DISCIPLINED YOUTH 
 
 NECESSARY FOR 
 
 THE DUTIES OF MIDDLE LIFE 
 
 AND THE 
 
 COMFORT OF OLD AGE. 
 
 A Sermon founded on Lamentations, iii. 27, and delivered to the Young People of the Borough 
 of Bedford, Pennsylvania, on Sabbath night, the 31st of December, 1837. 
 
 BY REV. BAYNARD R. HALL, A. M. 
 
 AUTHOR OF “ A NEW AND COMPENDIOUS LATIN GRAMMAR,” &C. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA! 
 PRINTED BY I. ASHMEAD & CO. 
 
Rev. Sir, — 
 
 Having listened with pleasure to the eloquent address, delivered by 
 you, on last evening, to “ the young people of Bedford and highly 
 appreciating the justness of the views it contained ; we respectfully solicit 
 your consent to its publication, in order to give it as wide a circulation as 
 possible. 
 
 A compliance with our request will confer a benefit on the youth of 
 the present generation, and much oblige, 
 
 Very respectfully, your humble servants, 
 
 A. King, 
 
 S. L. Russell, 
 
 B. Franklin Mann, 
 
 W. T. Daugherty, 
 
 Jas. S. Brown. 
 
 To the Rev. B. R. Hall. 
 
 Bedford, Jan. 1*, 1838. 
 
 Bedford, Jan. 5, 1838. 
 
 Gentlemen, 
 
 A copy of the Sermon desired in your note of Jan. 1, 1838, is at your 
 disposal, with my thanks for the honour designed me by its publication. 
 I hope we may not be disappointed in our wishes for its acceptance and 
 usefulness. 
 
 Yours, with kindness and respect, 
 
 Messieurs A. King, 
 
 Samuel L. Russell, 
 B. Franklin Mann, 
 VV. T. Daugherty, 
 Jas. S. Brown. 
 
 B. R. HALL. 
 
SERMON. 
 
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 « IT IS GOOD FOR A MAN THAT HE BEAR THE YOKE IN HIS YOUTH.” 
 
 Lam. Chap. iii. 27. 
 
 For the purposes of the present discourse, human life may- 
 be divided into three stages : youth, middle life, and old age. 
 Measuring by the time that we are under the authority of 
 parents, and afterwards under the authority of opinion, youth 
 may extend from the period of incipient infancy to the vigour 
 of physical manhood; terminating with about the thirtieth 
 year of life. Then begins middle life. This, determined by 
 defects of mind and body becoming ordinarily then visible, 
 and by the timidity towards new enterprises, and the despond- 
 ency towards the former then manifested, ends, perhaps, with 
 our fifty-fifth year; lasting, consequently, only five-and-twenty 
 years. The third period, old age, now begun, and which 
 under suitable regimen would generally cease with the extinc- 
 tion of life at threescore and ten years from our birth, is, by 
 criminal abuse and negligence, usually ended five or ten years 
 earlier than the assigned limit. 
 
 Viewing man as born for others as well as for himself, as 
 constituting part of a divinely organised social state, or of a 
 state necessarily resulting from his physical and mental organ- 
 ization, youth may be regarded as an age of preparation, and 
 middle life as an age of activity : for it is then only, in the 
 middle state, when the powers of our nature have all been 
 properly disciplined, the passions controlled, the appetites 
 curbed, forbearance practised, and prudence exercised, that 
 we are ready to serve our generation in the orderly and full 
 discharge of every duty. 
 
 60884 
 
 / 
 
4 
 
 It is here assumed that young persons, a few excepted that 
 are prematurely worthless, all anticipate a time, when they 
 shall mingle in the busy scenes of the world, not as mere 
 men and women, or as spectators at a show, but to act their 
 several parts as husbands, wives, and parents, as rulers and 
 teachers ; a time when they shall share in its enterprises and 
 honours, no longer humble imitators, but themselves models ; 
 not the servants, but the masters of opinion ; and not impelled 
 by, but directing, the spirit of the age. 
 
 To the young, therefore, it becomes an obvious and impor- 
 tant inquiry, “ what preparation can best jit us for one main 
 end of our existence , the benefit of our generation : and how 
 shall we become adequate to discharge all our duties with dignity 
 and success ?” Our present discourse is designed to answer in 
 some degree this question. 
 
 Before, however, we proceed to detail, let us consider one 
 or two preparatory remarks ; on which, indeed, the force and 
 propriety of our whole reply entirely depend. 
 
