The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1867-02-07


HAB1T.-It has been truly said that habit
is second nature. Without consideration,
and almost unaware, we glide into certain
trains of thought and action, and by con-
slant recurrence to the same track habits
are formed which exert a controlling lnfu-
ence, for good or for evil, on des-
tiny. In early youth, even before the age
at which the duties Of life begin to make
demands upon us, this formation OF charac-
fer commences, and in some instances has
already made such progress as to demand
the most determined efforts to change It's
direction where it has been improperly in
augurated. A youth who studies care
fully and spends his leisure hours in read
ing and LAYING up a stock of useful infor-
nation: who eschews the company OF the
idle and the vicious, and seeks his amuse-
ment and recreation in the home circle, or
among the good and ~virtuous of his ac-
ouaintances, has already laid the tounda-
ton of the habits which, in his maturer
years, will give him rank and position In
the community.
After persistently following such a
course, from youth to manhood, it will be
as difficult for him to get rid of the habit
as it would be for one who has followed a
contrary way to quit his vicious practices
and return to the paths Of rectitude and
virtue. So surely as the former will be
able to secure honor and preferment by
his correct mode of life, so surely will the
other, from the crop of bad seed which he
has sown, reap nothing but disappolnt-
ment and sorrow. The main thing is to
begin right. You must understand that
habits are as easily formed as they are
firmly fixed that it is more difficult to get
rid of them after they have been formed
than it was to acquire them in the first in
stance, and that the longer they are fol-
lowed the more arduous will be the strug-
gle required to overcome them. 1t is most
important to learn that as you begin life,
so, in all probability, you will end it. Figs
will not grow from thistles, nor will for
tune and fame inure to him who enters
upon his career in pursuit of f~rivolity and
vice. He may think that as he gets older
he will give up such ~follies, but when it is
too, late he will find out that his bad habits
have become a part of his character, and
that the struggle to overcome them is be-
yond his strength.
How important is it then to the well
fare of all that they should begin life
Alright. Their future happiness and sue
cess depend upon it, and it is so easy to do
it-only resolve to enter upon no forbidden
paths, and to avoid the very first step
which leads to the formation Of bad habits.
1t is no difficult matter for one who has
never drank to refuse to drink; but, alas
how impossible is it for the poor drunkard
to forsake his cups, even though he knows
that death and poverty lie mingled with
the dregs, and that with Unsuitable thirst
he is rapidly swallowing them down. 1t is
no difficult matter to abstain from any vice
with which we have never come in con-
tact; but, oh! how with hooks of steel
they clamp you, when you have permitted
yourself to be drawn within the vortex Of
their baneful influence.
The only safety for the young is to begin
no habit which does not exert a healthy
and beneficial %ascendancy over their ply
steal and moral natures, for to fall into Vi
cious habits is as easy as sliding down an
inclined plane Of ice, while to reform them
is like climbing up the same plane when
you have once reached its ~'base.-PeterS-
burq Inder.