{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_64295/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_64295","id":"gutenberg_64295","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64295","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Young men -- Conduct of life"],"text":"[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n                                Young Men\n\n                          WM. GUEST, F. G. S.,\n                         REV. J. D. WELLS, D. D.\n\n                         American Tract Society\n                                New York\n\n\n\n\nTO\n\nGEORGE WILLIAMS, ESQ.\n\nTREASURER OF THE LONDON ASSOCIATION,\n\nAND\n\nTO THE VARIOUS MEMBERS OF THE YOUNG MEN\u2019S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS IN THE\nUNITED KINGDOM AND AMERICA:\n\n\nTo you I beg to offer the four following addresses\u2014they may be helpful\nin your service for young men. Thousands there are who watch your\nAssociations with deep and grateful interest. By some persons, it may\nbe, your aims are misunderstood. I have never learned that you condemned\nother literary and recreative associations; but you have felt that there\nwas room for one distinctively Christian. You do not frown on joy and\npastime; you do not disparage literary education; but you have not been\nashamed to avow that your object is to save young men from irreligion,\nand to promote among yourselves spiritual and Christian culture. To not\na few it therefore appears that not only are your associations among the\nvery noblest, but that they pre\u00ebminently meet the demand of these times.\nReading-rooms and opportunities for social enjoyment are doubtless most\ndesirable, but it is true piety that is the safety and mainspring of\nprosperity to a community.\n\nTo the best and most distinguished men of this era it seems that the\nstability and progress of the great Christian nations depend upon the\nmaintenance of Christianity in its integrity, and as honestly derived\nfrom the supernatural teaching of the New Testament Scriptures. We\nhave, however, come upon an age of the gravest perils. What has been\nthe spring-head and occasioner of these perils? This: Men have become\nestranged from intercourse with God, and from the thoughts of the holy\nand spiritual world. No longer living in believing relation to the Father\nof their spirits, they have lost the light whereby all things become\nluminous and harmonized. Three errors now lay straight in their path;\nand to one or other of these, according to temperament, they have been\ndrawn: materialistic worldliness, that inclines man\u2019s whole attentions\nto the interests, pleasures, and gains of the world of sense; scientific\natheism, whereby a small minority, happily, of scientific expounders\nattempt to bow God out of his universe, and to resolve all creation into\nspontaneous life and self-development; intellectual rationalism, that\nmakes man his own savior, denies sin and atonement, moral weakness and\nDivine grace. It would appear as if Satan\u2019s last and deadliest assault\nupon the hopes and progress of the race was to be the denial of the\nself-existent God. Assuredly, let the control of this belief go, and\nthis vital consciousness be lost, and the wide floodgates of iniquity\nand of lawlessness will be opened, and nothing can save millions from\nrelapsing into barbarism. Even Mr. Buckle has taught that a materialistic\nphilosophy led the way to the horrors of the French Revolution. At such\na time, then, as this, Christian associations, with objects so clearly\ndefined, and where arrangements are primary to secure intercourse with\nChrist and with a spiritual world, meet the deepest want of the age.\nMoreover, who so well as young men can work among the young? You know\nthe snare that is spread for their feet; \u201cthe cup that is poisoned\nand reached out for their hand; the eye that glares death which is\nfixed upon them in secret.\u201d Every good man must, therefore, wish you\nencouragement in your labor to save and ennoble your companions. You\nare blessing your country and your times. Your work will be fruitful\nand abide. Thousands who now do not understand you will afterwards\npour benedictions over your memories. You, in an age of speculative\nand moral dangers, will be held to have been benefactors. The days are\nsurely coming when above all other days men will be needed who, by their\nChristian enlightenment and sanctity, can impart steadiness and elevation\nto their times. Then the men to whom the age will turn will be men with\nhearts and understandings which have been animated by Christian faith. To\nsecure such a generation is your high aim. May God prosper your purpose\nand your devotion.\n\nTo you, then, I dedicate my little book, which attempts to portray some\nof the aspects of modern life, and some of the alarming and imperilling\ntemptations with which modern habits and modes of opinion are surrounding\nyoung men.\n\nThe first lecture was printed in a separate form; but as the whole\nedition has been disposed of, it has been thought better to let it now\nappear with the others.\n\n                                                                    W. G.\n\nLONDON: CANONBURY PARK.\n\n\n\n\nLIFE: HOW WILL YOU USE IT?\n\n\nThe following words are addressed to young men by one who, not very long\nago, was one of them. If they are serious and earnest, they are non the\nless sympathetic and brotherly.\n\nOn the mind of some thoughtful men there is the fear that England has\nseen her best days, that her sun is going down, and that a decline like\nthat of other great nations has begun. This is probably the language\nof mere pessimists. Albeit, even hopeful men have reason enough to be\nanxious. There is a frost of skepticism touching the young mind of\nEngland. There is a dread of enthusiasm which bodes ill. Young men stand\nin our great cities amid juggling expedients, glittering pretences,\nspecious deceits, unscrupulous graspings after wealth or position the\ntides of temptation flow fast around them; a high civilization has made\nwickedness very facile and seductive; veteran experts in vice are found\neverywhere, and the very streets are allowed to be fevered walks of\nlustful solicitations.\n\nIf England is to be saved and is to have a great future, it will be\nthrough her young men. They are the hope of society. A man, therefore,\nwho is indifferent to their moral dangers and welfare is no friend to his\ncountry. I will make, then, no apology while I speak to them earnestly of\ntheir life, and what it may be and can be. No doubt there are scores of\nempty and frivolous young men who can never be won to thoughtfulness. May\nGod help them; for the look-out that is before them is awful. But there\nare many of a different stamp, and may their Father and mine help me to\narticulate his yearning thoughts about them.\n\nMy brother, I am not about to speak to you of what belongs to others, nor\nmainly of the duties you owe to others; but of what you imperatively owe\nto yourself, and what emphatically belongs to you. You have an existence\nin which the grandest and the most terrific possibilities are wrapped up.\nLife has been given to you. What significance is in the word! Life, with\nits unknown treasures and vast capabilities; life, with all its resources\nand opportunities; life, with all its rich enjoyments and pleasurable\nunfoldings; life, endowed with consciousness and divine faculties; life,\nwhich beginning with the sweetness of infancy, and passing through the\nopen-heartedness of school days, can ripen into a beauty and strength\nand force of goodness which, through the long ages of immortality, will\nfind accessions of ever-augmenting felicity, power, and blissfulness.\nMy brother, when I discourse to you of the value of this transcendent\ngift of life, exaggeration is hardly possible. No language of men or\nangels can worthily set forth the full meaning of this gift. You, among\ncreatures, are obviously destined to rank with the noblest on the basest\nof beings; the elevation with which you come into the universe is the\nmeasure of the grandeur to which you may rise, or the degradation to\nwhich you may fall.\n\nThe question therefore comes, What do you intend to do with this your\nlife? You have come to an age when this question confronts you. You\nignore your rationality by evading it. The two paths of honor and\ndishonor are now before you: which do you intend to take? I put the\ninquiry in this form\u2014What will you do with your life?\u2014because millions\nof men have been ruined, not so much through wrong intention as through\nwant of thought. They have drifted into an evil course through a passive\nunthinkingness. It is not that they have resolved to do bad things,\nbut they have not resolved to do good ones. Instead of being masters\nof themselves, sad to say, they have not even belonged to themselves.\nOn their forehead might have been once written, \u201cWe are open to become\nthe possession of whatsoever shall make capture of us.\u201d Instead of\ncontrolling, they have been borne along by outward things, like a little\nboat in a dangerous stream, not carefully rowed and guided, but empty,\nand inviting any unskilled or wicked hand to become its master.\n\nThere are young men possessing all the capacities for a dignified and\nmanly conduct theirs, through the hard industry of others, are all the\nqualifications of education and competence. They are surrounded with\ncircles offering every facility to happiness and pure enjoyment. And what\ndo these young men do with all this wealth of possession? I will sketch a\nfew of the courses into which they permit themselves to be seduced. One,\njust out of his teens, affects a manly superiority; calls \u201cthe governor\u201d\nslow; orders his tailor to make garments in a \u201cfast\u201d fashion; cultivates\nan elegant beard; secures a massive chain, and if possible, a splendid\nring. His boots are a very important item to his manliness; and then what\ndeliberation upon the color of his gloves, and the flexibility of his\ncane! As he steps from the door of his plodding father, he puts a finish\nto his appearance by lighting a cigar, and with a hat \u00e0 la mode, walks\nout, a ready prey for the painted woman, and an advertisement for men on\nthe look-out for unsophisticated manhood. I do not say that a young man\nmay not have a gold chain, and trousers made in the height of fashion,\nif he likes\u2014there is no religion in not having these things; but for the\nsake of all that is manly, do not let a young man think that this is\nto make a worthy use of life\u2014to be a show thing to be looked at in the\nstreets.\n\nBut a young man may have higher aims; he may be somewhat literary in his\ntastes; may have studied rules of etiquette, and may select associations\nthat are irreproachable. He permits his vanity, however, to grow into\na chronic craving for admiration. He affects insensibility to attract\nattention; falls into the modern fashion of a supercilious apathy;\nlooks unimpassioned under the most eventful circumstances, and twirls\nthe points of his moustache with elegant _nonchalance_. Repudiating all\ndomestic and common interests, he becomes valueless to humanity. The most\nbeautiful emotions of man\u2019s nature become frigid. His self-absorption\ngrows into a conceit which relieves others from the duty of considering\nhim. He never blesses, is never blessed. Ineffective in youth, unloved in\nmanhood, he becomes testy and splenetic in old age, and dies at length\nunmissed and unmourned. And this is all he has made of a life that once\nbore so much of promise.\n\nThere is another, over whom my heart\u2019s affections linger with a longing\nsolicitude: I mean the clever and facetious young man. He has quick\nparts, can sing well, or give recitations; ever on the look-out for fun,\nhe heaps up accumulating stores of witticisms and repartee; and can\nrepeat in character, Mrs. Caudle, Mrs. Brown, or the newest offering of\nthis literary school. No circle of his friends is complete without him;\nthe evening party must be delayed if he is engaged; every body likes\nhim\u2014young men and ladies alike call him \u201csuch a good fellow.\u201d And there\nis much that is good in him\u2014his readiness and ability to make hours of\nrecreation brighter are not to be despised; but his kind-heartedness and\nendowments fit him for something grander than to be a man who merely\namuses society. He himself suffers loss; neglect of solid reading and of\nelevated thoughts lowers his own tone; the moral which he tacks on to the\nend of his recitation fails to clear the balance-sheet of his conscience\nin better hours; the very friends that he has charmed will seek another\nthan him in the important moments of their life. He will find himself set\naside ere long; his influence will die with the vivacity of youth; he has\nno acquirements that are cared for to carry into riper manhood; and then\nnothing is more revolting than the merely farcical and comic old man.\nThis is all _he_ has made of life; he has been the butterfly for sunny\nhours, and has gone out when sterner days came.