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    in objectless vacuity , with snatches , perhaps , of purposeless , desultory reading , I have seen the course of many a youth just preceding the period which was to place him as an apprentice to a trade , or pupil to a profession ; and what an ill preparation must he ever find such a course for the conflict of life in which he thenceforth engages ; how is it reversing the admirable plan of the Romans , whose soldiers exercised with arms much

    heavier than they would use in battle . It has been well said * that rust will eat what use does not wear / And woe to him whose youth has been subjected to the rust and corrosion of indolence and indifference ! At the call of the passions he will perhaps wake into temporary activity , and in those brief and inebriated intervals sow the fallow fields of his life with sorrows which he will probably reap in anguish and dishonour .

    I knew a Frenchman who , in speaking of his childhood , said , that whenever he asked his father for anything , he would reply , " I have not got it—let us try to make it ; " and to work they went . The individual in question , in after-life , though professionally a chemist and assayer of metals , was a most ingenious mechanic , and one of those who , in the many cases

    of accident and momentary privation which so often occur , could ever render the most ready and efficient aid , and always with great satisfaction to himself and others . This handiness is , in its way , the ready change which is valuable and current everywhere . Few are allowed the means ( however much they xnay have the will ) to found an hospital or endow a college , but every one may be made capable 01 those small social services ,

    of which it may be said , as of small rather than large benefactions , that if they command less admiration they ensure more gratitude * and wonderfully assist in cementing human relationship . I fancy , when Burchell helped the vicar ' s family in making their hay , he in no small degree secured himself the future harvest of Sophia ' s heart ; and the pieces of gingerbread with which he so often kindly stored his pockets were ever after sweet recollections to his future brothers-in-law , Dick and Bill ,

    outvying , probably , more important services rendered to their fortune . I remember a little fellow who , as soon as he could walk , used to be summoned every day to the store-room with "Come ,

    Arthur , come and be useful 1 " and the duty assigned him was to carry some trifle , such as a nutmeg , to the cook . Hence , whenever he felt weary of himself , his cry was , '' Want to be useful !" arid any employment , such as filling or emptying a box , made him happy * It appeared to me that the perception of an ultimate fAxn increased his pleasure—the conciousness of having done service , or helped to dp it , appealed to his self-respect , and gave him a feeling of sterling satisfaction .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 1, 1837, page unpag, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1828/page/53/