prison of despair a dread reality, where covetousness will eternally
work without restraint, and unrelieved; a fire shut up in the soul,
agonizing it evermore?

Will the young refuse to enter upon this systematic course of doing
good?--You who are in the warm glow of youthful affections and
sympathies, I presume are not prepared to answer in the negative. You
feel that it would be delightful, the highest grade of human excellence,
to go about scattering charities--feeding the hungry, relieving
distress, smoothing the dying pillow, and sending the light of salvation
to those on whom the dayspring of the Saviour's mercy has never dawned.
This, perhaps, you intend to do at some future time; but you cannot now;
you have not the ability; you must first amass the means. But let me
warn you; here lies the treacherous pitfall. You have within a subtle
and malignant principle, whose maturity is utterly destructive of
benevolence. This the very employment of acquiring the means of charity
will fan to a flame, unless, in all your plans and avocations, you carry
along with you the spirit of Christ's good-will to men. The work of
charity must be begun in the infancy of the selfish tendencies. A small
blaze among the withered leaves of autumn a child may extinguish; but
when the winds have hurled it, and the wild fire is running and leaping
from point to point, streaming up trees and wrapping the forest in
sheets of flame, it will take the energies of thousands to quench it.
So it is with the principle of avarice. It must be repressed early,
before its giant coils wind around the entire heart, crushing its better
purposes. Hence, as the morning of life is peculiarly favorable to the
formation and fixing of habits, the importance of inuring yourself to
battle with this inward foe, in this flexible season. Put on the armor
at once, and learn to wield it; for victory is as much dependent on
skill as on strength.