\n\nWould that my descriptions might cease here; but the tale of failure has\nnot run out. There are young men with the pathway of honor open before\nthem, but who turn from it, and in pompous dash care for none of the\nthings that would make for their peace. Like dogs kept hungry, that their\nscent after the game may be keener and more impelling, they slip the\nleash of what they term their \u201cmother\u2019s apron-string,\u201d and burst upon\nlife with a dare-devil spirit that defies control. The shades of evening\nfind them prowling under the mask of darkness after every pernicious\ngratification. Their imaginations have been polluted with the vile\nliterature secretly circulated. From the dice or billiard-table they go\nto the lighted hall, where prostitutes decked in fine apparel mingle in\nthe waltz and ply their miserable arts, and thence to the house where I\nwill not follow, and of which the Scriptures say, that \u201cis the way to\nhell, going down to the chambers of death.\u201d\n\nA young man in a London warehouse was solicited to spend such a night as\nI have glanced at. He refused. \u201cWhat a fool you are to be so dull,\u201d said\nthe tempter. \u201cWe\u2019ll wait a while and see who is the fool,\u201d said the young\nman. In ten years\u2019 time the tempter was in a dishonored grave, and the\nother was rising to affluence.\n\nYou young men who sneer at religion as weakness and call godliness\nhypocrisy, it is you who are the hypocrites. You have risen many a\nmorning after a night of sin, and have felt how satiety and loathing were\nmaking deep footprints in your nature. You have seen the shamelessness\nand hollowness of wickedness, and have been too cowardly to say that you\nsaw it. You have laughed at virtue while you were bearing agonies in your\nflesh which were horrible and indescribable. In ten years the tempter I\nhave spoken of was in his grave; and if the brief life and dreadful end\nof thousands of young men in England could be portrayed, it would be the\nmost awful tragedy ever told. Men would be horrified as they read it, and\nthe ghastly memory would haunt them for years. Ah, men do not know it.\nThese young men go from the great cities to die in country homes, or they\nlie solitary in the upper chambers of lodging-houses in back streets.\nAngel sisters are kept from sights which they could not comprehend.\nNurses shrink from the foul and loathsome atmosphere. And this is what\nthey have made of life\u2014a murdered manhood; not living out half their\ndays: a past all loss, a future all blackness. Oh, where are our tears\nif they do not fall over numbers who are dying every day in such chambers\nand with such demons of remembrance?\n\nI have read somewhere of an eagle in the Far West. Soaring with steady\nwing, he saw far below him the grand scenes of American nature, clothed\nin the first snows of early winter. As he rose higher towards the blue\nheaven, his keen eye saw floating on the distant river, whose margin\nwas already frost-bound, the carcass of a huge buffalo. He paused in\nhis upward flight; descended to settle and revel on this feast of\ncorruption. He was borne calmly down the stream towards the fall and the\nrapids which lay below. Gorged with his foul meal, with drooping wing\nand dormant energies, he slept on the f\u0153tid mass, and amid the oozing\nputrefaction. The blood, stiffened by the frost, bound his feet to the\nremains of the carcass; and onwards was he borne until the roar of the\ncataract thundered on his ear. He struggled for liberty; his powers had\nbeen enfeebled with satiety; his drooping wings were bound to the frozen\nblood; his wild cries awoke the echoes; he made frantic efforts to throw\noff his horrid companion; looked up to the blue heaven he had abandoned.\nIt was too late: hurried over the rapid, he was sucked into the boiling\ncataract, and dashed to destruction on the rocks beneath. How does such\nan illustration find its analogy in human life! \u201cHis own iniquity,\u201d\nsaith the Scripture, \u201cshall take the wicked himself, and he shall be\nholden with the cords of his sins.\u201d There is a deep and awful mystery\nin the downward progress of souls, when he who once was the master of\nsin becomes the \u201cslave of sin.\u201d Alas, there are scores of men in every\nneighborhood who would give all they have to begin life again. There was\na time when they never intended to be vicious; but step by step they\nlowered themselves. Shame, truth, self-respect died. The lower elements\nof their nature first were freely indulged, then became importunate, then\nexacting, then domineering, then uncontrollable.\n\nDear young man, the pride of a mother, the hope of a father, with an\nintensity of yearning love I conjure you to pause ere you go into the\nway of sinners. If your feet have turned aside, retrace, I beseech you,\nyour steps. Your strong \u201cI will\u201d now, may, through God\u2019s mercy, turn you\nfrom the pit of infamy. But soon weaker will be your will, dimmer your\nsense of moral beauty, more desperate your passions, till at length you\nwill feel bound, and then find yourself borne over the rapids a lost and\nhelpless wreck.\n\nBut our view of life demands other considerations than those that relate\nto time and personal dishonor. It is a grand thing to live. A thousand\ntimes have I blessed God for this great gift of life. But it is serious\nalso. Life has its _responsibilities_. Influence, like all things else,\nis imperishable. Nothing perishes. The leaves of autumn do not perish;\nthey enrich the earth. The fuel of our fires sends curling upwards its\nlight smoke, which bears its properties for other uses. The broken\nfragments of the mountains, through torrent and tempest, nourish plants\nand renovate the earth. Not an act you perform, not a word you speak,\ncan wholly perish. It was probably this that Jesus Christ meant when he\nspoke of the idle words for which we shall give account at the day of\njudgment; that is, our words which go from us as light as air may be\nmaking others better or worse, and carrying forward their consequences to\nthe judgment. Sin is imperishable. Sin, like the soul, has immortality\nstamped on it: when once done, _it cannot be undone_. Even a saved man\u2019s\nsins are imperishable in the consequences. David, the king of Israel,\nsinned; alas, how pitilessly! He repented, and poured out a psalm of\ncontrition that has ever since been the liturgy of humbled souls, and\nevery verse of which seems vocal with a groan; but he could not undo\nthe sin. In his own days the enemies of truth blasphemed through him,\nand since that time, in every generation, wicked men have encouraged\nthemselves in wickedness because of that great crime, and the atheist has\nbarbed his arrow in the blood of that murder. Voltaire, when he came to\ndie, longed that his blasphemies against Christ should be expunged from\nhis writings. Ah, he wished what was impossible. His errors led to all\nthe horrors of the French Revolution, and have shattered the peace of\nthousands since. A drunkard may obtain forgiveness; but his example may\nhave taught his own son to brutalize himself. A young man may turn away\nfrom the evil courses he followed; but he may leave the silly youth whom\nhe first tempted to go floating down to the bottomless pit.\n\nThere is a thought that often appals me. It is nothing, as it seems,\nfor the seducer to play upon innocence, to instil poison into her sweet\naffections and her maidenly instincts. He has done, as he thinks, a manly\nthing when he has crumpled up the beautiful flower of her chastity, and\nleft it to be fouled in the mire. Ah, hard is the father\u2019s shame and the\nbrother\u2019s scorn she bears. Cold are the streets that she treads at night,\nand lonely is the garret where she soon lies down to die. What cares he?\nPerhaps in a beautiful home he has forgotten her and her child. His turn\ncomes at length to die. If conscience puts in a reminder, he calls the\ndeed an \u201cindiscretion\u201d of his youth, which signifies little. O man, it\n_shall_ signify; as sure as there is a God in heaven, thou shalt meet\nagain that lost one to whom thou didst open the door of shame, of infamy,\nand of ruin. Her own lips shall tell thee how thou didst help to put out\nin her all that is pure, and to send her into the streets an outcast. It\n_shall_ signify; that child of neglect shall claim thee as its father\u2014an\nunerring finger shall point it to thee. Before God and holy angels it\nshall tell thee of its bare infant feet on snowy street-flags, of night\nwatchings at omnibus steps, and of the ignorance, and wretchedness, and\nfoul examples, through which its struggling life was passed, and which\nleft it no chance of virtue. From thee it shall demand account of those\npaternal duties which thou didst incur and didst never discharge. Yes, it\nshall signify. Oh, there is a solemn irony of Scripture when it saith,\n\u201cRejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the\ndays of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thy heart, and in the sight\nof thine eyes; _but know thou, that for all these things God will bring\nthee into judgment. Therefore remove the cause of sorrow from thy heart,\nand put away evil from thy flesh_.\u201d[1]\n\nWould that my address to young men could be in a happier and more joyous\ntone. But life has such a tragic side to multitudes in our epoch, that\nI am compelled to deal with the causes of this failure and misery. It is\nimperative that the ground be cleared of the hinderances before I can\noffer, in subsequent lectures, the stimulus and encouragement. One other\nreflection, therefore, on account of its infinite import, I am bound\nto present. This brief existence of yours, my brother, is giving the\ncoloring to immortality. The endless life beyond the grave will take its\ncharacter from what you are now. You are the child of eternity; you have\nnow your time of probation; you have your one earthly life to live, and\nupon what you make it will depend all that will follow through the ages\nof immortality. Every sinful habit you form here may cling like a leprosy\nto the soul there; every depraved passion you nourish here may perpetuate\nits black defilement there. \u201cThe child is father to the man,\u201d saith the\nproverb. A young man of sense knows that he will be as a master what he\nmade himself as an apprentice; and as a man, what he made himself as a\nyouth. He knows, too, that character is not built up by one or two, but\nby the constant series of actions. So the daily thoughts and acts of your\nearthly life are forming your character for the vast existence of which\nyou are an heir, and which lies beyond the grave.\n\nThe late Archbishop Whately, in some annotations on Lord Bacon\u2019s second\nessay, has mentioned a very remarkable phenomenon connected with\ninsect-life, and has recorded that it often occurred to him as a very\nimpressive analogy of a future state. You know that every butterfly\u2014the\nGreek name for which, it is remarkable, is the same that signifies also\nthe soul, Psyche\u2014comes from a caterpillar\u2014in the language of naturalists,\ncalled a larva, which signifies, literally, a mask. Now there is a tribe\nof insects called ichneumon-flies, which inhabit and feed on these larv\u00e6.\nThe parasitical flies have a long, sharp sting, which pierces the body of\nthe caterpillar, and whereby they deposit their eggs on the inward parts\nof their victim. But, strange to say, the caterpillar thus attacked goes\non feeding, and apparently thriving quite as well as those that have\nescaped. But when the period arrives for the close of the larva-life,\nthen the evil is made manifest. Caterpillars assume the pupa-state from\nwhich they emerge butterflies; and it is then that the difference appears\nbetween those that have escaped the parasites and those that were the\nvictims of them. Beautiful and awful analogy! There are many who, as to\nthe outside, look like other men. They dress well, look well. The sin is\npreying only on their immortal part; and when they have laid aside that\nwhich merely belonged to their physical life, then the soul shall stand,\nwith all its poverty and scars and shrivelled places, naked and open.\n\u201cThe kingdom of heaven is within you,\u201d said Christ to his followers; and\nso are the elements of hell in other men.\n\nProdigious is the inconsistency of some modern reasoners. They believe in\nthe immortality of the soul. They see that the man is the development of\nthe boy, and that the acts of the youth leave their impress on the whole\nafter-life. They say law is inflexible, and that miracles therefore\nare impossible. They affirm that justice is so exact that its penalty\nmust fall on its proper victim, and that therefore Christ\u2019s death is not\nvicarious. But somehow at this point all their reasoning falls to pieces.\nAccording to them, man in the future life is not to be dealt with after\nthis inflexibility of law and this exactness of justice. According to\nthem, up to the moment of death law goes in a straight, unbending line;\nwhy then, in the name of all pretence of reason, does it fail at that\npoint, so that wickedness, which has met with its exact punishment in\nthis world, fails to meet with it in that coming one? Dear young man,\nfearlessness as to what that future may be is stark madness. It is folly\nfor which there is no name, for a man all through his earthly life to\nbear the traces of the indolence and self-willedness of his youth. But\noh, what must it be for all the future and eternal life to bear the\ntraces of the wrongs that have been done to the soul in this? What must\nit be for all the possible features with which the soul entered on this\nlife\u2014truth, purity, love, faith\u2014not only to have lain undeveloped, but\nto have been quenched? Let me conjure and entreat you to look at this\nsubject. Do not, for the sake of all that is dear to you, close your eyes\nto it. Let the great future take its right place as you are starting in\nlife. Be assured that the language of Scripture concerning those that\nhave perished is prompted by God\u2019s yearning for your immortal well-being,\nwhile it accords with all the analogies of creation: \u201cFor that they hated\nknowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord, _therefore shall they\neat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices_.