utmoſt punctuality. Let me beg of you to ſhake off the idle habits you have contracted; quit unprofitable company, and unſeaſonable recreation; and apply to your Compting-houſe with diligence.— It may not yet be too late to retrieve your affairs. Inſpect, therefore, your gains, and caſt up what proportion they bear to your expences; and then ſoe which of the latter you can, and which you cannot contract. Conſider, that when once a man ſuffers himſelf to go backward in the world, it muſt be an uncommon ſpirit of induſtry that retrieves him and puts him forward again.
Reflect, I beſeech you, before it be too late, upon the inconveniencies which an impoveriſhed trader is put to, for the remainder of his life, which, too, may happen to be the prime part of it; the indignities he is likely to ſuffer from thoſe whoſe money he has unthinkingly ſquandered; the contempt he will meet with from all, not excepting the idle companions of his folly; the injuſtice he does his family, in depriving his children, not only of the power of raiſing themſelves, but of living tolerably; and how, on the contrary, from being born to creditable expectations, he ſinks them into the loweſt claſſes of mankind and expoſes them to the moſt dangerous