 In the production of grand effects, not the single operation 
 usually of one cause, but the combined and harmonious ope- 
 ration of several, may be traced. So in life, moral, political, 
 or any other good, depends not on mere talent or genius, or 
 enterprise, or industry, but upon the union of all these and 
 similar causes. Nay, good sometimes depends not even on 
 the union of any active causes, but upon caution, patience, 
 disinterestedness; and sometimes upon a cessation from all 
 attempts and labours. Men very often must be enlightened, 
 soothed, entreated, and led, even for their own advantage: 
 and here we shall need all our passive and scarcely any of our 
 active virtues. 
 
 The main preparation, therefore, for youth is a discipline of 
 restraint and self-denial. 
 
 Knowledge is by no means to be undervalued ; without 
 adequate knowledge, no complete discharge of duty can ever 
 
occur ; yet, while the acquisition of knowledge is one end in 
 discipline, the young need more to be taught self-government, 
 self-respect, self-knowledge, and the consequent habits and 
 qualities. Differences in success are by no means so much 
 attributable to differences in talents and learning, as to differ- 
 ences in caution, prudence, forethought, self-control, and the 
 like habits: and, indeed, it is in these habits and qualities that 
 boys differ from men, and not, so commonly as is imagined, in 
 talents, genius, or even acquirements. 
 
 With these remarks in remembrance you are now prepared 
 for the application of our text, in answer to the inquiry 
 already proposed. 
 
 The sentiment designed by Jeremiah, when he uttered these 
 words, “ It is good for a man that he hear the yoke in his 
 youth” was, that it is good to bear affliction in youth : but, 
 since afflictions are advantageous mainly in producing self- 
 denial, self-government, and self-knowledge, the text may be 
 fairly extended to any other discipline producing similar re- 
 sults. As the neck, therefore, of a rebellious ox is bowed 
 down by the yoke, and his vast strength thus rendered subser- 
 vient to the master’s purposes, so must young persons be sub- 
 jected to wholesome and severe discipline, that they may 
 best answer the designs of a benevolent Creator in forming 
 men social beings. 
 
 1. Young persons must be subjected, then, to the yoke of a 
 severe and laborious moral and intellectual education. 
 
 Since a portion of the young now present are in their 
 minority, we may here address our remarks in the first place, 
 to parents and guardians. And if these understand and 
 rightly appreciate our prefatory remarks, they see the justness 
 in saying “ the yoke of a severe and laborious education” But, 
 unhappily, many parents and guardians think, that to impart 
 knowledge is the sole purpose and duty of teachers. Such 
 persons value a system of education only by its seeming 
 power to afford information; and, usually, if a very large 
 
G 
 
 amount of what is deemed knowledge be not acquired in a 
 very short time, they either change the method or the teacher, 
 or they cut short the children’s education at its commence- 
 ment. 
 
 But, we repeat again and again, that simply to give know- 
 ledge is not the sole end of judicious instruction ; it is not even 
 its leading end. Were it possible, which it is not, properly to 
 train the mental, the moral, and the physical nature, and still 
 impart absolutely no knowledge whatever, one thus disci- 
 plined would be pre-eminently better qualified for the duties 
 of the middle life, than another of boundless knowledge and 
 yet of an undisciplined mind and heart. The art of acquiring 
 and of arranging and of applying knowledge ; the art of 
 thinking and reasoning and concluding; the art of prompt 
 acting on occasions and in emergencies : these and similar 
 most delicate and difficult arts, — arts, in which these twattling 
 and conceited days have made no improvements, — these are 
 the true ends of intellectual and moral discipline. Hence even 
 the very instruments of this discipline, like the means often 
 used to strengthen the human frame, to give grace to the 
 person and dignity to the deportment, are often with safety 
 laid aside after they have subserved their uses: and hence 
 many individuals having in the noble and honourable and 
 difficult duties of life ample employment for the full exercise 
 of all their powers, feel no longer the need of the same studies 
 and exercises that disciplined their youth.* 
 
 Is it asked by parents and guardians what constitutes the 
 severe education now discussed? We reply: — 1st., that mere 
 children should be taught among other matters self-denial, self- 
 government, and the like, together with the elementary parts 
 of simple sciences and arts, always where possible at home, 
 and usually, but not exclusively, by the mothers: and 2dly., 
 that as soon as the bodily health will admit, (the advice of 
 
 * Where the duties of life will admit, all educated men, as well as profes- 
 sional scholars, will be fully compensated, however, by continuing' and ex- 
 tending 1 their acquaintance with the classics and the mathematics. 
 
