This attention to your religious duties need not be attended by any preciseness or austerity of manner. On the contrary, I should wish you to be at all times cheerful and good humoured, ready to take part in any innocent gaiety. My object is to impress upon you the absolute necessity of always putting religion in the _first place_. If you really believe what you profess to believe, do not hesitate as to shewing it in your conduct. Never be so weak as to be ashamed of doing what you know to be your duty. Never be guilty of such unmanly cowardice as to be ashamed of avowing your allegiance to your Creator and your Redeemer.
I remain, My dear Nephew, Your affectionate Uncle.
CHOICE OF FRIENDS, AND BEHAVIOUR IN SOCIETY.
Among the many advantages of an University, few rank higher, both in general estimation and in reality, than the opportunity which it affords of forming valuable and lasting friendships. Indeed this advantage can hardly be rated too highly. I look back to the intimacies which I contracted at college, as among the greatest blessings of a life, which has been eminently blessed in various ways. I still hold intercourse with many of my Oxford friends, whose characters and attainments do honour to the place where their education and their minds were matured. And even the recollection of most of those, who have been removed from this lower world, is attended with a soothing melancholy, which partakes more of pleasure and thankfulness for having enjoyed their society, than of pain. _The memory of the just is blessed[14:1]._
I hope, my dear nephew, that you will improve this advantage to the utmost. In your intimacies, however, endeavour to be guided rather by judgment than by mere fancy. Sameness of pursuits, similarity of dispositions and inclinations generally contribute much to throw men together; but be careful not to attach yourself to any man as a _friend_, unless he is a man of moral worth, and of real religious principle. Intimacy with a man who is unrestrained by religion, _must_ be attended with great danger. Your own natural appetites will continually solicit you to forbidden indulgences, and will not be kept in due subjection without difficulty. If their solicitations are seconded by the example and by the conversations of an intimate associate, your peril will be extreme. Intimacy with a man of bad principles and immoral character, may utterly blast all your prospects of happiness both in this world and the next.