It is of the utmost importance to every one of you.

Let your next object be to obtain as soon as may be, a competency of the good things of this world; immense wealth is not necessary for you, and would but diminish your real happiness.

Abject poverty is and ought to be regarded as the greatest, most terrible of all possible evils.

It should be shunned as a most deadly and damning sin.

What then are the means by which so dreadful a calamity may be avoided?
I will tell you, my friends, in these simple words--hear and ponder on them; write them upon the tablets of your memory; they are worthy to be inscribed in letters of gold upon every door-post--"industry, prudence, and economy." Oh! they are words of power to guide you to respectability and happiness.