Criginal state of man, the, briefly considered, Tales illustrative of scripture history, No. I.,

career of holy benevolence and activity. I will not stop to point out the facilities, reasons, and motives for all this on the one hand; nor the peculiar difficulties, arising from your own temperament, and from circumstances, to be expected and encountered, on the other.

"I WRITE unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. (1 John ii. 13, 14.) Young But I will tell you how often I men, the language of the venerable have mused, till the fire within me Apostle is, I trust, strictly applicable, has burned, at the grievous fact that as a description of character, to many a large proportion of young men, once of you. Animated with this hope, and yearning for your welfare to a degree which no language at my command can adequately express, I would dare even to emulate the only kind of inspiration which I can hope to share with the holy Apostle,-the inspiration of love.

I will not now tell you what I think of the vast importance of your particular class to society; of the peculiar evils which the irreligious portion of your class is always inflicting on the social system; of the infinite good which it might be the means of effecting if organized into a holy confederacy for God; of the great variety of ways in which it might combine, more effectually than any other class, for turning the world of evil upside down; of the new elements which it might instrumentally infuse into existing modes of religious and general usefulness; nor of the happy conjunction of circumstances which at the present day marks it out, and calls on it aloud to enter on a splendid VOL I.

religiously disposed, at least with no conscious aversion to religion, are lost to society and to happiness through neglect. I have said to myself-and I have said to others, both in conversation and by letter-what a subject. for lamentation is it that no religious effort is made specifically on the behalf of young men! We surrender them to the world just when they require and deserve the most effective tutelage. We extinguish our dim taper just at the moment when their path requires a guiding column of light. Multitudes of them are constantly issuing from our Sunday Schools to take their places in society; others who have left the parental roof where they have enjoyed the benefit of a pious example, are arriving among us; others have been more or less accustomed to read the sacred literature of the day, by which their minds are informed, if not divinely impressed; all of them have been trained to an attendance on the public ordinances of religion; and a much larger pro

A

portion of them than is commonly value of the literary articles sent for supposed have by these means re- insertion, and on contingent circumceived a religious bias, at least, which stances. When first I heard of the only requires to be guided and encou- project, I pictured to my mind the raged in order to become, by the grace beau ideal of a "Young Men's Maof God, a religious character. But gazine"-not of its gross material what is the fact? They are lost-attributes, form, size, colour-but of lost through our neglect. Here and its mental qualities and religious obthere, indeed, one enters the Christian jects. It should be sustained, thought ministry; two or three become teach- I, by the loftiest sanctified talent of ers in Sunday Schools, and assume a the age. Genius should lay the most Christian profession; and two or three precious offerings on its altar; and more render themselves useful in taste adorn its shrine; and learning other ways. But as to the great pour out its selectest spice-woods and majority of them-where are they? incense and poesy kindle its fires; Gone over to the world. We adopted and religion conduct and bless the no specific means to attract, retain, service. Animalism, and all debasing and employ them, and the consequence enjoyments should be held up to reis, that we have lost them; the world probation in its pages; and all those did employ means, and has succeeded natural sensibilities should be nouin enrolling them as her own. rished which, though not piety itself, Judge, then, my delight on finding is a soil in which the spirit of piety that Societies, formed exclusively of loves to cast its seed. Instead of young men, are beginning to be or- supposing, as many of the public ganized, or rather, have already taken literary guides appear to do, that the rank among the noble institutions of opposite of ignorance is knowledge, the day. In these associations- and that knowledge itself is a bare rightly conducted—you cannot fail to statement of facts, it should not only learn the strength of union; you show that a thing is, but lay it open will originate plans of usefulness, and to view in its causes and effects, point lay trains of salutary influence; you out its relations and resemblances, and will become centres of attraction to wisely improve the emotions which it the young men around you, and is calculated to excite. It should models to be copied by others at a discourse" of pleasures lying on the distance, or, yet unborn; you will unfolding intellect plenteously as enjoy the healthful happiness to be morning dew-drops-of knowledge found in useful activity; be building inhaled insensibly like the fragranceup your characters into lofty structures of dispositions stealing into the spirit of moral excellence; and be an like music from unknown quartersarmory from which from which the militant of images uncalled for and rising up church of God will derive her most like exhalations-of hopes plucked burnished and effective weapons. like beautiful wild-flowers from the

As a part of your machinery you ruined tombs that borders the highwisely propose to have a "Young ways of antiquity, to make a garland Men's Magazine." The practical for a living forehead." It should be value of such an agency will, of wise to warn its readers of the thoucourse, materially depend on the way in which it is conducted. But this, again, will greatly depend on its size, the subjects on which it treats, the

sand evils clustering about their path; and should walk before them with a lamp lighted at the altar of heaven in its hand. It should call up the actions

and characters of exalted virtue which" Young Men's Magazine" ought to
have enriched the world in ages that be. What the reality is, you are be-
are past, causing them to live and ginning to see. As far as dimensions
walk again for the benefit of the pre- and appearance go, it may not promise
sent. It should convince them that much. But it is a beginning; that
what has been may be again; that is something. And having begun, it
their lives can be "poetry and religion is for you to say how rapid its im-
put into action" now, as well as at provement shall be, and to what ex-
any former time.
It should show the tent that improvement shall be carried.
objects to which the past has attached Not only ought you yourselves to be
undue importance; the judgment better and greater than all the genera-
warped by prejudice and misled by tions of young men who have gone
party; time wasted in speculative before you, but all the agents and
and fruitless controversy; and the instruments you employ should be
minds and systems which have swayed constantly advancing and improving
a sceptre, owing to the weakness of also. Look on nothing as quite fit for
their admirers rather than their own you, as long as it remains short of
strength. It should call attention perfection.
especially to prevailing modes of edu-
cation, point out their essential defects
and pernicious results, and inquire
whether the foundations of the great
pyramid of society do not need to be
laid anew in a reformed and national
education. It should ascertain what
the present age is in itself positively,
what it is as compared with the past,
and thus, if possible, discover what is
to be hoped, what feared, for the
future, and what to be done for the
present.

Regard this Periodical as peculiarly your own; originated by you, and conducted for you. With this impression you will sincerely desire to make it God's-you will humbly dedicate it to his service, and earnestly implore on it his divine benediction. For, remember, nothing is blessed till he blesses it; and when he blesses an undertaking there need be no limit to success.

It should be a book for the present day; exhibiting the evils, tendencies, and wants of the time current. Laying its foundation in an earnest and evangelical piety, it should propose to the hopes and aims of its readers great objects, and kindle within them great expectations. Let it do this, and it will be a moral engine of transcendent power. It might not merely be the means of plucking off the leaves from many of the upas-trees which still pollute and poison the social atmosphere, but, by the divine blessing, it might even destroy them root and branch, and plant in their places an equal number of the trees of life for future generations.

Such was my idea of what a

WHAT YOUNG MEN HAVE DONE; OR,
THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF SOCIE-
TIES FOR THE REFORMATION

OF

MANNERS.

(From the Christian Visitor.) ABOUT 1668, there were several young men in the Metropolis brought under very great concern of mind respecting eternal realities. These serious impressions were made, under divine influence, by the preaching of Dr. Horneck and Mr. Smithies, distinguished clergymen of the Church of England, the latter of whom preached a morning lecture at Cornhill, chiefly to young people. When the minds of these young men were illuminated they began to view their own sins, and the sins of others, in a light very