\u201d\n\nCome then, young men, and let me persuade you to a worthy view of life.\nGod meets you as you read these words, and offers to be the guide of\nyour human life. The good God did not send you into his creation to\nbe afterwards an accursed thing in the outer darkness. This life of\nyours, with its endowments and capabilities, may become a sublime and\ninfluential life\u2014a blessed ascendency, a tower of strength to men,\nregnant in all that is majestic, angelic, and godlike. Hear how Divine\ncounsel speaks to you: \u201cHow long, ye simple ones, will ye love folly?\nTurn you at my reproof: _behold, I will pour out my Spirit upon you; I\nwill make known my words unto you_.\u201d Nor will life thus passed be too\nearnest to be happy. Yours will be the happiness\u2014not of animal enjoyments\nmerely, not purchased with stabbing your self-respect, not followed with\nthe heart-sobs of those who love you, but of one who is bringing into use\nthe higher and diviner faculties of your nature. Your intelligence will\nbe fed by knowledge, your soul will be ennobled by purity, your tastes\nwill be in harmony with sweet sounds and beauty, your conscience will\nbe kept in peace, and your heart\u2019s emotions will have play in ways that\nleave no bitterness, but ofttimes swell into rapture. Believe me, the\nonly thing that can give meaning and glory to your life is, to resolve\nmost resolutely that you will not be enslaved, will not be degraded,\nwill not be plunged into the mire and foulness of sin, but will live\naccording to a life-plan of real nobleness. Remember, no one can do this\nfor you. Your life is in your own hands; and God has so placed you\namong creatures, that _He_ will not do you saving good _without your\nconsent_. You may be a poor waif on the winds of temptation, drifted to\nwhatever abyss of destruction they hurry you; or you may be a son of God,\nvictorious over sin, ranking with the earth\u2019s great ones, and followed\nwith blessings. And then, and then, when the final issue comes, and you\nlie down to die, instead of regrets, yours may be the solid satisfaction\nthat your life, from its very morning, has been consecrated to the\nside of goodness; and then, instead of a place with the wicked and the\nscorners, you may go into a heaven for which you are prepared, and into a\nlife of glorious felicity that is to come, and into which you have been\ninitiated down here.\n\nBlessed be God, there is a short way to the life I recommend. There\nare two steps by which you may enter it. Obtain, first, forgiveness\nfor the sins of the past. God offers you all the merits of Christ\u2019s\natoning sacrifice. Through that great sacrifice he will receive you, and\n_remember_ your sins no more. In the blessed book, in every variety of\nform, in every glowing and rich expression, are you assured that pardon\nshall be granted to a repentant soul. Young man, this is the first step.\nBelieve, and drop your burden of the sins of the past. Start a free man.\n\nThis is the second step: offer your life gratefully, lovingly, to the\nFriend and Saviour of your soul. Ask for his Spirit to help you: his ear\nwill be swift to hearken. This love to him will make his yoke easy, will\nmake the cross light, will make life to have a magnificent meaning, will\nmake sorrow to wear a friendly guise, will break the force of temptation,\nwill make sin the hateful thing. This will cause your feet to find \u201cpeace\nand pleasantness\u201d on the path of life, till you reach the mansions where\nthe golden gates shall be thrown open for you, and the angels shall tell\nyou they have been waiting to welcome you.\n\nBrother, will you try this life?\n\n\n\n\nSKEPTICAL DOUBTS: HOW YOU MAY SOLVE THEM.\n\n\nMy object in this address is, to relieve the doubts on religious\nsubjects which meet a young man on setting out in life. Such doubts have\nbeen very common. Nor is it to be wondered at. With some, to doubt is\nconstitutional. They are not able to give easy credence to any tidings.\nWith others, the very stupendousness of religious subjects causes the\nmind to pause in doubtfulness; the revelations of Christianity are so\ntranscendent, that thought wavers before their very grandeur. There may\nbe doubt, yet again, from those appalling miseries of human life which it\nis the mission of Christianity to heal; and no less from the strangely\nunchristian lives of Christian men. All such doubts are to be treated\ntenderly. There are thousands of such doubters among young men at this\nhour; and they are not to be denounced, but helped.\n\nOn the other hand, you will, I trust, agree with me, that there is\na pretence of doubting which is the simple outgrowth of flippant\nindifference or conceit. We hear Tennyson quoted, that there \u201clives\nmore faith in honest doubt, than that in half the creeds.\u201d Let me,\nhowever, remind you, that Mr. Tennyson did not mean _resting_ in doubt;\nhe meant an \u201chonest doubt,\u201d that was bent upon inquiry, and was open to\nconviction. He therefore speaks in this same passage of one:\n\n    \u201cHe fought his doubts, and gathered strength;\n      He would not make his judgment blind;\n      He faced the spectres of his mind,\n    And laid them: thus he came at length\n\n    \u201cTo find a stronger faith his own,\n      And power was with him in the night\n      Which makes the darkness and the light,\n    And dwells not in the light alone.\u201d[2]\n\nObserve, a great character is not built up by doubting. There is\nweakness, not strength, in doubts. Nor is it necessarily a mark of\nintelligence to doubt. Any scanty mind may doubt, just as a fool may hold\na penny-piece to his eye, and say he has hidden the sun. On the subject\nof Christianity, there is a very common mistake which I would guard you\nagainst. Christian faith is not a mere assent to an orthodox creed; not a\nmere acceptance of a speculative system of opinion. Christian faith is a\nthing of will, of ingenuousness, of candor, and of loyalty. The unbelief\nthat will be visited with judgment at the last day is, the wilful,\nstubborn, uncandid, prevaricacious, unpersuadable unbelief. Easiness of\ntemper does not make a just man; no more does easiness of credence make a\nbelieving man.\n\nConceiving then that you are honestly anxious to arrive at truth, I will\nendeavor in this address to meet some of the difficulties which once\nperplexed my own mind. _The being of God_, or the mystery attaching to\nthe Divine existence, not unnaturally disturbs the mind upon the very\nthreshold of religious inquiry. Assuredly a God eternal, all-knowing, and\neverywhere present is a mystery; but to stand in the midst of a universe\nwith endless marks of a designing hand, and to say there is no God, would\nbe a greater and more appalling mystery. Lord Bacon says: \u201cI had rather\nbelieve all the fables of the Talmud and Koran than that this universal\nframe is without a mind.\u201d May you not exaggerate this difficulty? Have\nyou not the image of God in nature? Look at the light of the sun. It\nsends its rays through every cottage, every stream, and over every\nliving thing, and yet it never contracts a stain, and takes no soil.\nIt awakens the germs of life in organic nature, and they emerge in an\nendless variety of forms; it clothes the forests with a robe of verdure,\npaints the fields with countless flowers, and calls forth the song of\nthousands of birds. It unchains from their icy bands the mountain-snows,\nand sends myriad rills to make music through the valleys. It makes the\ngladness of childhood, and cheers the gloom of age. At the same time, it\ncan photograph every mental emotion and every change of moral feeling.\nNo subtlety can deceive it; it pierces beyond the false look; it images\nthe character with startling justice. It is no labor to the sun to do\nthis. Endow this sun with mind; conceive that its rays not only pervade\nand photograph every object, but do so consciously. Have you not here an\nemblem of Him who takes this image of light?\n\nLet me, my friend, guard you against the young man who whispers in your\near that he does not believe in God. You will mostly find one of two\nthings\u2014either that the creed of the atheist has been adopted by him\nwithout two hours\u2019 reflection on the matter, or is an after-thought to\nmake him comfortable in sin. How unreasonable would a man appear to\nyou who should have come home from the Paris exhibition of industry,\naffirming that the edifice itself, its pictures, fountains, and manifold\nproducts were the falling together of chance, or self-developed. But he\nwould be wise in comparison with the man who should see the myriad proofs\nof design in the atmosphere, the soils, the foliage, and his own frame,\nand affirm that there was no Almighty Designer. Out of ten thousand\nproofs equally remarkable, let me mention one or two. Think of the egg\nof a bird, so made that wherever it is placed the chick shall float\nuppermost, so as to be near the warm bosom of its mother. Think of the\nadaptation of the camel to its life in the desert. Its feet, not like the\nhoofs of a horse, but cushioned with elastic pads, that do not sink into\nthe sand, but spread over it; its stomach set round with water-sacs, from\nthe supplies of which it can journey for days without coming to fresh\nwater; its eyes overhung with eyebrows, and nostrils that can be firmly\nclosed, whereby it is not incommoded with either the hot sand-clouds or\nthe glare of the desert. Think of a gulf-stream, sixty miles broad and\nthree thousand feet deep, which comes from the tropics every winter,\nwhich secures an equable temperature for the fishes, and prevents the\nseas at Stockholm and Norway from becoming a block of ice. While this is\nso, there is a polar current which rises in Greenland, and hastens to\ncool the tropics. These are single evidences of design out of millions.\nAnd these myriad evidences in the heavens and earth, in every bird and\ninsect, every flowering shrub and blade of grass justify the assertion\nthat a man is a \u201cfool\u201d who says there is no God. I indeed admit to you\nthat, to men oppressed with sin and darkness, it is difficult to know and\ntrust God as the Creator. His immeasurable vastness seems to place him\nfar from us; but I shall soon show to you that God is made known to his\ncreatures through Christ. He who has not thought it unworthy to unfold\nto man in the heavens the magnificence of his works, has not thought it\nunworthy of himself to win back his creatures\u2019 obedience and love by\nsending his Son as a man. Christ has interpreted God to us. We understand\nGod in him. We know how to seek him, to find him, to trust him, to love\nhim.\n\nAfter the existence of God, that of _an immortal spirit_, possessed by\nevery human being, lies at the basis of all religion. The argument would\nbe too metaphysical to prove here the immortality of the soul. I can only\nsuggest to you one or two considerations. There has been a universal\nconsent among the wisest philosophers of all times and nations, that the\nsoul remains after the body. \u201cThe consent of all,\u201d said Cicero on this\nsubject, \u201cis the voice of nature.\u201d Observe also, that it is by the soul\nwe know of the existence of a universe. All sensation is the recognition\nof effects on our senses, but that recognition is through consciousness\nor mind. Note also, that the body changes, but the spirit remains. A man\nmay lose his hands or eyes, and the loss may have no effect whatever on\nthe soul. Consider again, that matter never perishes. If there is one\naxiom in philosophy that is certain, it is this, that while particles\nof matter may pass into new combinations, they never cease to have\nexistence. You may well, then, ask with Dr. Young:\n\n                          \u201cCan it be,\n    Matter immortal, and shall spirit die?\n    Above the nobler shall less noble rise?\n    Shall man alone, for whom all else revives,\n    No resurrection know? Shall man alone,\n    Imperial man, be sown on barren ground,\n    Less privileged than grain on which he feeds?\u201d\n\nObserve once more on this subject, there are manifold proofs that the\nsoul has in this state only the dawn of its being. The animals reach\nperfection in a few years but men, at death, are only beginning to use\ntheir faculties. The principle of thought, reason, and hope within them\nhas here only glimpses, outreachings, and aspirations of a higher life.\nAre not these yearnings, this sense of incompleteness, prophecies of a\nfuture life? Our lives here are not the tones of perfect harmony, but\nrather like stringed instruments being attuned for celestial melody. And,\nalas, what inequalities, what sufferings, what wrongs have some to endure\nhere that _require_ another state for vindication and rectification also!\nIf, therefore, you find one argument against the immortality of the soul,\nyou will readily find a hundred for it.