But, then, unless he is better watched over than any young man
or young woman can well be in this world, that simplicity and
child-likeness and inexperience of his may soon become a fatal snare to
him. There is so much that is not simple and sincere in this world;
there is so much falsehood and duplicity; there are so many men abroad
whose endeavour is to waylay, mislead, entrap, and corrupt the simple-
minded and the inexperienced, that it is next to impossible that any
youth or maiden shall long remain in this world both simple and safe
also. My son, says the Wise Man, keep my words, and lay up my
commandments with thee. For at the window of my house I looked through
my casement, and beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the
youths, a young man void of understanding;--and so on,--till a dart
strike through his liver, and he goeth as an ox to the slaughter. And
so, too often in our own land, the maiden in her simplicity also opens
her ear to the promises and vows and oaths of the flatterer, till she
loses both her simplicity and her soul, and lies buried in that same
bottom beside Sloth and Presumption.
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