N00425:115
Addresses to old men, and young men, and little children. In three discourses ...…
Addresses to old men, and young men, and little children. In three discourses ... To which may be added, a short scriptural catechism, accommodated unto their capacities. / By Cotton Mather.
Boston: printed by R. Pierce for Nicholas Buttolph, 1690
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
The Dedication of The YOUNG MANS Glory:
To the Praying and Private Meetings of YOUNG PEOPLE in BOSTON.
More especially to two or three such Assemblies, in the North-part of the TOWN.
IT was an Observation long since made by a Renowned Ancient, That our Lord Jesus Christ •ave the most sensible and pathetic manifestations of his Love to the Youngest of his Disciples; and it is a common temper in the Owner of every Orchard, more particularly to take notice of a new Fruits appearing on a young •ree, then of much larger Quantities on a Tree of longer standing: It becomes me therefore to acknowledge it with a singular Affection, that there are in this poor Town so many scores of young persons, who having taken upon them a more serious profession of Religion, do endeavour to quicken & strengthen one another in it, by meeting together for the […] of Devotion every week; especially in ⟨p. 47⟩the Evening after the Sabbath, which is a spot of time too meanly and vainly and impertinently not to say perniciously, spent by multitudes in the midst of us. I count it not the smallest Happiness of my life that I have been for perhaps more […] a dozen years acquainted with some of those useful Meetings; as having in them had more than a little of my Education, and my Preparation, for my public Ministry. The sense of my Obligations to them, has caused me some while ago to ask their Acceptance of a little Book, Entitled, Early Piety Exemplified, and intended in a particular manner for their Edification; and for the same cause it is, that I now put into their hands another little Discourse, recommending unto them, A victory over the Wicked One; 'tis because I am desirous that in their Journey Heaven-wards, they may not prove like young Travellers, that at first gallop furiously, but soon tire, and come late or lame home at last; and that while they are upon the Road, they may not be thrown backwards by the Serpent in the way, the Adder in the path waiting for them.