Page:Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray.djvu/245

whom you are most dear, beyond the most cultivated intellect. It is your business to unite these estimable objects; your heart and understanding should be emulous in pursuit of excellence. Ethics, improved and elevated by the christian religion, become the guides to real wisdom and solid happiness; these they could never have attained in the schools of heathen philosophy. It is not expected that you should thus early be engaged in the profound disquisitions of theology. The plain doctrines of the religion, which it is hoped you will profess, have been explained to you; but the principal business is to open your heart for the reception of those sentiments and principles, which will conduce to the direction of your actions, in the employments and engagements of your subsequent life. Permit me, however, to remind you of the necessity of reading the scriptures, that is, of drinking the sacred waters at the fountain head. But, to read the scriptures with advantage, judgment is necessary, and as your judgment is not yet matured, you must submit to the direction of your instructors. The plainest, and most perspicuous passages will, for the present, best deserve and reward your attention. The historical parts of the Old Testament will entertain you, if you consider them only in a classical point of view, as valuable passages of ancient history; but I would call your attention more immediately to the books which are most replete with moral instruction, such as the Proverbs of Solomon, the Wisdom of the Son of Sirach, and the admirable book entitled, Ecclesiasticus. I trust the time will come, when the prophecies will most pleasingly instruct you; at present you will peruse them for the poetical beauties, which they confessedly display. Isaiah abounds with fine passages of this description, and Jeremiah is by no means deficient in this line. You have no doubt read Pope's Messiah, and could not but have observed, that its most pleasing imagery is selected from Isaiah. If you read the Old Testament with a taste for its beauties, you will accomplish two important purposes; you will acquire a knowledge of the Holy Bible, which is your duty, and you will improve your taste and judgment. The New Testament requires the attention of every one, who professes himself a christian. You must read it with that humility, which becomes a finite being, but more particularly a young person; you will do well to pay especial attention to the sermon on the Mount, and to that admirable epitome of all moral philosophy, the rule of doing to others, as we would they should do unto us. If you pay due obedience to this precept, you will never hesitate in determining what part you are, upon every occasion, to act. It is proper you should familiarize your mind