Imatges de pàgina
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tant remarks on the various duties and events of life.

As a science, Ethics is too generally neglected till a more advanced period of life, when the passions are stronger, and the bias of the mind more fixed. And Treatises on Ethics' are so voluminous and expensive, as to be beyond the means of the greater part of families and schools.

The work now offered to the public is a digest of the best remarks, on morals and religion, from various authors; and is published at a price attainable by all classes,

The compiler has endeavoured to apportion to each day only so much as might, with convenience, be committed to memory, along with other juvenile studies, to which studies he hopes it will be deemed an important and indispensable appendage.

No. 1.]

FILIAL DUTY.

[MONDAY. "HONOUR thy Father and thy Mother," is the first commandment with promise. The honour which children are required to give to their parents, includes in it love, reverence, obedience, and relief. From them they have received their very existence, and consequently all the pleasures and enjoyments of life. The occasion, which demands from children the greatest tokens of respect and tenderness in their behaviour to their parents, is when they labour under infirmities of body or mind, and in the time of their extreme old age. "Me let the tender office long engage To rock the cradle of declining age,

With lenient arts extend a parent's breath,
Make langour smile, and smooth the bed of death:
Explore the thought, explain the asking eye,
And keep awhile a parent from the sky."

No. 2.]

BROTHERLY LOVE.

[TUESDAY.

THOUGH all mankind spring from the same head, and are bound to cultivate a mutual good

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will to each other; yet this duty is not so obvious and striking as that which is incumbent on those who belong to the same family. Nothing can approach nearer self-love than fraternal affection. It is a relation formed by nature, not by choice, and is prior to the obligations of friendship. Benevolence, and an ardent concern for each other's welfare and happiness, are its peculiar offices. Nothing therefore can be more horrible than discord and animosity among members so allied; and nothing so beautiful as harmony and love. "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!"

No. 3.] PARENTAL AFFECTION. [WEDNESDAY.

As the vexations which parents receive from their children, hasten the approach of age, and double the force of years, so the comforts which they reap from them, are balm to all other sorrows, and disappoint the injuries of time. However strong we may suppose the fondness of a father for his children, yet they will find more lively marks of tenderness in the bosom of a mother. There are no ties in nature to compare with those which unite an affectionate mother to her children, when they repay her tenderness with obedience and love.

No. 4.]

YOUTH.

[THURSDAY.

YOUTH has ever been looked upon as the happiest part of human life. It is the season for improving in knowledge, for forming the mind, for gaining such accomplishments as make us agreeable or useful to others, and consequently for forming our fortune. What a golden age is that which affords us such opportunities of laying up happiness for riper years! And how ought we to prize that part of our existence on which so much of our future happiness depends! The life of man is a building. Youth is to lay the foundation of habits and dispositions, upon which middle life and age must finish the structure; and in moral, as in material architecture, no good edifice can be raised upon a faulty foundation.

"See how the world its veterans rewards,
A youth of folly, an old age of cards."

No. 5.]

BENEFICENCE.

[FRIDAY.

MAN is naturally a beneficent creature. The greatest pleasure wealth can afford is that of doing good. All men of estates are in effect but trustees for the benefit of the distressed, and will be so reckoned when they are to give an account. To relieve the oppressed is the most glorious act a man is capable of; it is in some measure doing the business of God and Providence. No object

is more pleasing to the eye than the sight of a man whom you have obliged; nor any music so agreeable to the ear as the voice of one that owns you for his benefactor.

No. 6.]

AFFLICTIONS.

[SATURDAY.

WHOEVER Considers the manifold calamities to which mankind are exposed in the present state, must feel some emotion of sorrow. Sin has introduced great misery and universal disorder into the world. No person, however mean and obscure, or eminent and exalted, can stand invulnerable against the arrows of adversity. It is, however, the peculiar privilege of a good man that though, alike with others, he partakes of the sufferings of humanity, yet he sees a wise hand directing every event, and rendering all subservient to a grand and glorious end. He desires to learn the noble lessons of patience and submission, while his heart glows with gratitude to Him, to whom he is indebted for every comfort he enjoys, and without whose permission he knows no evil can transpire.

No. 7.]

THE HOLY TRINITY.

[SUNDAY.

THERE is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infi

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