\n\nA further source of doubt is, _a false impression respecting holy\nscripture_. You may have thought that the Bible, being called a\nrevelation from God, would be like a book written in heaven, and\naltogether different from human works. But, in infinite wisdom and\nmercy, this has not been God\u2019s mode of revelation. He has condescended\nto reveal his mind through the history, the follies, the virtues, the\nsins, and struggles of men. This history is both human and superhuman.\nIt is human, for the men who wrote it carried into it the peculiarities\nof their age and their culture. It is superhuman, for it truly and\nfaithfully tells the dealings of God with the first races of men, and\nafterwards through Christ.\n\nIn the Old Testament history you have records of men who lived in an\nearlier and ruder period of humanity; but the writing or the compilation\nof these records has been controlled so as to teach the awfulness of sin,\nthe safety of righteousness, and the faithfulness of Jehovah. Dreadful\nis it to be told of the incest of Lot; but it is merciful that we have a\njustification of the warnings against the licentious nations of Moab and\nAmmon, whose origin is thus narrated. It is painful to follow the history\nof Saul, but it is merciful that we have such a vivid picture of the\nmiserable fruits of a self-love that poisoned otherwise noble impulses.\nThrough all the records of men in the Old Testament, you are taught, as\nin the life of Jacob, that every wrong act has a seed of evil in it,\nwhose bitter fruits the doer has to eat, and that God\u2019s providence is\nperpetually controlling the good and the evil for the education of men\nand of nations.\n\nLook at the book of Psalms, the liturgy of prayers and praises for all\nages, the sacred ballads for humanity. There is much that is human in\nthese Psalms; but if God had sent down to us songs composed by the\nangels, they would have been valueless by the side of those in this\nincomparable book. While I am in this world of fierce temptation, of\nsuffering, and of moral weakness, what I want is, not so much angelic\nmusings and raptures, as the prayers of a man tempted, struggling,\nsuffering, fallen as I am; and yet a man ever reaching with such sobs\nof penitence and intense heart-cries after God. I mourn David\u2019s sin and\nsufferings, but I feel grateful that the Scriptures have preserved to\nme his Psalms, which interpret the fiercest beatings of my heart, the\nlowliest confessions of my moral besetments, and the deepest aspirations\nof my nature.\n\nLook again at the epistles of the New Testament: you have here the\nrecords of churches which fell, some into one error, others into\nanother. But these errors are such as are common to humanity. Admirable,\ntherefore, is the wisdom whereby inspired doctrines and consolations are\nconveyed, not in any abstract method, but in their relation to the very\ntendencies of our nature. Your objection, therefore, to the Bible, that\nit is so human, is from an utterly mistaken impression of the mode in\nwhich revelation could be best made to men, and from forgetfulness of its\ndeep, profound, and most precious adaptation to human life.\n\nAnd here I cannot help adverting to the moral unfairness of infidelity.\nIn a recent conference of working-men, one of them told the meeting\nthat the history of the fall of man, in the second chapter of Genesis,\nwas so improbable that he rejected all which came after. Perhaps the\nnarrative is improbable to a mind intensely literal, unused to eastern\nmodes of thought, and which cannot find the truth under those partially\nallegorical representations which most effectually teach the vast bulk of\nthe human race. The same objections are urged against the sun standing\nstill in the book of Joshua, and to the history of Jonah. I am not going\nto reply to these objections. Infidels do not want a reply. If they did,\nthey would find scores. But what shall be said of the candor of a man\nwho, because of such objections, rejects the Old Testament, which abounds\nin passages of the tenderest sympathy for the poor and for the suffering,\nwhich demands the most exact rectitude between man and man, and which\ntaught a morality in those early days to which there is nothing at all\napproaching in the annals of Egypt, Greece, and Rome? Let me recommend\nyou to turn to Leviticus 19:9, 10; Deuteronomy 24:13, 19-22.\n\nSee how the slavery of the nations was mitigated among the Hebrews\nby the enforcement of the principle\u2014which the Grecian and Roman law\ndenied\u2014that it was the duty of the master to treat his servants as men,\nto instruct them in his own religion, and to count them members of his\nhousehold. Shame on men who have in the Bible such consideration for the\ntoilers and such rebukes of oppressors, but who ignore all this, and\nhold up the Old Testament to scorn because of one or two difficulties\nto _their_ understanding.[3] Nothing so loudly proclaims that such\ninfidelity is not a thing of \u201chonest\u201d doubt, but of a bad mind and of a\nbad heart. Difficulties there are in the Bible. I have studied most of\nthose difficulties, and confess with gratitude that they have one by one\ndisappeared. This I doubt not will be the case with them all. But to me\nit seems that I should deserve the contempt of man and the indignation\nof my Maker, if because of these difficulties, in times so remote and\nin usages so different from modern customs, I set aside the book which\ntells me of God\u2019s profound interest in my race, which reveals my relation\nto a spiritual world, which has purified the lives and pacified the\nconsciences of millions, and which has made just and considerate their\ntreatment of others.\n\n_Miracles_ which bear witness to divine revelations are made an occasion\nfor doubt by some. Let us examine this objection candidly. Why are\nmiracles not believed? \u201c_They contradict experience._\u201d A few years ago\nM. Boutigny, at a meeting of the British Association, caused ice to be\nproduced from a red-hot crucible. Surely this contradicted experience.\n\u201c_They are incredible to reason._\u201d So is the fact that the sea once\ncovered the beds of sea-shells on the tops of the highest mountains.\n\u201c_The enemies of Jesus attributed miracles to magic._\u201d The very proof\nthey were wrought; else they would have denied the facts, and not\nresorted to this pretence. \u201c_They are impossible, for they suspend\ninflexible laws of nature._\u201d To this modern objection I reply, there are\nno laws of the universe except the direct agency of God. If, then, he\ninterposes to arrest a subject-law, there is no suspension of the law\nof nature; the supreme law is still in operation. For example: By the\ninflexible law of gravitation, a ball dropped from the top of a tower\nfalls to the earth. But suppose a man catches it in his hand, is the law\nof gravitation suspended? Not at all. A controlling law is brought into\noperation, to which, that law is obedient. Thus you have the agency of\nGod in miracles. Do not, I implore you, be swayed by writers who find it\nthe easiest of all things to multiply objections when they are utterly\nindifferent about finding replies. Remember that in the first ages\nmiracles must have been worked, else Christianity, with the tremendous\nsacrifices it demanded, could not have gained a footing in the earth,\nmuch less have changed the religion of the Roman empire. Gibbon tried his\nstrength to dispute this, but never did a man so signally fail.\n\nAn exaggerated estimate of the _strength of literary skepticism_ has been\nanother source of doubt in these days. There are three writers especially\nto whom this remark applies. The first is Dr. Colenso. He was believed\nto be a learned theological scholar. Never was an estimate more false;\nnever did a more pedantic theologian take pen in hand. What pretensions\nhad such a man to be a guide, who more recently tried to prove that\nthere were no accredited prayers to Christ in the Bible, nor in the\nPrayer-book, nor in the Presbyterian Psalter? Thirty-four instances\nof direct prayer to Christ were at once pointed out in the Psalter;\nmore than twelve prayers to the Saviour were quoted as sanctioned by\napostolic practice in the New Testament, and passages of prayer to the\n\u201cLamb of God\u201d were appealed to in the Liturgy. If young men are to doubt,\nlet not a literary blunderer like this have weight with them. At the time\nthat the bishop of Natal\u2019s work came out, a gentleman was commiserated on\nthe alleged overthrow of the Bible. \u201cThe Scriptures will be extinguished\nnow,\u201d said the man of the world. The shrewd Yorkshireman replied: \u201cWell,\nyou see I have lived long enough to hear many prophecies of this nature;\nbut the extinguisher has always been a wooden one, which the light has\nburnt through.\u201d My friend\u2019s figure has remarkably come true. Dr. Colenso\nhad a reputation as an arithmetician; but this has well nigh gone, and\nhis theological books are marked sixpence on back book-stalls.\n\nIn like manner have the two other critics failed to get into the world\u2019s\nthought. Some years ago, Dr. Strauss sent forth a so-called \u201cLife of\nJesus.\u201d The greater part of the gospel narratives were resolved into\nmyths. More recently another edition came out, and facts which in the\nfirst edition were called fabulous were now given as veritable history.\nIs the \u201ccritical faculty\u201d of such a man a safe guide to young men?\n\nLater still, M. Renan, acknowledging that it was impossible to doubt the\nsubstantial genuineness of the gospels and the Acts of the Apostles,\npresumed to patronize Christ and Christianity. And what was his\nconclusion? Do not start when I tell you: The Frenchman professes to\nbelieve that thousands of the most bigoted Jews, and of enlightened\nGreeks and Romans, renounced the venerable institutions of their fathers\nand embraced a religion which demanded the severest sufferings and\nsacrifices, because a woman under a love-spell of hallucination had\n_fancied_ she had seen a young Galilean rabbi alive who was really dead!\nJust conceive what would now be the effect on Europe of a new religion\nwhose fundamental fact had such puerile support. Why was it different on\neducated Romans? Do not say I am deceiving you when I tell you that M.\nRenan professes to believe that the apostle Paul abandoned prejudice,\nstation, privilege, prospects, and braved scorn, appalling sufferings,\nand a martyr\u2019s death, because he had been frightened in a thunder-storm!\nTalk about credulity, was there ever credulity like this? Alas, what\nmonstrous absurdities will men believe rather than the plain testimony of\nScripture! Woe to the dupes of a literary skepticism which changes its\ncreed every five years!\n\nIt may be in addressing you, my friend, on the spirit of doubt which\ntaints and enfeebles this age, that you have been influenced by what\nis deemed _the attitude of scientific men_ towards Christianity. A\nflagrant and most mischievous impression is abroad that scientific men\nin our times are infidels. Very confidently do I affirm that it is not\nso. I have attended meetings of learned societies in London, and of the\nBritish Association in the country, and have heard these meetings spoken\nof as atheistic, when out of hundreds of scientific men there were not\na dozen whose language could have justified such an imputation. Such\ndistinguished leaders of science as Professor Owen, Professor Phillips\nof Oxford, and Sir Roderick Murchison, would indignantly repudiate the\ncharge of seeking to undermine the faith of England in Christianity;\nand in this they would have the sympathy of an overwhelming majority of\nscientific men in the British Isles. Your danger is not so much in the\nfacts science has established, as in the false notions which have been\ncaught up of these facts. A scientific discussion would be beside the\nobject of this address; but note these accordances between one science\nand the Bible: Scripture affirms the late date of man upon the earth; so\ndoes geology\u2014Sir C. Lyell says, \u201cNo discovery has shaken our belief in\nthe extremely modern date of the human era.\u201d Scripture teaches that the\nworld was once covered by water; so does geology: \u201cIt is concluded as a\nfundamental maxim in geology,\u201d says Professor Phillips, \u201cthat the whole\narea now occupied by dry land was once covered by sea.\u201d Scripture teaches\nthat God made the dry land to appear; and geology affirms that the\nrocks, or dry land, have been upheaved from the waters. Scripture teaches\nthat the beasts were created after their kind; that is, each group made\nup of a number of species; so does geology. The Bible, written for an\nunscientific age, has thus these marvellous agreements with science in\nits most recent developments. You perhaps hear of a solitary scientific\nmind tracing back man to a sea-shell; but another says, \u201cThe idea that\na mollusk could become a fish, or a lizard a man, is worthy only of a\nmadman, and gives but poor evidence of the progress of civilization at\nthe present time.\u201d[4] Indeed, there is no utterance that looks adverse\nto Scripture which is not met by a decided divergence of opinion equally\nscientific.