last of all virtues and graces of which God can give is self-
control; as necessary for the saint and the sage, lest they become
fanatics or pedants, as for the young man in the hey-day of youth
and health; but as necessary for the young man as for the saint and
the sage, lest, while they become only fanatics and pedants, he
become a profligate, and a cumberer of the ground.

Remember this--remember it now in the glorious days of youth which
never will return, but in which you are sowing seed of which you
will reap the fruit until your dying day. Know that as you sow, so
will you reap. If you sow to the flesh, you will of the flesh reap
corruption; corruption--deterioration, whether of health, of
intellect, of character in some shape or other. You know not, and
no man knows, what the curse will be like; but the curse will surely
come. The thing which is done cannot be undone; and you will find
that out before, and not merely after your dying day. Therefore
rejoice in your youth, for God has given it to you; but remember,
that for it, as for each and all of his gifts, God will bring you
into judgment. And when the hour of temptation comes, go back--go
back, if you would escape--to what you all were taught at your
mother's knee concerning the grace of God; for that alone will keep
you safe, or angel, or archangel, or any created being safe, in this
life and in all lives to come.



SERMON V. FRIENDSHIP; OR, DAVID AND JONATHAN