admitted beneath any respectable roof—the greatest hinderance to social intercourse—the most fatal barrier against moral and religious improvement.
Like all other evils incident to man, a bad temper, if long encouraged, and thoroughly rooted in the constitution, becomes in time impossible to be eradicated. In youth it is comparatively easy to stem the rising tide of sullenness, petulance, or passion; but when the tide has been allowed to gain ground so as to break down every barrier, until its desolating waters habitually overflow the soul, no human power can drive them back, or restore the beauty, freshness, and fertility which once existed there.
No longer, then, let inexperienced youth believe this tide of evil can be stayed at will. The maniac may say, "I am now calm, I will injure you no more:" yet, the frenzied fit will come to-morrow, when he will turn again and rend you. In the same way, the victim of ungoverned temper may even beg forgiveness for the past, and promise, with the best intentions, to offend no more ; but how shall a daughter in her mood of kindness heal the wound her temper has inflicted on a mother's heart, or convince her parent it will be the last? How shall the woman, whose temper has made desolate her household hearth, win back the peace and confidence she has destroyed? How shall the wife, though she would give all her bridal jewels for that purpose, restore the links her temper has rudely snapped asunder in the chain of conjugal affection?
No, there are no other means than those adopted and pursued in youth, by which to overcome this foe to temporal and eternal happiness. Nor let the task appear too difficult. There is one curious fact in connection with the subject, which it may be encouraging to my young friends to remember. Strangers never provoke us—at least, not in any degree proportionate to the provocations of our near
