" The path of ruin! Alas, how early may we
set out on that !- as soon as we become conscious agents at all ; and how many we find even of those who mean us no harm, even of friends and more than friends, to help us along it. Ruin of body. What thought- less squandering of vital powers ! what dwelling of the mind on subjects, the very thought of which in early years are poison to the life, what sowing in boyish greediness, in self-indulgence, in recklessness, of the seeds of future suffering, degradation, dis- solution! And ruin of mind—that goes often with ruin of body. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, and none can injure any part of the delicate organisation without risk of touching some- thing more vital still. Every act and thought of sin, every over- indulgence of appetite, every over-taxing of energy, tells surely on mind as well as body. And not only by this reaction of body on mind may we be ruining our minds. No faculty lives and grows unless it is used, and used as it was meant to be used. Indolence, conceit, and wilfulness, foolish and profitless reading, squandering of imagination on unwholesome excitements, cowardly avoiding of difficulties, dishonest short-cuts to knowledge—these are the things that lay waste our powers, make education a semblance instead of a reality, kill, instead of fostering, sacred gifts and faculties. Ruin, once more, of heart and life. Here is where sins against the powers either of body or mind come home in the end; and here belong sins against the more sacred gifts and sensibilities—against affection, against honour, against conscience."
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