amusement, and in following their natural bent they will indulge indiscriminately in the good and the bad, believing both to be wrong; and, what is worse, they will incur the habit of violating conscience. We should raise no false issues, then. The uses of amusement, its harmony with religion, should be distinctly pointed out. The line should be plainly laid down, and then carefully guarded.

And this leads me to say a few words, on the other hand, respecting the abuses of amusement. I remark, then, in the first place, that it is an abuse of amusement to attend to nothing else. We have seen that amusement is only a means to a higher result. We earn its privileges only by attention to more important duties. We need no relaxation when the mind and the body are continually relaxed. A life of mere pleasure, according to the usual acceptation of that term, is worthless and insipid. If labor wears out the functions of the body and the mind, continual amusement enervates them. And yet, how many are there

who evidently desire nothing but a life of pleasure! They little think what it is they desire! Let them have their wish, and they would soon sigh for the ordinary lot. God be thanked for labor-for its beautiful though stern ordinances! Not merely because it converts the desert into a garden, and the wilderness into a fruitful land, and clothes the naked and feeds the hungry; but because it invigorates both mind and body, quickens their action and refines their skill, prevents them from sluggishness and vice, fills the day with enjoyment and satisfaction, and crowns sleep with a sweet garland, plucked by the hands of honest industry, and steeped in the dew of content. How different from the racked frame, the jaded spirit, the debased and tormented soul of the mere pleasure-seeker! What has such an one done, what is he or she doing, for life, and life's realities? What good flows from this idleness? Attend, then, to every duty, to all necessary labor. The amusement is truly sweet that comes only after this.

Another abuse of amusement is that which perverts it to dissipation. There are some who seem to connect no other ideas with amusement than those of frivolity and excess. They cannot have a holiday without disgracing themselves, they cannot go upon a party of pleasure without converting it into an occasion of riot. With them " gayety" is license, "wit" foolishness, and "spirit" recklessness and confusion. This, to be sure, in its intense degree, is more applicable to the other sex. But I am fearful that some in the class which I now address have ideas of amusement almost as perverted. I would say, then, that there is no lawful amusement in that which disgraces, sensualizes, or in any way injures ourselves, or which is carried on against the feelings and interests of others. All pleasures that tend to exhaust the body, that keep one from necessary sleep, or incapacitate her for her duties, are wrong; perhaps not reprehensible in themselves, but in their results in the degree to which they have been indulged in.

And surely I need not say that my idea of amusement has no relation to anything that vitiates the soul, that kindles or pollutes it with sinful appetites, or deludes it with false ideas. The principle of discrimination between the uses and the abuses of amusement I have now laid down. Its application I leave to you.

I would not have you suppose that I consider amusement as the only means of physical culture, or its abuse as the only cause of physical injury; but I have dwelt more particularly upon this topic because of the peculiar relation which it has to the young. I add to this, then, the injunction that you avail yourselves of all means of physical culture which your knowledge and judgment may recommend. The main truth that I would now urge upon you is the importance of this duty. It is, as I have shown you, a moral obligation. Consider, also, that your own welfare, and the welfare of others, is indissolubly linked with it. Who that has witnessed that nervous suf

fering which embitters all enjoyment, that unnatural paleness which no cosmetic can hide or jewels adorn, that fever-flush which is a premonitory signal of death, that hacking cough which is a voice from the grave, -in short, who that has seen health and beauty withering under premature disease, and all the vital powers enfeebled and broken down before the very noon of life, does not feel the solemn urgency of the plea for a diligent physical culture? Who does not feel it that considers the responsibility of mothers, over which they have no control save that of earnest attention to the laws of their own being? Who does not feel it as he has stood by the bedside of the young victim of consumption, the loved, the gifted, the good, sinking away, untimely, like a star in the summer twilight; or as he has bent over the grave of the early dead, snatched, as it is said, "mysteriously" from earth?

II. I pass from this topic to speak of intellectual culture. The brevity of my remarks