Martinsburg Gazette

NEVER TREAT RELIGION LIGHTLY.

Impress your minds with reverence for all that is sacred. Let no wantonness of youthful spirits, no compliance with the intemperate mirth of others, ever betray you into profane sallies. Besides the guilt which is thereby incurred, nothing gives a more odious appearance of petulance and presumption to youth than the affectation of treating Religion with levity. Instead of being evidence of a superior understanding, it discovers a pert and shallow mind, which, vain of the first smatterings of knowledge, presumes to make light of what the rest of mankind revere. And at the same time you are not to imagine that when you are exhorted to be religious, you are called upon to be more formal and solemn in your manners than others of the same years, or erect yourselves into supercilious reprovers of those around. The spirit of true Religion breathes gentleness and affability. It is social, kind, cheerful—far removed from that gloom and illiberal superstition which clouds the brow, sharpens the temper, dejects the spirit, and teaches men to fit themselves for another world, by neglecting the concerns of this.

Let your Religion, on the contrary, connect preparation for Heaven with honorable discharge of the duties of active life. Of such religion, discover, on every proper occasion, that you are not ashamed; but avoid making any ostentations of it before the world.