\n\nTurn from these questionings to the history of Jesus Christ as contained\nin the four gospels. The most consummate learning of the enemies of the\nfaith cannot invalidate these gospels. Their genuineness has borne every\ncritical test of the most advanced scholarship. The evidence for their\nabsolute truthfulness is immeasurably greater than for the authenticity\nof any secular book which the past has transmitted to us. You believe\nthat eight hundred years ago a conqueror landed in England who abolished\nthe Saxon monarchy. On testimony better than that for the belief in\nWilliam the Conqueror have you the fact confirmed to you, that eighteen\nhundred years ago, in a strip of fair and sunny land in Asia\u2014a land which\nfor two thousand years had been the theatre of events which marked it out\nas the scene for some grand evolvement of historic import\u2014there appeared\na Teacher from Galilee, just rising into the maturity of manhood. He\nunites in Himself the most unusual varieties of character. He has vast\nintellect and the tenderest sensibility; the calmest judgment and the\nkeenest feeling. He is lowly, but always magnanimous; He is meek, and yet\nmajestic; He is most compassionate to human frailty, but abhors human\nvice; He is despised, but never fretted; insulted, but never ruffled;\nnever is He charged with sin, yet by a strange and precious sympathy He\ndraws to Himself the sinful and the outcast. He is essentially human;\nis found at the marriage feast and the evening meal. He speaks parables\nwhich childhood can understand, and over which genius wonderingly\nlingers. His teaching is so profound, wise, and novel, that it for ever\nshades all the teaching of the wise men of antiquity. He did works which\nno other man had ever done. He invited all heavy-laden ones to come to\nhim for rest, and announced that He was \u201cthe Light of the world.\u201d During\na brief ministry, over five hundred men and women so believed in Him,\nthat afterwards many of them laid down their lives for His sake. Very\nsoon after His death upon the cross, when he startled his enemies by the\nloud cry, \u201cIt is finished,\u201d a \u201c_vast multitude_\u201d in Rome itself enrolled\nthemselves as His disciples. This fact comes to us on the testimony of\nthe heathen historian Tacitus; and Gibbon admits it must be received as\nunquestionably genuine.\n\nThis Jesus Christ we affirm to be the Son of man and the Son of God. He\nis the Revealer of God. He pierced to the core of human misery, while\nhe wielded the resources of omnipotence; he wound about his heart human\nsympathies, but now sits at the right hand of God exalted. My brother, I\nsolemnly tell you that to refuse to believe in Christ after the evidence\nafforded will violate your candor, will trample on the rectitude of your\nreasoning, and will bring on you consequences which you will eternally\ndeplore. I cannot utter words that deserve comparison with those of\nChrist himself: \u201cI am come a light into the world, that whosoever\nbelieveth in me should not abide in darkness.\u201d \u201cHe that rejecteth me hath\none that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge\nhim in the last day.\u201d\n\nYou may ask, Can a man be lost for _sincere_ doubt? If a man clings to\nthis doubt, if he will not candidly inquire, if he refuses to receive\ntestimony, he will be lost; not because of his doubt, but because of his\nobstinacy. This talk of sincere doubting is often very unreasonable talk.\nA man may sincerely doubt whether it is well to sow corn in the autumn\nor spring, and he may sow his fields in July; but his sincerity will not\nsave him from bankruptcy or the workhouse. A schoolboy may sincerely\ndoubt the necessity of learning Euclid, history, and geography\u2014he may\nrefuse the testimony of wiser heads; but his sincerity will not save him\nfrom going into mercantile or professional life a dunce, and the chances\nare that he will rue his so-called sincere doubt to the end of his days.\nYou, my brother, will soon pass into a world shrouded with impenetrable\ndarkness. There is but one voice which can tell you of a way whereby\nyour spirit hereafter may reach a region of light and felicity. Should\nyou close your ear to that voice, and nurse your doubts, and refuse to\ninvestigate, then let me tell you that there can be nothing for you at\nthe last day but \u201cshame and everlasting contempt.\u201d\n\nObserve also, if you want demonstration that will overbalance all\ndifficulties, you will never find it. In the affairs of this life men act\non the _preponderance_ of evidence. If there should appear twenty reasons\nfor a course of action and only five against it, he would be reckoned a\nfool who became swayed by the five, and refused to inquire further. In\nmercantile life, the men who will never decide and act till they have\nreasons which exclude all doubt, are left behind in the progress of\nsociety, and become the poor and despised. Your condition in this world\nis a test whether you will be true and docile. If you want light, there\nis abundance to guide you; if you choose darkness, God will not compel\nyour belief.\n\nI remind you, again, that no man has ever grown wise or good, or left a\npermanent impression on his age, as a doubter. The heroes of all times\nhave been men of faith. Read the Book itself. The Bible is a locked\ntreasure to prejudice, but it never fails to satisfy candor. As you\nstand outside one of our ancient cathedrals, and look up at its chancel\nwindow, all looks cold, unmeaning, and uninteresting. But, as has been\nwell said, when on a sunny morning you have entered that chancel, \u201chow\nchanged is that window! It is now gorgeous in beauty, and glows with\nlife. Cold and dreary outside, it is warm and radiant within. Instead of\nbeing incomprehensible and obscure, it is full of meaning and glorious\nharmony?\u201d Such is the difference between reading the Bible as a doubter\nor as a critic, and going to it as one interested in its contents and\nwilling to be taught.\n\nFollow for a moment the course of two young men. Your acquaintance\nwill supply the sketch readily. See one coming in the morning from the\nchamber where he has looked with affection and trust into the face of\nhis Saviour; has supplicated strength to meet the day\u2019s duties and\ntemptations; and has pondered the words, \u201cWherewithal shall a young man\ncleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.\u201d He enters\nthe family circle to meet the mother\u2019s smile, a brother\u2019s greeting, and a\nsister\u2019s cheery welcome. His father, with proud joy, consults him as an\nequal. He is a firm link in the family chain of happiness. See him as he\nstands on the floor of the warehouse with uprightness. The tricky trader,\nwhen he cannot cheat him, respects his honor. He chooses friendships\nthat are elevating. No profane scorner walks by his side; no impure\nprofligate soils the atmosphere of his home. He spends his evenings amid\ncheerful enjoyments, ennobling elevations, or useful ameliorations.\n\nContrast the other. He rises from a prayerless bed; drags down stairs his\nwearied frame at the latest possible moment; the older members of the\nfamily have gone off to their several duties. As for him, the debauch of\nthe last night makes every thing wrong: the coffee is thick; the servant\nslow; the very cat\u2019s quietness upon the hearth irritates him, and with a\nkick he relieves his pent-up discontent. To his mother he is rude; the\nyounger children have scampered away at his approach, saying their \u201cbig\nbrother is so sulky.\u201d The clock sounds; he is off to business. The whole\nday he is confused and hindered by the remembrance of the last night\u2019s\npollution, or the planning for the coming evening\u2019s pleasure. When the\nevening has come, he goes where he will degrade young women in a way\nwhich would arouse his direst indignation should another do the same to\nhis sister; or he enters scenes where he would die with shame if his\nmother or sister could follow him. And this is the young man whose law is\na miserable and hateful selfishness, or who on a Sunday afternoon reads\nan infidel book for five minutes, and then says, \u201cAh, I knew the Bible\nwas false, and Christians all hypocrites.\u201d Poor pitiable wretch! as if\nthe judgment of such a man was of the slightest value against Scripture.\n\nAnd observe, the end will come. A nurse very recently was summoned to a\nsick-bed in Paris. The invalid was a young Englishman. Before she would\nenter upon her duties, she asked if the sufferer was a Christian. Upon\nbeing answered in the affirmative, she said: \u201cI have seen such horrible\nsights, and heard such wailings in the dying chambers of ungodly and\ndissolute men, that I dare not now undertake to nurse another such a\none.\u201d Tronchan, in his memoirs of Voltaire, says: \u201cI wish that those who\nhad been perverted by his writings had been present at his death. It was\na sight too horrid to witness.\u201d These are awful facts and foreshadowings\nafter a life of infidel pleasure.\n\nLet me add a test of your sincerity. One of the most accomplished and\ngifted of authoresses has told us that dark doubts on divine subjects\nonce shrouded her spirit. As she looked up at midnight to the vault of\nthe heavens, and saw the stars moving in serenity and order, the thought\ncame over her troubled spirit, \u201cThe Creator of those orbs must take an\ninterest in me, his rational creature. I hold to nothing but a dim hope\nof his existence. I will take my dark mind to him, and ask him for light.\nPrayer shall be with me the \u2018_test of truth_.\u2019\u201d To that sincere cry the\nanswer came. Her heart, intellect, and conscience, found rest in Christ;\nthe Bible became to her an exhaustless fount of wisdom; in mathematical\nculture and in musical taste she became distinguished, and her life\nbecame signally useful. Two eminent men were lifted out of their doubts\nby the promise in Luke 11:13. \u201cIf the Bible be true,\u201d they reasoned,\n\u201cthe Lord will give his Spirit to them that ask him. We will put this\npromise to the proof.\u201d The one\u2014John Newton\u2014became the most influential\npreacher of the gospel in the British metropolis; the other\u2014William\nWilberforce\u2014became one of the best, most useful, and most honored of\nstatesmen.\n\nMy brother, let this be the test of your sincerity. Will you earnestly\nand perseveringly ask God to fulfil this promise in you?\n\nI shall close this address with twelve articles, which may be termed THE\nCREED OF THE INFIDEL.\n\n1. That Book is to him an imposture and pretended revelation, which\nfurnishes the only explanation ever offered of human misery, suffering,\nand death; which responds to man\u2019s universal craving for immortality,\nand throws the clearest light upon a future state; which presents the\nsublimest views of the compassion of the Creator; which paints a picture\nof man which has had an exact transcript in the history of all nations,\nand on behalf of which myriads rise up to testify that it has been a\nceaseless impulse to aspirations, a comfort in their trials, and has\ntaken away the fear of death.\n\n2. He believes that the earlier narratives of the Bible were fabrications\nintended to glorify the Jewish nation: but somehow these fabrications are\ntotally unlike the legendary traditions of Greece and Rome; for instead\nof making their ancestors gods and heroes, they make them slaves, and\ntell a history of Jacob and his sons which covers their progenitors\nwith infamy; and strange to say, these fabrications imposed upon later\nprophets, who were the sternest denouncers of falsehood, and are now\nimposing upon six millions of Jews, who, with a tenacity unparalleled and\nsacrifices ceaseless, cling to the ritual and history of their ancestors.\n\n3. He believes that by some unaccountable species of literary deception,\nunlettered or fanatical men have pretended to give four narratives of the\nfounder of Christianity, which the greatest modern critics confess are\n\u201cthe very gold of simplicity, integrity, and truthfulness,\u201d and which\npresent an image of Jesus Christ that brings most vividly into view the\nvery perfection of humanity, that has furnished a model for the noblest\nspirits among men, and that surpasses in beauty and grandeur all that\npoetry ever sung of human genius ever conceived.\n\n4. He believes that the writers of the New Testament were either knaves\nor fools; and yet they taught the purest, wisest, most elevated, and most\nself-sacrificing system of morals the world has ever seen.\n\n5. He believes that in the most enlightened and skeptical age of the\nRoman Empire, thousands of men were such arrant fools as to give credence\nto a history of Christ which was full of lies, and to a record of\nmiracles which had never been worked, and this at a time so near to the\nevents, that an imposture could not have escaped detection for an hour.\n\n6. He believes that \u201ca vast multitude\u201d of Romans, Greeks, and Jews\ndeserted, for a fanatical superstition, the splendid temples of their\nfathers, the schools of philosophy of which they had been proud, and the\nreligion of their ancestors, which had been enriched by the grandest\nhistorical associations.\n\n7. He believes that the early propagators of Christianity, and the\nbelievers in it, acted altogether contrary to ordinary motives of\nweak or bad men; they embraced a creed which, instead of gaining them\naught, exposed them to the most diabolical cruelties, and held to their\ntestimony in the face of tortures, banishment, and a shameful death.\n\n8. He believes that, although Christianity is a lying system of priestism\nor fanaticism, it nevertheless, according to irrefutable testimony,\nabolished the ferocious deeds of the amphitheatre, overthrew the horrid\nrites of paganism, introduced an era of benevolence, and marked a new\nstarting-point of progress for the human race.