uch as they wish,
ought to pay great attention to the first steps they take on entrance
into life. They are usually careless and inattentive to this object.
They pursue their own plans with ardor, and neglect the opinions which
others entertain of them. By some thoughtless action or expression,
they suffer a mark to be impressed upon them, which no subsequent
merit can entirely erase. Every man will find some persons who, though
they are not professed enemies, yet view him with an eye of envy, and
who would gladly revive any tale to which truth has given the
slightest foundation.

Though a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and is
the surest road to wealth, yet there are thousands, who pay but little
attention to possess themselves of so valuable a treasure. They turn a
deaf ear to that hallowed voice, which pleads with them in behalf of
their dearest interest, and take the downward road to dissipation and
vice, and, by their wretched example, lead other thousands to the dark
abodes of sorrow, grief and pain. Enchanted by the siren voice of
false and fleeting pleasure, they hurry to the tremendous precipice,
where reputation and fortune lie in broken ruins. There they drag out
a wretched existence in disappointed hope, satiety and disgust. They
pay their devotions at the shrine of ignominy, where the dark and
stagnant waters of guilt and condemnation roll. There the sweet voice
of heaven-born peace was never heard, and the beauteous feet of
religion never trod. There dwells the family of pain--there is the
hell we are cautioned to avoid. This is not an illusion of fancy--it
is no reverie of the brain, but a reality too visible in the pathway
of human life.

Thousands, in this condition, are hurrying to a premature grave, and
go down to that dark abode covered with infamy, having robbed
themselves of all the substantial joys, that a virtuous conduct, and a
good unsullied name are calculated to awaken in the heart. Dissipation
darkens the brightest prospects of life. It rolls its floods of misery
indiscriminately over the dearest earthly hopes of companions,
children and friends, and paralyzes every pulse of joy that beats in
the human bosom. Many a child has been spurned from the presence of
its brutal father, and been beaten for asking bread to satisfy its
hunger. Intemperance stupefies man to the moral impressions of the
gospel, and hardens the heart with the touch of its benumbing powers.
It is the