the subject to all such persons as have arrived at that period of life in which they are capable of taking some useful care of themselves. To such persons the following directions may be means of guarding against this fatal evil :

1. Watch faithfully over your speech.

Consider before you speak, whether what you are about to say is true, right, kind, and useful; or false, unkind, and mischievous; and determine to utter nothing, until you are satisfied. Steadily resist a propensity to talk much, remembering that in a multitude of words there wanteth not sin:' and never speak at all, unless some good purpose be answered; unless some useful information be given; some innocent pleasure communicated; or some other lawful end accomplished.

Resist a disposition to give characters; to recite family news; to expose private failings; and to ridicule personal imperfections. Ask yourselves whether you would be willing that your own failings should be published, repeated, and ridiculed. Remember, that others thus attacked will feel as you would feel; and that, as you would resent such a base intrusion upon your peace, so they, when in the same manner wounded by you, will become your enemies; and will sooner or later find an opportunity of making you feel their resentRemember further, that even those who hear and applaud what you say, may yet, and often do, despise you for saying it; that they will ever afterwards regard you with suspicion, shun you as dangerous to their safety, and characterize you as nuisances to society. In this manner, before you are aware, your characters will become odious, and your reputation be lost.

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When you repeat any thing, strive to repeat it exactly. Neither enhance nor lessen. Colour nothing beyond the strict truth. Recite that, and that only, which you believe; and express no more confidence in what recite than you really feel. Recite also so much of the circumstances, drift, and tendency of the transaction which is your subject, as fairly to explain its true nature, and the real character and conduct of those who were concerned.

Refrain from speaking when you are in a passion. All passionate words are dangerous and sinful. The wisest and most guarded persons, when provoked, utter at times things which they regret ever afterwards. Moses, the meekest of all men, when provoked at Meribah, 'spake unadvisedly with his lips; and was forbidden to enter the land of promise.

Guard especially against making promises in a passion. Such promises will often involve you in serious difficulties ; and prove snares and traps to your feet. You will feel a strong reluctance to fulfil, and powerful temptations to break, them; temptations, which frequently overcome vigorous resolutions, subvert established reputation, and lead their miserable victims fatally astray.

Many persons, and youths more than almost any others, are prone to make rash and inconsiderate promises. Few propensities are more unhappy than this, or conduct men to more bitter consequences. Universally resolve to make no promise when it can fairly be avoided. When it cannot, guard it with such conditions as shall render it certainly safe. Consider, particularly, whether you possess the means of a faithful performance; if not, make no promises. In this manner you will escape the most dangerous temptations to falsehood, and the most alarming exposures to shame and ruin.

2. Fix in your minds the most solemn resolutions to speak truth only.

Call to mind daily the immense advantages of truth, and the immense evils of falsehood. These advantages resolve to acquire; these evils determine not to suffer. Both, to a considerable extent, have been set before you. Ponder them deeply and daily, as their importance deserves. Determine, that no person shall ever have it in his power to charge you with falsehood. Determine never to say any thing which shall enable your enemies to triumph, or force your friends to blush; to say nothing, which you would be ashamed to have recorded of you; nothing, which shall forbid you to look an honest man in the face; nothing, which in the presence of such a man shall force your eyes when they meet his to labour, linger, and fall.

Resolve firmly never to flatter any man. Speak that which is good of others when you can; and when you cannot, speak, at least in ordinary cases, nothing. Remember, that ' a flat

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tering mouth worketh ruin,' for him who flatters, as well as for him who is flattered. Be able therefore with Elihu nobly to say, Let me not, I pray you, accept any man's person; neither let me give flattering titles unto man. For I know not to give flattering titles; in so doing my Maker would soon take me away.' To strengthen your resolutions, remember alway, that when you are once embarked in deceit, you are wholly afloat; will be driven you know not whither, without either compass or pilot; and will be environed by rocks and shoals, threatening you unceasingly with irremediable destruction.

3. Frequent the company of wise and good men only.

In this society you will find temptations, not spread before you, but taken away; examples, which will not corrupt, but strengthen you in virtue. Here you will always find honour, peace, and profit; instead of shame, anxiety, and ruin. If you will seek this society, and this only, you will be welcomed to their esteem and good offices: and will gain from their precepts and example, wisdom, truth, noble sentiments, and the most excellent conduct. These they will enforce by ten thousand motives, unthought of by licentious men, instinctively rising up to view, presented in strong lights, and exhibited with powerful persuasion. The excellency, usefulness, and glory of virtue they will unfold to you in many ways, of which loose men never entertain a thought, and of which you yourselves have probably not formed a conception. This divine object also they will commend to your adoption by the charms of an amiable, honourable, and delightful example. Their sentiments you will imbibe, even before you are aware. Their exalted spirit you will catch. Their dignified life you will make your own.

Here you will soon learn to wonder, to be astonished, that yourselves, that any being who possesses a rational mind, could ever frequent, or ever think for a moment of frequenting, the haunts of licentious men; the scenes of profaneness, gaming, fraud, and falsehood; where darkness spreads her funeral pall; where oaths and obscenity, lies and blasphemies, furnish a dreadful prelude to a more enormous perpetration of the same foul sins in the world of perdition. To exchange the society which I have recommended for these haunts, would in your own view, be to quit the splendours of a palace for the loath

some horrors of a jail; to wander from the sweets of Eden into the gloom, the chains, and the madness of a dungeon.

4. To strengthen yourselves in all the conduct which I have recommended, labour to fix in your minds a strong, solemn, and habitual sense of the amazing importance of speaking truth alway.

Truth is the foundation of all virtue, and of all permanent happiness. Establish this great doctrine in your minds so, that it shall never be forgotten; so, that it shall be a part of your whole train of thinking, and inwoven, as an habitual commanding principle, in all your conduct. Bring it home to your hearts; and spurn at the thought of regarding it even with a momentary indifference.

Remember, that confidence is the foundation of all good; that unless you can confide in others, you cannot live a single day with comfort, or even with safety; that you can confide no farther than others speak truth, and fulfil promises; and that universal distrust would to yourselves and others be universal misery; would unhinge every expectation, and every hope; would annihilate all the business of intelligent beings; would set them at variance with each other, and with God; and would make the universe a solitude and a desert.

Remember, that every human concern is decided by testimony; that he who weakens it is an enemy to mankind, and makes havoc of human happiness. Realize, that if by influence or example you destroy or diminish the confidence of men, if you lessen the sense of the obligations to veracity, you will become pests of the universe, and foes of every intelligent being which it contains.

Call to mind, that by falsehood you will aebase yourselves beyond measure; cut off all your hopes of becoming virtuous; arm your consciences against your peace; and make yourselves objects of contempt, indignation, and abhorrence.

Recollect daily, that the first step which you take in falsehood is the commencement of this boundless evil; that the way to become an abandoned liar is to conceal truth, to equivocate, to evade, to utter sportive falsehood, to rehearse marvellous stories, to recite the tales of private history, and to colour what you recite with hues and stains mixed by yourselves. In all these things you may feel at your ease; may profess yourselves to be, and may often actually be, in sport.