\n\n9. He believes that twelve obscure, penniless Jews, with a higher wisdom\nthan was claimed by Socrates, Cicero, or Plato, taught the only religion\nwhich has been proved to be adapted to every country and every condition\nof man on the surface of the wide globe.\n\n10. He believes that the Christian Sabbath, or the weekly seventh-day\nrest, is an institution indispensable to the present physical condition\nof men and animals; that without it modern civilization would bring to\nmyriads of men and beasts unbroken toil, disease, and premature death;\nbut that this seventh-day rest is a purely human institution, having\ncome, he scarcely knows how, from men who were foisting on the world\nfalse and illiterate traditions under the name of divine revelations.\n\n11. He believes that the writings of the Christian Scriptures, although\nan ill-constructed collection of falsehoods, have never been proved\nfalse by the subtlest ingenuity of their enemies, but have been most\nfirmly held to be true by men of the profoundest intellect, of the most\nresolved and persevering investigation\u2014the very scholars, thinkers, and\nmaster-spirits of humanity, such as Newton, Bacon, Milton, Boyle, Locke,\nPascal, Davy, Chalmers, and a host besides.\n\n12. He believes that those great nations of Europe which are immensely\nin advance of all the nations of antiquity, and of all the heathen and\nMohammedan nations of Asia at this time, and which are distinguished\nfor their liberty, wealth, culture, arts, schools, asylums, charity, and\nbeneficence, have become so while under the sway of a miserable system of\nreligious superstition, which a few unlettered fanatics palmed upon the\nworld eighteen centuries ago.\n\nSkeptic, is this thy creed? Then, O man, great is thy credulity!\n\nTrifler, who callest the Bible \u201cweak folly,\u201d take heed! thy despising of\nChristianity may be shown to be thy folly and culpable weakness, which\nwill have to be deplored by thee for ever.\n\nMy doubting brother, you may turn the tables when reproached with the\nbeliefs of Christians, and point to the absurdities involved in THE\nCREDULITY OF INFIDELITY.\n\n\n\n\nPOWER OF CHARACTER: HOW YOU MAY ASSERT IT.\n\n\nAlthough it is perfectly true that we may so exalt our importance as\nindividuals as to feed self-conceit; although as a rule men think they\nhave more talents than they really possess, it is nevertheless certain\nthat there is not one man in ten who makes the most of himself for the\npurpose for which he was created. The great waste of life is wasted or\nperverted power. What noble youths come out of schools and colleges;\nhow few afterwards make their lives noble. With what opportunities do\nmany enter upon business and professions, and afterwards sink into the\ngrave with scarcely a trace to indicate that they ever lived. There have\nbeen hundreds who could have rivalled the patriotism of Hampden, or\nthe humanity of Howard, or the eloquence of Chatham, and who have left\nbehind them no one memorial of their existence. It is recorded that a\nfellow-student once said to Paley: \u201cYou are a great fool to waste your\nbest years in the dissipations of a university; you have talents for\nsomething better.\u201d To multitudes of gifted young men has the like thing\nbeen said, but said in vain. Paley took the hint, which was roughly\ngiven. And now \u201cthere is no name in the English church that stands higher\nthan his, and no name in the vast circles of English literature that has\na more permanent fame.\u201d\n\nThe great things of this world have been accomplished by individuals.\nVast social reformations have originated in individual souls. Truths\nthat now sway the world were first proclaimed by individual lips. Great\nthoughts, that now are the axioms of humanity, proceeded from the centre\nof individual hearts. No warlike host delivered the children of Israel\nfrom the bondage of Egypt, but one man\u2014Moses. No senate of statesmen\nraised Israel to a pitch of greatness that proclaimed a theocratic\nnation to the world, but one man\u2014David. No school of divines gave to\nEngland the Bible in the mother tongue, but one man\u2014Wyckliffe. No learned\nsociety discovered America, but one man\u2014Columbus. No association of\nscience revealed the clue to interpret the laws of the universe, but one\nman\u2014Galileo. No parliament saved English liberties, but one man\u2014Pym. No\nassembly of theologians wrote the book, which nest to the Bible has had\nthe most potent influence on the English language and on English hearts,\nbut one man\u2014John Bunyan. No confederate nations rescued Scotland from\nher distracted councils, from her political and ecclesiastical enemies,\nbut one man\u2014Knox. No chambers of commerce taught Europe to abolish the\nrestrictions of trade, but one man\u2014Richard Cobden. Doubtless these men\nfound their coadjutors; but all through the ages God has put immense\nhonor upon individuals.\n\nYoung man, do not let others fashion what your life shall be. Thomas\nCarlyle says somewhere that he would like to stop the stream of people\nin the Strand, and ask every man his history. But, \u201cNo,\u201d says the sage,\n\u201cI will not stop them. If I did, I should find they were like a flock of\nsheep following in the track of one another.\u201d Alas, men begin to lose\ntheir individuality of conviction the moment they step into the world.\nHere is a young man beginning life\u2019s business. He feels, as he starts, an\nimpulse to be pure and noble. He is surrounded by clerks in an office. A\nfortnight passes, and one evening, when he is hurrying home after office\nhours, he hears a fast young man whisper at the desk, \u201cPoor fellow,\nhe\u2019s off to be pinned to his mother\u2019s knee.\u201d Now, what would be the\nright thing for that youth to do? To say at once, \u201cYes, and God forbid I\nshould ever forget what I owe to my mother.\u201d Let him say this, and the\ninsulter would be shamed, if shame were not dead. He would respect the\nself-assertion of his fellow-clerk. Does the new-comer say this? No; his\nears turn red; his face is suffused with a blush; and in a night or two\nthe poor weak one dares some trick of folly to show his independence, and\nto prove that home influences do not bind him. Thus, alas!\u2014how shall I\nsay it sorrowfully enough?\u2014thus he makes a sacrifice of his individuality\non the altar that a profligate clerk has built up for him; and then, step\nby step, he weaves around himself the bonds of pleasure, till, amid the\ndark storm of shipwrecked character, blasted reputation, wrung hearts at\nhome, worn-out health, and miserable self-reproaches, he sinks to his\nunhonored grave, leaving only a memory of disgrace to those who have\nloved him.\n\nI have known many a young man who has seen the right path as plain as\nnoonday. God has mercifully flashed clear conviction of duty upon him.\nNo mental mistake has hindered him. His judgment has been convinced; his\nfeelings have been moved; he has felt sure that it would be better for\nhim, for this life and for the nest, to take a decided position on the\nside of God and righteousness. And what has hindered him? What has led to\nwaste and self-remorse? Has he been persuaded by the wise? Has he been\nreasoned out of his convictions by the influential? No; he has been moved\nby the jeer of a dandy or the sneer of the coquette; he has quenched his\nconviction before the mocking taunt of some empty-brained street lounger;\nhas lowered his own high tone of morals lest he should seem _singular_ in\nthe little circle of worldly society surrounding him. Do you say, \u201cCan a\nman set himself against society?\u201d If society quenches the true in you, if\nit binds you, if it robs you of moral manhood, if it makes you its slave,\nthere can remain no question to you as to what is your duty. Scorn to\ndegrade yourself by yielding up your individuality to suit the whim of,\nit may be, the worthless and vulgar.\n\nYou are stepping into life, where you will find thousands who became\nvicious because they never formed the resolve to live nobly. Such men\nare the dead leaves that fall upon the stream and flow, not by any vital\npower or aim in themselves, but by the eddying current around them. There\nis many a sot who is imbruted, because he never determined that he would\nnot be a drunkard. There is many a useless one who has become a cipher,\nbecause he never resolved to give to his life a meaning. There is many\na filthy blasphemer who is profane, because he never resolved that the\nfoul oath should not soil his lips. There is many a defiled, polluted,\nand diseased one, because he never resolved that he would not be the\ncompanion of a whore. This is the sorrowfulest of all things\u2014men ruined,\nsinking into sin, vulgarity, uselessness, vileness, not because they\nintended to be bad, but because they had not the courage to resolve to be\ngood.\n\nIt is yet more deeply to be lamented that the young men who are thus\nruined are mostly the open, the generous, and the frank. A cold nature\nthat no one cares for, that is not wanted in the drinking-room, or\nsmoking-room, or billiard-room, passes into manhood without hurt; but\ngood-natured and gleeful young men have a weak side whereby they become a\nprey to the dissipated. They are companionable and sympathetic, therefore\nmiscreants suck them by temptation.\n\nIt would be grateful to our feelings if this compromise of individual\ncharacter were confined to the men who disregard the claims of virtue. It\nis by no means so. A philosophic statesman, J. Stuart Mill, in his Essay\non Liberty, complains that no period of England\u2019s history has been so\nlittle marked by individual originality and force as our own. Certainly,\nwhether we look upon the merely moral or the professedly religious\ncircles of our country, we find everywhere the tendency to sink the man\nin the crowd, the Christian in the church. This shifting of personal\nresponsibility from the one to the many is the secret alike of national\nand of individual ineffectiveness. Only look around you, and you will see\nhundreds who might assert for themselves, and for the cause of truth and\nphilanthropy, a position of dignity and power, who are hindered by the\nmaxims and habits of others.\n\nThere is a prevailing impression that it is women, with their quick\nsensibilities, who are the most susceptible to the influences of fashion\nand opinion. It admits of question whether this prevailing weakness in\nour days is not on the side of young men. They do not so much make\nmanifest their subserviency, but it is not the less deteriorating and\nreal. Take a few examples.\n\nHere, in a select neighborhood, is a young man who affects style. A place\nin the omnibus would fit his limited means. But no; the omnibus is all\nvery well for men whose position is made, and for young fellows who have\nno standing in society; but for him, a horse and groom must form a part\nof his appointments. So he burdens himself, or speculates, or runs into\ndebt, that horse or \u201ctrap\u201d may be at command. And thus he, who by manly\nindependence, and an expenditure according with his circumstances, could\nhave risen to be honored and esteemed, shrinks away at length into some\nlower neighborhood, or drags out a vexed and discontented life, because\nhe has forgotten the honor which he might have commanded at the outset,\nhad he lived out his honest conviction and not made himself a mere\nimitator.\n\nOr take other cases. Yon beardless youth must smoke the, to him,\nnauseous cigar or meerschaum, because \u201cTom Grandeur\u201d struts down\nHigh-street, looking large behind his curling smoke. Nay, \u201cMy Lord\nMeek,\u201d who cares no more for a hunt or race than the most refined and\ntimid lady, enlarges his stables, buys a fine stud, makes up his book\nfor the St. Leger; or, with a sore heart, joins the \u201cthrow off,\u201d caring\nnot a whit for the brush, but very much that he may not be outdone in\nhis equipage or establishment. All through society this abnegation of\nindividuality weaves its web. Nor is the effect circumscribed to the\nfrivolous and weak. Men think in cliques. It is intolerable to some to\nbe out of fashion with the political opinion of their set. Never was\ncontradiction so contemptible as that into which they are betrayed. It\nwould be ludicrous, were it not too serious an indication of the want\nof principle. One month you hear men denouncing a political opinion and\nits prominent advocates, with all the vituperative energy of which their\nnature is capable. The next month, forsooth, they have adopted that\nprecise opinion, and eagerly rush to share some leaf of the laurel which\nthey hope will fall upon them through the tergiversation of their party.\n\nYou have, alas, the same thing among so-called religious men. Many a\nyoung man has powers which would bless the church and the world, but\nfor his maudlin regard for what others may think of him. He is, it may\nbe, a young man whose father\u2019s religiousness gave him universal sway\nin his town or neighborhood. No workman but honored him; no cottager\nbut felt the sweetness of his sympathy. The son of this great and good\nman is thrown among Ritualists. This is the religious fashion of the\nhour, and therefore it fascinates him. He adopts it, not because he is\nconvinced of its truth, but because it suits what he deems his \u201c\u00e6sthetic\ntaste.