Why should An Earnest (I hate the
word) Clergyman do so? Let me give him a last word or two of
fatherly advice.
Men may settle small things for themselves--as what they will have
for dinner or where they will spend the vacation--but the great ones-
-such as the choice of a profession, of the part of England they will
live in, whether they will marry or no--they had better leave the
force of circumstances to settle for them; if they prefer the
phraseology, as I do myself, let them leave these matters to God.
When He has arranged things for them, do not let them be in too great
a hurry to upset His arrangement in a tiff. If they do not like
their present and another opening suggests itself easily and
naturally, let them take that as a sign that they make a change;
otherwise, let them see to it that they do not leave the frying-pan
for the fire. A man, finding himself in the field of a profession,
should do as cows do when they are put into a field of grass. They
do not like any field; they like the open prairie of their ancestors.
They walk, however, all round their new abode, surveying the hedges
and gates with much interest. If there is a gap in any hedge they
will commonly go through it at once, otherwise they will resign
themselves contentedly enough to the task of feeding.
I am, Sir,
One who thinks he knows a thing or two about
ETHICS.
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