7 
 
 competent physicians here being asked,) children, both male and 
 female, should be placed under learned and religious precep- 
 tors to complete a course, and that no stinted one, of what is 
 usually termed the classics and the mathematics.* 
 
 We shall now, how r ever, address those young persons pre- 
 sent, freed by consent or by law from the parental authority. 
 
 Without adverting to your previous opportunities, your edu- 
 cation must now be completed by yourselves; and in some 
 instances must even be commenced. But this need occasion 
 no uneasiness; because, in the first place, it is often a decided 
 advantage never to have had what is sometimes called school- 
 ing; and in the second place, after all, that part of our edu- 
 cation which may properly be considered our self-education 
 is decidedly the most valuable. Nay, persons almost wholly 
 self-educated, have very often become the most distinguished. 
 
 It is, indeed, a truly pitiable sight to behold many young 
 people indolently lamenting the want of schools and teachers 
 and favourable opportunities, when all can do so much for 
 their own improvement, and not a few can do more for them- 
 selves than the vast majority of common schools could do for 
 them. If the young would only seriously set about the work 
 of self-instruction, even with the poorest materials and instru- 
 ments, they would be amazed at their progress in all that is 
 valuable, and with what unexpected success they had over- 
 come difficulties seemingly at first invincible. But let such 
 distinctly remember the end of all discipline, that it is not the 
 mere acquisition of knowledge, but the exercise of the mind. 
 Hence, if after even severe study, we fail to comprehend fully, 
 we have still gained the main object of our efforts, practice in 
 thinking. The very exertion made and repeated again and 
 again is of vast price, even if we should be for the present 
 utterly defeated : and this habit of the soul, thus dearly bought, 
 will, under different circumstances, make one master of many 
 
 * The experience of the author and his observations, independent of all 
 reasoning on this point, make him confident, that the best morals as well as 
 the best learning, are the results of the good old course recommended above. 
 
8 
 
 difficult subjects. Let the young, therefore, begin with fit sub- 
 jects of discipline in the best w 7 ay possible ; let them persevere, 
 and as ability and knowledge increase, let them extend and 
 systematize their labours, correct their errors and seize all 
 accessible aids, and in despite even of no previous education, 
 we shall see all happier, and not a few elevated to higher 
 walks in life, than otherwise they are ever destined to reach.* 
 
 One reason why we so often condemn the reading of ficti- 
 tious works may now be seen. To such works, as far as 
 ordinary readers are concerned, there are many objections: 
 their tendency is usually immoral; they vitiate taste; they 
 misinform us; they give false and exaggerated views of indi- 
 viduals, presenting mere fancy pictures of aggregated virtues 
 and vices; they defile the imagination and inflame the pas- 
 sions ; they beget a disgust of daily and common life. — But the 
 objection now urged is, that such works are not difficult 
 enough for studies, and are indeed, even by their authors, 
 designed solely for amusement. Where young persons, there- 
 fore, are seeking to improve, and especially such as have little 
 previous cultivation, and need all their time and money for 
 nobler purposes, to these we give as our most deliberate 
 advice, that this very night they ought honestly to collect and 
 burn without mercy all their novels and romances; and with 
 the end of the year discontinue those newspapers, the sole 
 recommendation of which is their “ original and selected 
 stories and tales.” 
 
 2. Young persons must, in the second place, submit to the 
 yoke of good society. 
 
 We cannot study always. Recreation is necessary to digest 
 our mental as well as our corporal food. Some things, too, 
 
 * Studies recommended are, Arithmetic, Algebra, the higher Mathematics: 
 Natural and Mechanical sciences : Latin, Greek, French, and German lan- 
 guages: the English classics, such as Addison, Shakspeare, (not as a mere 
 writer of plays,) Milton, &c. : Political Economy: Mental and Moral Philo- 
 sophy: Composition, &c. &c. : above all, the Bible. 
 
9 
 
 can be learned only from our observation and from the testi- 
 mony of others. It is also important to see models in the 
 discharge of public and domestic duties: and we are long 
 compelled to float with the tide of opinion before we may 
 venture successfully to stem it. In short, for many reasons, 
 society is necessary to us : and no pleasures are more exciting 
 than those of companionship. And yet it is precisely here that 
 the young are in danger especially of losing all the advantages 
 of private discipline, and of contracting habits fatal to all their 
 expected success. To them there is no safety except in 
 good society; and without that, they had better be without 
 any. 
 
