re lessons
may be learnt from a sense of duty; but that freshness of power which in
young persons of ability would fasten eagerly upon some one portion or
other of the wide field of knowledge, and there expatiate, drinking in
health and strength to the mind, as surely as the natural exercise of
the body gives to it bodily vigor,--that is tired prematurely,
perverted, and corrupted; and all the knowledge which else it might so
covet, it now seems a wearying effort to retain.

Great and grievous as is the evil, it is peculiarly hard to find the
remedy for it. If the books to which I have been alluding were books of
downright wickedness, we might destroy them wherever we found them; we
might forbid their open circulation; we might conjure you to shun them
as you would any other clear sin, whether of word or deed. But they are
not wicked books for the most part; they are of that class which cannot
be actually prohibited; nor can it be pretended that there is a sin in
reading them. They are not the more wicked for being published so cheap,
and at regular intervals; but yet these two circumstances make them so
peculiarly injurious. All that can be done is to point out the evil;
that it is real and serious I am very sure, and its defects are most
deplorable on the minds of the fairest promise; but the remedy for it
rests with yourselves, or rather with each of you individually, so far
as he is himself concerned. That an unnatural and constant excitement of
the mind is most injurious, there is no doubt; that excitement involves
a consequent weakness, is a law of our nature than which none is surer;
that the weakness of mind thus produced is and must be adverse to quiet
study and thought, to that reflection which alone is wisdom, is also
clear in itself, and proved too largely by experience. And that without
reflection there can be no spiritual understanding, is at once evident;
while without spiritual understanding, that is, without a knowledge and
a study of God's will, there can be no spiritual life. And therefore
childishness and unthoughtfulness cannot be light evils; and if I have
rightly traced the prevalence of these defects to its cause, although
that cause may seem to some to be trifling, yet surely it is well to
call your attention to it, and to remind you that in reading works of
amusement, as in every other lawful pleasure, there is and must be an
abiding responsibility in the sight of God; that, like other lawful
p