158 ANALYTICAL ILLUSTRATION.
ANALYTICAL ILLUSTRATION.
To worship God is the first duty of man. To keep our oaths inviolate, and to pay due reverence to illustrious heroes, are likewise duties of paramount importance. We should give honour to our parents, and to those connected with us by blood, according to the order of relationship: with respect to all other men, our friendship for them should be in proportion to their progress in the practice of virtue. Let your conversation be mild, and your actions useful; and let not trivial faults cause you to abandon your friends, remembering that necessity is frequently the handmaid to power. But, above all things, you should keep a close restraint upon your passions; gluttony, sloth, anger, lechery, and impurities of every kind, should be especially guarded against. Let justice be always manifest in word and act; and be careful to repress the immoderate desire of wealth, since great riches may be yours to-day, but to-morrow they may pass from you into other hands; and, in all the circumstances of life, bear ever in mind, that it is decreed for all men to die. It is your duty, as well as your interest to bear the ills of life with patience, mildness, and resignation to the Divine Will; and, while it is lawful for you to avert evil if you can, or to lessen its malignity when it comes upon you, you should never forget that the real sufferings of a good man are but small. Amid the various conflicts and vexatious trials of life, be it still your aim to keep at the side of virtue. Should falsehood's tongue assail