 Good society is indeed severe in its external appearance ; 
 and hence the young rarely seek such, regarding it as a mere 
 hinderance to hilarity and pleasure: but if we are seriously 
 seeking improvement, we must at all times be found in this 
 company. With such we must ride, or walk, or play, or see 
 paintings, or hear music, or attend elections or innocent 
 amusements, or do any of the lawful acts of life: and occa- 
 sions innumerable will arise, of asking advice and hearing 
 opinions on religion, politics, literature, the fine arts and 
 sciences, and of obtaining hints and directions on important 
 pursuits and studies; we shall find a thousand knotty diffi- 
 culties solved and perplexing intricacies unravelled, see many 
 living exemplars of our written rules, and, finally, among 
 other benefits, become strengthened in our correct conclusions 
 and rectified in our erroneous ones. 
 
 Is it asked, what is good company? Without any negative 
 description, we reply, by good society is meant, the best edu- 
 cated and disciplined; the most moral, prudent, sober, and 
 religious; in a word, the best citizens. We believe, too, that 
 good society is still better when composed of both men and 
 women. Nor is the contemptible frivolity of most mixed 
 companies any objection to our remark ; for if women were 
 all educated as they might and should be, and, we are per- 
 suaded, will be, no society could be so pleasant, so honourable, 
 so elevating, as that in which these women formed a part. 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 Well educated women never would or could form a part 
 where men. vicious, rude, and foolish, obtained or even ex- 
 pected admission. 
 
 Let none say, good society is difficult to find; because it 
 exists larger or smaller in every community. Nor let any 
 say, it is impossible to get admittance into it: for although 
 this society has its barriers and restraints, it has none other 
 than utility, virtue, patriotism, and religion itself, impose; and 
 if truly good, it voluntarily opens its very bosom to the young, 
 being grieved by their refusal, and not by their attempt, to 
 enter. 
 
 3. In the third place, the young must wear, and that con- 
 stantly, the yoke of temperance. 
 
 Intemperance from intoxicating liquors, so common, alas ! 
 is doubtless from that circumstance, the first, and with most 
 of my hearers, the only kind supposed to be now meant. 
 Prevalent and mournful as this vice is, what wonder that so 
 many, so very many, should against this rock dash all their 
 hopes of peace, usefulness, and honour! The grand, and in 
 numerous instances the sole lesson taught the young is, “ to 
 drink.” To this they are welcomed with smiles and wheedled 
 by flattery; yea, are often assured that to drink frequently and 
 largely, is one evidence of an independent soul and generous 
 disposition. The houses where we visit, the hotels that re- 
 fresh us, the stores where we deal, the places of our recrea- 
 tion ; the men that frame our laws and the men that execute ; 
 the philosopher, the patriot, and, may I not add, in some cases 
 the divine ; even lovely woman with misapplied entreaties ; 
 ah! even the fathers on whose knees we have sported in in- 
 fancy, and the very mothers from whose bosom we have 
 drawn our sustenance ; — these, all these, in a thousand ways, 
 mix, and dilute, and sweeten, and render fragrant with spices 
 and sparkling with beauty the bowl — the damned bowl — to 
 overcome our natural distaste, to subdue our shame, to abate 
 our fears, to lull our conscience, to make us most abandoned, 
 most infatuated, most heaven-daring sinners. 
 
11 
 
 We stay not to prove ; for all know how drunkenness de- 
 bilitates the body, poisons the breath, enervates the soul, 
 brutalizes the appetites — yea, transforms man into the very 
 brute. We too well know, that drunkards, should they even 
 reach the middle life, become objects of pity to the good, of 
 scorn to the proud, of grief to their friends, mere examples 
 of warning and beacons of danger to the sober, and how, at 
 last, the groaning community feels in a measure refreshed, 
 when the bloated and unseemly bodies are covered in the 
 grave. 
 
 Temperance, therefore, nay, entire abstinence from what 
 intoxicates, must be rigorously practised by the young; and 
 yet this species of temperance is not the sole one now recom- 
 mended. Our desires, our appetites, our passions, in the use 
 of things innocent and pleasant, must be studiously moderated ; 
 because this self-denial and control are the means of affording 
 health, time, money, and spirits for our very studies, and is 
 itself one paramount design of our very discipline. Would 
 we ensure success? then we must be temperate in all things; 
 in eating, in apparel, in recreation, in the enjoyments even of 
 good society, in study itself : and then shall we be well fitted 
 for many duties of middle life, and obtain, even at the time, 
 high degrees of self-satisfaction and peace. 
 