\u201d Deplorably ignorant of the past struggles of English history,\nhe is gratified with the crowded churches in which he can witness\nthis pictorial religion of waving censers, purple-robed priests, and\npicturesque altar arrangements. He falls into the cant of saying that\nProtestantism is \u201cunsymbolical.\u201d The white-robed choristers and lighted\ncandles respond to what he terms the \u201choly symbols\u201d of the faith. He\nbegins now to think the religion that made his home a very paradise,\nhis wise father a man of power, and his mother saintly, is a very\nvulgar thing, and only inculcated by unlettered men and unauthorized\nteachers. And thus the poor soul excuses himself from the demands of\npersonal exertion and personal fidelity to conscience; loses himself in\nthe easy externalisms or poetic dreamings which secure him the favor\nof sentimental pastors, and the smiles of young ladies with pendant\ncrosses on their breasts. It is pitiable, but it is also sad, to think\nwhat ineffectiveness of life comes to a young man who, instead of being\nthe dupe of weaklings, might have allied himself with the grandest of\nEnglishmen, and left behind him records of abiding influence.\n\nThere is no circle where a man can escape this peril of being unduly\nswayed by others. Many well-principled young men, who are free from\nthe follies I have glanced at, lose their power to influence through a\ndeplorable lack of force. Instead of quickness, briskness, strength,\nin the warehouse, they do their work in a dreamy, sentimental way.\nTheir religious coterie is composed of people who are slow, sedate,\nand lack vigor. They are taught to think that religion consists in\nunctuous prayers, sanctimonious looks, effusive utterances, instead of a\nconsistent filling up of duty, care for their employers\u2019 interest, and\nfaithful discharge of daily tasks. Oh, do not forget it is the action,\nit is the life in the very sphere which God has appointed, that is the\nopportunity for the manifestation of religion. All mere emotion is like\nthe steam from the engine\u2014of no value except as an indication of ability\nto work.\n\nThere is another danger. You will find a class of religious men not\nat all sentimental, but who will sneer at what they term religious\nearnestness. A young man\u2019s worst enemies are often cold, formal, routine\nChristians\u2014Christians who think that to stand well with the world, to get\ninto \u201cgood society,\u201d to be always very respectable, and to have as little\ncross-bearing as possible, is the golden mean of religious life. Young\nmen, in the name of all that is true and noble, set yourselves against\nthis style of religious profession. The worst weakness in the world is to\nfear to do a right thing because others will criticise it.\n\nThere were many Christian men in Wittemberg who said to Martin Luther,\n\u201cYou don\u2019t mean that you are going to hang up these theses on the church\ndoor.\u201d \u201cYes,\u201d said Luther; \u201cthey are true; they assail damning error; my\nfatherland is bowing down to antichrist.\u201d \u201cPause,\u201d said the men who would\nstand well with everybody. \u201cIs not this zeal without knowledge? Think\nhow you will scandalize the University; how you will drive off men who\nwould follow you in a more discreet course.\u201d \u201cAvaunt!\u201d said the reformer.\n\u201cThe people are perishing in ignorance. The crowds of the common people\nwho come into the city to market will read these words. Yours is not\ndiscretion, but cowardice.\u201d He did the deed; and as the result of that\nact, Europe received the Protestant Reformation, and the night of the\nmiddle ages was ended.\n\nOn one occasion, Nehemiah was urged by his friends to desert the post\nof duty, to conceal himself in the courts of the Temple, for fear of\nwould-be assassins. With heroic decision, he replied, \u201cShould such a man\nas I flee? And who is there that, being as I am, would go into the temple\nto save his life? I will not go in.\u201d Brave, perfumed words!\n\nDuring the mighty struggle for West Indian emancipation, Sir Thomas\nFowell Buxton was about to divide the House of Commons; his friends\nappealed to him not to divide. They came one by one, sat down by his\nside, urged and implored him not to divide; ministers of the crown\nbesought him to give way. In the whole House there was only one who\nhoped and prayed that he would be true to the cause of the slave, and\nthat one was his daughter in the gallery. He was true to the cause of\nhumanity; and that division, Lord Althorp declared, decided the question\nof emancipation. The question was next introduced before the House as a\nCabinet measure.\n\nThere went from Manchester to the British parliament, about twenty-five\nyears ago, a comparatively young man. He went up to London from a\nconference of ministers of religion who had assembled to secure cheap\nbread for the people. That conference had been satirized; not a solitary\necclesiastical dignitary had ventured to be present; the leading journal\nhad attempted to cover it with ridicule. That young senator ventured to\ndefend the conference before a crowded House of Commons. His reference\nwas hailed with contemptuous laughter; the greatest statesman of the\nday rebuked him. Observe! that young man lived to receive an apology\nfrom that statesman, to hear him introduce the measure which had been so\nunpopular, and to receive himself the designation which his name will\nbear through all coming times, \u201cThe Apostle of Free-trade.\u201d\n\nI say, where you feel that you are right, be true to yourself; do not\ntake your cue from other men. They may be weak, or prejudiced, or\ntrimmers, or cowards. Why should you lose your individuality for them?\n\n    \u201cOh, blessed is he to whom is given\n      The instinct that can tell,\n    That God is on the field when He\n      Is most invisible.\n\n    \u201cAnd blessed is he who can divine\n      Where real right doth lie,\n    And dares to take the side that seems\n      Wrong to man\u2019s blinded eye.\n\n    \u201cOh, learn to scorn the praise of men;\n      Oh, learn to live with God;\n    For Jesus won the world through shame,\n      And beckons thee his road.\n\n    \u201cGod\u2019s glory is a wondrous thing,\n      Most strange in all its ways;\n    And of all things on earth, least like\n      What men agree to praise.\n\n    \u201cFor right is right, since God is God,\n      And right the day must win;\n    To doubt would be disloyalty,\n      To falter would be sin.\u201d\n\nTo make full assertion, therefore, of your personal character, let me ask\nyou to bear in mind these counsels:\n\n1. _Do not tamper with convictions._ God in mercy sends you luminous\nhours. He is the pitying Friend of your soul, and is constantly\npersuading it to a higher life. I am quite sure that you cannot pass\ninto manhood without heavenly visitations. Do not, I implore, neglect\nthese visitations. Do not quiet your conscience by a subterfuge. Do not\nhold the performance of a clear duty in suspense.\n\nBehold a scene of which history tells us. There are two men standing face\nto face in a Roman court in a maritime city. The one is a young king, his\nbeautiful queen by his side. There is all the pomp and circumstance of\nstation. Chief captains and principal men fill the royal court. Waiting\nservitors surround the doors, and an eager multitude fill the avenues.\nThe other is an unattended, unbefriended prisoner, with a chain upon\nhis hand. That prisoner tells of a solemn moment when heaven flashed\nconviction upon his path. He reasons with resistless logic and eloquence\nin proof of the truth of Christianity. The young king listens\u2014is moved;\nit is not merely the prisoner that stands face to face with him, but\nGod himself; and his convicted conscience cries out, \u201cAlmost thou\npersuadest me to be a Christian!\u201d The assembly breaks up. The king is\nalone in his chamber, and muses: \u201cI become a Christian\u2014the member of\na despised sect! There is clearly truth in what I have heard; but for\nme to be a Christian, what will the world think of me? My interest and\npleasures forbid it.\u201d The subject is dismissed, and we have not the\nfaintest intimation that another opportunity of salvation ever again\nvisited that man. He followed his race in the pursuit of ambition and\nvice; he gradually lost influence and power; his days became troubled\nand disastrous, and his name remains, like other Herods, unhonored and\ndisgraced. What of that other man\u2014that unbefriended prisoner? He is the\nforemost man in the world for all after times. One excepted, no name is\nrepeated among men so often as his. _His_ life is the life of Christendom\nin these ages, and will be more and more. He has done more for truth,\nrighteousness, and human salvation, than any other sinful mortal in all\nages of the world. What was the secret of this majesty of influence? He\ntold it in that court. When heaven had flashed conviction upon his path,\nhe did not allow pleasure nor prejudice nor interest nor public opinion\nto sway him. These are his words: \u201c_I was not disobedient to the heavenly\nvision._\u201d\n\nMy friend, it has been to many a man a dreadful struggle to repent and\nturn to God. There have been temptations formidable, and a vacillation\nof the heart most perilous. But no man can be excused from the conflict.\nA young man, who became one of the most devoted and constant Christians,\nwas accustomed to insist upon decision, decision, decision, to every\nyoung man whom he addressed. Said he, \u201cIf you expect God to help you, you\nmust be perfectly _decided_.\u201d\n\n2. _Guard against the temptations of the times._ Far be it from me to\nutter a word that would debar you from the recreations and excitements\nappropriate to your age. Joy and cheerfulness are your strength and\nheritage. Monkish austerity and sanctimoniousness are rarely virtues.\nBut our modern civilization has multiplied, under the name of pleasure,\nthe facilities of vice. The perils that assail young men in great cities\nare so many, so seductive, and so ruinous to body and soul, as to make\nan observer tremble. If, then, you would be obedient to the heavenly\nteaching, you must resolutely resolve not to \u201cgo in the way of evil men.\u201d\nThere was a time in England when places of business were homes. The\nemployer admitted young men to the domestic sanctities of his family.\nThey received aid from him in the formation of acquaintances, and had\neven access to his own circles of recreation. Now, young men in cities\ncan scarcely be said to have a home. Some have not even the privilege of\na common room, or a fire in their chamber. They are open, therefore, to\nevery allurement that promises pleasure. Places of business, moreover,\nare huge establishments where the loose moralist can cover vice by\nself-deceivableness, and where the subtle infidel, the scoffer, and\nthe licentious mingle together. Religion is ridiculed, and the clergy\nspoken of with a sneer. Filthy books are sold and circulated\u2014books of\ninfamy, which minister to the vilest tastes, which taint and befoul the\nimagination with unclean images, and which a man can no more look at\nwithout defilement than he can touch soft pitch and be clean.\n\nAlas, wherever a young man turns for worldly amusement he meets danger.\nLarge towns swarm with brilliantly lighted saloons, which hold out their\nmeretricious attractions. There is the drama, music, and art. It was\nascertained that in two hours one evening, six hundred young men entered\none music hall in London. Were these rooms harmless, he would be an\nenemy to human happiness who objected to them. If they are demoralizing\nand ruinous to the health and character of the inexperienced, he is\na friend who points this out. It is little suspected how women with\nbedizened head-dresses and flaunty robes are holding the last shred of\ntheir modesty; how married men hide under white waistcoats polluted\nhearts; how, while \u201cgray hairs dance, devils laugh and angels weep;\u201d how\nbankrupts wear forced smiles, and the wretched try their poor jokes;\nhow the victims of disease and death hide their ghastliness by flowers,\nand light their rapid progress to the grave by flaring gas-light. It\nis little known how thousands of young men from the religious homes of\nScotland and Wales pass into a speedy oblivion after their feet have once\ncrossed the threshold of these rooms in English cities. Alas, what a\ntale might be told of fathers\u2019 hairs whitened, mothers\u2019 hearts crushed,\nsisters\u2019 eyes swollen with tears, over sons once the pride of their\nhomes. If you would be pure, then, you must avoid these places. They will\nspeedily prejudice you against religion. They will turn your doubts into\nblank unbelief and atheism. They will quench in you even the desire for\nimmortality. They will turn into terror or scoffing every restraining\ninfluence. And what help can there then be for you for this world or for\nthe next?\n\n3. _Have faith in the significance of your life._ There is no\nexaggeration when a living writer says: \u201cIf there were the smallest\nstar in heaven that had no place to fill, the oversight would beget a\ndisturbance which no Leverrier could compute. One grain of sand, that\ndid not fall into its place, would disturb, or even fatally disorder\nthe whole scheme of the heavenly motions. Every particle of air has\nits appointed place, and serves its appointed end.