Page:Profit and loss, or, The Christian merchant.pdf/19

 with all possible reproach—and if your hatred led you to detest the thought of copying his example, we should not despair; but, do you not, from day to day, in a manner vindicate and applaud him? What mean your evening strolls, your loose attire, your affected smile, your familiar address? Alas! you are a perpetual seducer, and demand innumerable victims.

Often have we seen with aching hearts, a fellow creature arrested by the voice of a stranger, and consenting to attend her steps. ‘He goeth as an ox to the slaughter; knowing not that it is for his life.’ How many such are blasted in the spring of life!—Once they were lovely and cheerful, and gave high promise to their friends. They met such as you,—and now, agonizing with remorse, shattered in constitution, a spectacle to the world, they shorten the sum of their days, they live without principle, and seem likely to expire without hope.

Did you never ask, ‘What have I to expect at the end of my career?’ Did you never think of death, and the judgement that follows? Surely you have not persuaded yourself that there is no God, and that the scriptures are cunningly-devised fables; or if you have, remember, we beseech you, what it was that brought you to that persuasion. You first threw aside all law, you determined to be vicious; and we cannot wonder that in the school of vice you have learned the lessons of falsehood. It looks well on the side of religion, that none are its enemies, but such as are enemies to society and to themselves also. Yet if there is a God, have von any thing to hope for? Will he approve? Or can you endure the thunder of his voice, and the tire of his wrath?