 4. Again, I would remark, in the fourth place, that, not a 
 little from experience, and much from observation and also 
 from the nature of the divine economy in the government of 
 the world, I am fully satisfied, that the preceding directions, 
 few and general as they are, must and will, if faithfully 
 obeyed, place a man in after life upon elevated ground among 
 the virtuous and honourable: but if we would be certain of 
 success, and if we would aspire to rewards nobler than the 
 emoluments of place and the approbation of men, if we would 
 be had in everlasting and distinguished remembrance when 
 mere worldly great men shall have been forgotten, then must 
 we wear in youth the easy yoke of our Lord Jesus Christ’s 
 moral and intellectual discipline. Without that yoke men 
 
12 
 
 may and very often do by other discipline become extensively 
 useful to their fellows, and obtain merited honours and re- 
 spect ; because God permits men to gain their proposed 
 rewards : but if in addition to perishing, we would gain 
 immortal ones, nay, if we would become, as we have inti- 
 mated, entirely certain of even perishing rewards, then must 
 we become submissive disciples in the school of Christ. 
 
 5. But I must hasten to mention, in the last place, a means 
 of discipline not employed in the schools, nor found in books, 
 nor applied by ourselves ; a discipline unpleasant indeed to all 
 and specially so to the young, but one of incalculable value 
 and productive of the sweetest fruits — I mean affliction. 
 
 Before a man is really fitted for life, whatever be his mental 
 powers and acquisitions, or his personal dignity and comeli- 
 ness, or all his adventitious qualities, he needs many severe 
 lessons to transform his very nature : he must know himself ; 
 his self-conceit must be eradicated, his haughtiness humbled, 
 his impatience subdued, his presumption chastised, his watch- 
 fulness aroused, his indolence punished, his selfishness dis- 
 carded. To accomplish all these arduous tasks — each an 
 herculean labour — affliction is the only competent discipline : 
 and that is God’s blessed mode of instructing his own children. 
 
 Yet be it distinctly noticed, afflictions will do us no good, 
 unless we are patient and observant of their end and uses. 
 Properly used, they are a blessing ; improperly, a curse. Let 
 the young, therefore, in all disappointments, or deluded hopes, 
 or sickness, or poverty, or reproach, or bereavement, or sor- 
 rows of any sort, be well assured that a merciful and wise 
 Creator is thus showing, not merely his anger at sin, but his 
 desire to discipline men for the noble purposes of the social 
 state and for the rewards of the future : so that in the latter 
 days, all may say in the leading sense of our text, — 44 It is 
 good for a man that he hear the yoke in his youth” 
 
 From what has been said we may infer that it is good to 
 bear the yoke in youth for the following out of many reasons: — 
 
13 
 
 1. It answers the end designed and nothing else will. For 
 want of discipline men can encounter only disappointments 
 and chagrin. Without this, in presumptuous haste they en- 
 gage in schemes infeasible, or beyond their capacities, or 
 demanding more skill and prudence than they possess; and 
 hence, after a few defeats, they yield to other persons, inferior 
 often in native talents, but superior in tact, forethought, and 
 patience. Happy if the defeated could retire with good 
 grace ; but retiring with feelings of mortified pride and 
 vanity, they sink into the lower levels, and there vent malig- 
 nant spleen in endeavours to drag down the others and to 
 blacken their characters. We all have remarked this an 
 hundred times ; and we now, without any claim to the pro- 
 phetic spirit, can plainly foresee, that, unless God’s renovating 
 Spirit prevent necessary consequences from his own abused 
 laws, the idle, lounging, trifling young persons here or else- 
 where, must descend down the scale of honourable repu- 
 tation to the snarling and captious maligners, or at best, to 
 be classed as mere instruments to be used, and slaves to 
 be ordered, according to the wisdom and will of the well- 
 disciplined. 
 
 2. To bear the yoke in youth is good, because it is so 
 truly noble. Contrast one that bears it with one that does 
 not, only in a few particulars: the first is sober and cheerful, 
 the second frivolous; the one cultivates the soul, the other 
 pampers the body; the one lives for his fellows, the other 
 solely for himself. The disciplined person is lord of his 
 appetites and passions, the undisciplined is the mere slave 
 of their clamorous demands; in a word, the former does 
 every thing that lifts him up towards the angels, the latter, 
 every thing that thrusts him down towards the devils. 
 
