To many of you too, life now presents a very different aspect to what it did in the commencement of the year. A most important day has dawned, and momentous duties devolved on you. The ties that bound you to the homes of your youth have been severed, and new ones formed, aye stronger ones than even to the mother that bare you. Yes, there is one who is now _dearer_ than the parent who cherished, or the sister who grew up with you, and shared your father's hearth. Oh! could I now but impress upon your minds, how much, how _very much_ of your happiness depends on the way you begin. If I could but make you sensible how greatly doing so might soften the trials of after life. Trials? I hear each of you exclaim in joyous doubt, What trials? I am united to the object of my dearest affections; friends all smile on, and approve my choice; plenty crowns our board: have I not made a league with sorrow that it should not come near our dwelling? I hope not; for it might lead you to forget the things that belong to your peace. I should tremble for you, could I fancy a life-long period without a trouble. You are mortal and could not bear it, with safety to your eternal well-being. This life being probationary, God has wisely ordained it a chequered one. Happy, thoroughly happy as you may be now, you are not invulnerable to the shafts of sorrow;--think how very many are the inlets through which trial may enter, and pray that whenever and however assailed, you may as a Christian, sanctify whatever befalls you to your future good.
But while prepared to meet those ills "the flesh is heir to" as becomes a Christian, it is well to remember that you may greatly diminish many of the troubles of life, by forbearance and self-command, for certain it is, that more than one half of mankind make a great deal of what they suffer, and which they might avoid. Yes, much of what they endure are actually self inflictions.
There is a general, and alas! too true an outcry, that trouble is the lot of all, and that "man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward;" but let me ask, Is there not a vast amount made by ourselves? and do we not often take it up in anticipation, too often indulge and give way to it, when by cheerful resignation, we might, if not wholly avert, yet greatly nullify its power to mar our peace. Mind, I now speak of self-created and minor troubles; not those coming immediately from God. Are we not guilty of ingratitude in acting thus; in throwing away, or as it were thrusting from us the blessings he has sent--merely by indulging in, or giving way to these minor trials. It may be said of these sort of troubles, as of difficulties, "Stare them in the face, and you conquer them; yield to, and they overcome you, and form unnecessary suffering."