of hurrying, well-dressed people impress him forcibly as compared
with his own clumsy gait, and roughly clad figure. The noise
confuses him. The bustle of commerce amazes him; and for the time he
is as desolate in feeling as if he were in the centre of a desert,
instead of in the throbbing heart of a great city.

No matter how blessed with physical and mental strength the young man
may be, under these circumstances he is very apt, for the time at
least, to underestimate his own strength. He is powerfully impressed
by what he deems the smartness or the superior manners of those whom
he meets in his boarding house, or with whom he is associated in his
business, say in a great mercantile establishment. It requires a
great deal of moral courage for him to bear in a manly way the
ridicule, covert or open, of the companions who regard him as a
"hay-seed" or a "greenhorn." His Sunday clothes, which he wore with
pride when he attended meeting with his mother, he is apt to regard
with a feeling of mortification; and, perhaps, he secretly
determines to dress as well as do his companions when he has saved
enough money.

This is a crucial period in the life of every young man who is
entering on a business career, and particularly so to him coming
from the rural regions. He finds, perhaps, that his associates smoke
or drink, or both; things which he has hitherto regarded with
horror. He finds, too, they are in the habit of resorting to places
of amusement, the splendor and mysteries of which arouse his
curiosity, if not envy, as he hears them discussed.

Before leaving home, and while his mother's arms were still about
him, he promised her to be moral and industrious, to write
regularly, and to do nothing which she would not approve. If he had
the right stuff in him, he would adhere manfully to the resolution
made at the beginning; but, if he be weak or is tempted by false
pride, or a prurient curiosity to "see the town," he is tottering on
the edge of a precipice and his failure, if not sudden, is sure to
come in time.

Cities are represented to be centres of vice, and it cannot be denied
that the temptations in such places are much greater than on a farm
or in a quiet country village, but at the same time, cities are
centres of wealth and cultivation, places where philanthropy is
alive and where organized effort has provided places of instruction
and amusement for all young men, but particularly for that large
class of you