 3. Again, the course prescribed this evening, will, if fol- 
 lowed, prolong the period of middle life far into the period of 
 old age. 
 
 Proper care of the body and the avoidance of all excesses 
 
14 
 
 in diet will, as we all know, make the human frame more 
 lasting; but the discipline in question will retard for many 
 years the mental imbecility of old age, and, generally, will 
 prevent any degree of that weakness in the form of dotage 
 and second infancy. No fact in the history of man is better 
 attested than that our minds prematurely fail, simply because 
 of disuse ; and our minds must always be disused if we 
 have never in youth acquired habits of thinking and studying. 
 Much learning in cases of physical weakness may, perhaps, 
 have made some “mad;” but beyond a doubt the want of 
 all learning has in old age, when the bustle and stir of the 
 middle state are past, rendered many thus. Very many 
 literary persons by preserving studious habits to the last, have 
 reached extreme old age, with the perceptible loss or even 
 decay of no mental power; whilst a few such, from some 
 chance or indolence, having discontinued their studies, have 
 exhibited symptoms of premature weakness, and even of 
 idiocy. 
 
 4. How good a thing in old age, to reflect that one sub- 
 mitted to the yoke in his youth ! By that he has been able 
 to discharge with honour and satisfaction to himself, so many 
 duties profitable to his fellow-men! By that he has nobly 
 won the veneration always paid to a hoary head after a well- 
 spent life ! How calm the evening of such a life ! How unlike 
 the picture of gloom falsely thought to be necessarily that of 
 declining years ! 
 
 5. Lastly, if one has lived as is here supposed, and has 
 worn the yoke of Christian discipline ; how blessed, not 
 merely the retrospect of the past, but the anticipation of the 
 future ; what joys are his in contemplating an assured reward, 
 a crown of glory and honour ; and whilst he has a heart to 
 accomplish yet many good things for his generation, how he 
 even longs for the coming of a messenger, ghastly and terrific 
 to the faithless, but to the wise servant an angel of mercy, 
 smiling, glorious, and welcome. 
 
15 
 
 Such, young men and women, are a few leading directions 
 in answer to our proposed inquiry ; and such, a few of the 
 many advantages resulting from the discipline enjoined. What 
 shall be the effect of this evening’s instructions upon you ? 
 We dare not hope all here will be benefited ; mournful 
 experience of the almost invincible levity and the presump- 
 tuous and arrogant confidence of too many young people, 
 forbids that hope ; nay, bids us fear derision and even scorn 
 from some that we would fain help. 
 
 Is it too much, however, to believe that some in this most 
 interesting assembly have, as they listened, come to solemn 
 and fixed resolutions to begin the course this night recom- 
 mended? It must be so. Surely some of those present look 
 soberly upon their weighty responsibilities; surely some are 
 burning with a sacred ardour to discharge with honour and 
 success the noble duties of life; surely some are captivated 
 by the picture of moral grandeur pertaining to the disinter- 
 ested performance of those duties and to the dignified de- 
 meanour of Christian meekness under the ingratitude of the 
 wicked; surely some here abhor being mere drones in the 
 political hive, or mere tools to be employed by others, or, 
 instead of standing forth in bold relief amidst the architec- 
 ture of society, to become hateful excrescences on the body 
 politic, then to be cut off by public sentiment, by loss of 
 liberty, or perhaps by the sword of justice. It must be that 
 some here, looking onward to the realities of old age, desire, 
 then, the retrospect of a well-spent life and the joyous expec- 
 tations of a life to come. 
 
 By all these your lofty and holy purposes this night formed ; 
 by the demands of the coming generation, destined to be 
 either the better or the worse from your conduct; by the 
 preciousness of our liberties, bought with blood, liberties to be 
 transmitted to posterity by your virtues and knowledge, or 
 lost by your vices and ignorance ; by the majesty of a nature 
 fitted for duty and for the endurance of suffering and trial ; 
 by the baseness and cowardice of sloth; by all the peace and 
 
joy that gladden the otherwise cheerless days of old a"e • 
 by your desires of finding in death peace and joy; by your 
 regard of the Supreme Judge, who shall say in the day of 
 ina judgment to his faithful servants, “ well done, enter ye 
 into the joy of your Lord , ” and to the unfaithful ones, “ depart 
 ye accursed:”— by all these, I now do exhort and impure 
 you, young men and women, immediately to put on and 
 submissively wear that yoke which inspiration teaches, and 
 all experience confirms, it is good for a man to bear in his 
 youth. — Amen.