\u201d God, dear young\nman, means something by you. Yours may not be the highest, but there\nis some high work which you may fulfil. The low grass-tuft is not the\nbranching cedar towering for centuries on Lebanon; nor is it the fragrant\norange-blossom, which is plucked to deck the bridal wreath; but neither\nthe orange-blossom nor cedar could render the service of that lowly\ngrass-tuft. In sacred converse with your Maker, breathe the prayer,\nin this the formative period of your existence: \u201cLord, what wilt thou\nhave me to do? Why have I an existence among these living souls of this\ncreation? Why hast thou given me these grand and awful endowments of\nthought, reason, intelligence, speech? I look round on the universe,\nand see all creatures fulfilling their appointed service. I see the sun\nfilling the whole hemisphere from day to day with his light and heat.\nI see at night the stars lighting up the arch of the firmament, each\nkeeping his appointed place, the silent preacher of obedience to thy\nwill. I see the bird that balances its pinions on the air, testifying of\nthy goodness. I learn that the tiny invisible insect is answering its\npurpose in preserving the salubrity of the atmosphere and the purity of\nthe water. I find every fragrant violet of the hedgerow and every shock\nof corn fulfilling a mission of serving. I learn from thy word of the\nhigher spirits that dwell in thy presence, that they have their appointed\nwork; that angels are ministering spirits, and do thy commandments,\nhearkening to the voice of thy word; and as I thus behold a universe\nwhere each has its appointed place, I utter the prayer more earnestly,\n\u201cWhat is the meaning of my life, Father of spirits? I share thy counsels;\nreveal thy thought respecting me.\u201d Deeply am I convinced, my brother,\nthat if with some such prayer you enter upon this period of your life,\nyour existence wall prove no meaningless thing; it will be instinct with\ninfluence, and will have an end to which you will come with unutterable\nrapture.\n\nI have in the foregoing considerations helped to answer the question\nhow you may assert the power of your personal character. I by no means\nsay that you should disparage associations. The most useless men are\nthose who will never combine. Exaggerated individuality makes a man\nimpracticable, and sometimes insupportable. On the other hand, our modern\ndanger lies in another direction. It is so to shape ourselves by others\nas to destroy force and effectiveness.\n\nGibbon tells us a tragic history, which has been more amply narrated by\nCount Montalembert in his \u201cMonks of the West.\u201d The gladiatorial games\nof Rome were continued until the beginning of the sixth century of our\nera. They had turned a civilized people into savage cannibals. There,\nin that enormous amphitheatre, whose tiers rising above tiers remain\nto this day, tens of thousands of spectators looked down on the bloody\nspectacle, and thousands of victims were slaughtered. A holy man in the\nEast heard of the deeds of blood. The fire of a righteous indignation\nseized him. He travelled to Rome; arrived there as the imperial games\nwere being celebrated. His soul burned against the cruelty and the\nimpiety. He entered the Colosseum; burst through the waves of the people\nall palpitating with ferocious curiosity. He threw himself between the\ngladiators engaged in the sanguinary combat. In the name of the God of\nheaven he commanded them to cease their murderous strife. The pagan\nmultitude were for a moment panic-stricken with the holy audacity of\nthe Christian. Then they cried out; they rose on him; they tore up the\narches; stones hissed around him; the gladiators completed the work of\ndeath. But the blood of the martyr was the last shed in that arena. The\nhorrid custom, which had so long resisted the voice of humanity, ended\nwith that testimony. The nobleness of the sacrifice showed the horror of\nthe abuse. The emperor Honorius proscribed the games of the gladiators,\nand they have never been revived.\n\nWithout any such sacrifice you may learn from it the might of a simple\nact of decision for truth and conscience, and that by such noble deeds\nyour life may have immortal issues. Where the timid will start back in\nfear, there you may bless the coming ages. The achievements of duty have\nbeen grander than those of the warrior. Wordsworth says of duty:\n\n    \u201cFlowers laugh before her in their beds,\n    And fragrance in her footsteps treads:\n    She does preserve the stars from wrong,\n    And the eternal heavens through her are fresh and strong.\u201d\n\nAt the beginning of manhood you stand now; a few years, and you will\nstand at the end. The span is brief; the earthly life is only one. These\nlines are written for your sake alone. No interest can another have in\nyour living a noble life that is comparable to the interest you have\nin yourself. If you find at the end of life that you have made a grand\nmistake, it will be a mistake you never can undo. Soon the shadows\nwill flee, and men will be judged, not by the earthly standard, but by\nwhat they have been and have done. Sometimes when bales of merchandise\nleave England for a colonial port, the price put upon them there is\nvery different from that they had here. So when you have gone through\nthe gates of death, the angels will not ask how you stood with this\nworld; but they will estimate you by your fidelity, your sympathies, the\nconsecration of your life to chat which was true and good. Alone you\nwill go into that eternity, as alone you came into existence. Alone will\nyou tread the path to the throne of God; alone you will be judged; alone\nwill your opportunities come up in review; alone will you carry through\neternity the results of the one earthly life you have lived. Said a noble\nyouth, who lived long enough to fulfil high promise: \u201cI shall die as an\nindividual; I shall be judged as an individual: I am resolved, therefore,\nto live as an individual.\u201d It is just this purpose to which, in God\u2019s\nname, I summon you in this address. Let it be so, my brother. Take thy\nplace with the illustrious ones of all times who have lived to bless the\nworld. Pass on to manhood and to immortality with the seal of God upon\nthy brow. And then, when death has done its mission, disenthralled of\nflesh, thou shalt rise to the unobstructed sphere where hinderance never\ncomes, and where thou shalt begin an illimitable work. There, with thy\nlife grafted upon the infinite, it will be fruitful as no earthly life\ncan be.\n\n\n\n\nGRANDEUR OF DESTINY: HOW YOU MAY REACH IT.\n\n\nThe belief in the doctrine of growth is of infinite moment to a young\nman. The difference between one man and another lies here. Find a\nyoung man who does not believe in the doctrine of moral growth, or is\nindifferent to it, and you may safely affirm that waste or perdition\nis being invisibly inscribed upon his forehead. On the other hand, let\na young man be thoroughly persuaded of the possibility of the highest\nmoral and spiritual progress, and he not only has hold of a truth that is\nsaving, but if faithful, he will reach a majesty of character, a force,\nand a beauty of spirit of which no mortal can conceive. Let me illustrate\nthe subject of this address. You look at a seed-corn when lodged in the\nearth. Growth is its law. After the first discipline of wintry frosts,\nit uplifts its stalk beneath the warm breath of the south; then unwraps\nfrom its careful green foldings its delicate ear, and lifts it up for the\ngolden sun to ripen it. Arrived at perfection, it offers itself to man\nfor higher uses, and becomes part of his strength. Or, again, the acorn\nhaving found its place in the favorable soil, puts out feelers, and sends\nthem into the earth for more moisture. Modestly it breaks through the\nground to take its place among its compeers of the forest; drinks in the\nair, rains, and dew of heaven; extends its little branches, twigs, and\nleaflets, that its receiving-power may be greater. Growth, unceasing, is\nits law. Its beauty is the charm of the woods in May; its topmost leaves\nquiver in the breeze of summer; its strong arms beat back the storms of\nautumn; and for generations and centuries it grows in its magnificent\ncompleteness.\n\nAnd who shall limit the growth of a young man? How true of him, \u201cit\ndoth not yet appear what we shall be.\u201d Like the youth who climbed\nmountain-heights with \u201cthe banner of strange device,\u201d so he may ever see\n\u201c_not yet_\u201d shining like a star on the brow of the future. The youth,\nthe trusting Christian, the devoted worker, the mature saint are but the\nlowest steps of his ever-ascending destiny.\n\nOne of the grandest mornings of my life was, when I reached the pass\nof St. Gothard across the Alps. Having ascended above the sultry airs\nof an early Italian summer, and slept three thousand feet above the\nsea-level, I rose at four in the morning, and begged the privilege of\nsitting on the roof of the diligence by the side of the conductor. How\ninvigorating was the fresh mountain-air of the morning, like the first\nlove of a young heart to Christ. But as the road toiled upward, more\nand more ravishing was the joy. The mountain-pines now began to open\nvistas of wondrous beauty; the graceful tops of the larches waved in\ntheir uninvaded home; the granite rocks, with a thousand precipitous\nforms, stood like sentinels to nature\u2019s most majestic domains; the Ticino\npoured down to the sultry plains below its rushing sound of waters.\nThere behind was the river, gliding on like a silver thread of light;\nand there before were glimpses of giant peaks, with the light burnishing\nthe peerless white of their eternal snows. But for nine rapturous hours\nwe went higher; and as we ascended, fresher grew the air, more beautiful\nthe leaping waterfalls, more sublime the pass through galleries of rocky\nlabyrinths, more thrilling the transition from gloomy defiles to spots of\npastoral loveliness, and more exciting the emotion as we stood at length\nabout nine thousand feet above the valley below, amid the sinless silence\nof the everlasting hills.\n\nIn a loftier sense than this, higher and even higher may be a Christian\nyoung man\u2019s progress. Follow him. He is active and devoted in all that\nblesses man; he rises in harmony of character and effectiveness of\ninfluence; he comes to have a name in the community of men, and is a\nman of mark among his fellows; to those coming on the stage of life he\nbecomes the pattern-man; and those who once sneered at his decision and\naspirations would now be glad to catch the skirts of his garments.\n\u201cNot yet,\u201d he may say, \u201chave I reached the stature of growth.\u201d Fruits\nof goodness ripen in his life; wider is the sphere he fills; he is yet\nmore loved, trusted, and honored; till at length he sees the gate and\nthe glory of the city he is going to; above the sounds of conflict he\nbreathes supernal air, and listens as there reach him from afar the\nsounds of heavenly music. And when the golden gates have been thrown back\nto give him entrance, and the angels have welcomed him, and the great\nand good of other times have clasped hands with him, even then growth in\npower and blissfulness shall be the law of his being. He will rise to\nbe a companion of the mighty spirits of the universe. Higher, stronger,\nwiser, freer, mightier, more capable of knowing, blessing, enjoying will\nbe his glorious and eternal career.\n\nI am dealing in no figures of speech. This is the grandeur of man\u2019s\ndestiny. This is the true law of life; and none the less true that so\nmany miserably fall short of it.\n\nAnd now, young man, I speak to you who are just starting on a career\nthat may be thus sublime; and to you I say there is a _divine secret_ of\nthis eternal growth. That secret is in one word\u2014_receiving_. Look again\nat nature. The flowers grow by receiving. Place them where they can\nreceive neither sunlight nor moisture, and they will droop and die. As\nthe sun arises by morning in the heavens, they turn to him their expanded\nbosoms, that his warm beams may fall there. They spread out leaves to\ntake in more rain; they fold themselves in restful quiet at night, that\ndew-drops may settle on their buds and stems. After this manner man\ngrows. Among the sentences of Scripture there are two which deserve to be\nwritten on the walls of a young man\u2019s chamber in letters of gold: \u201cA man\ncan receive nothing except it be given him from heaven.\u201d \u201cEvery good gift\nand every perfect gift is from above.\u201d\n\nI do not mean to affirm that you are to be passive. Go again to nature\nto learn her parable. The plant grows by receiving; but it is not, like\nrocks and stones, dull and inert; it avails itself of its advantages for\ngrowth. It co\u00f6perates in working out its perfection. It opens its ducts;\nit builds upon itself new lengths of wood; it is faithful to its gifts,\nand makes every new attainment a plea for larger blessings.\n\nDear young man, study _your_ nature. In the truly-developed man there\nare three powers\u2014body, soul, spirit. This three-fold distinction which\nis made in the Bible, remarkable to say, is also that of the latest and\nmaturest philosophy. The _body_ grows up from childhood by receiving;\nand even in mature strength it builds up a ceaseless waste by the same\nprocess. The _soul_ or _intellect_ grows by receiving. It receives\ninformation; allows itself to be cultured; avails itself of the stores\nwhich other times have acquired. It never creates. What seems so is\nonly reaching the full meaning or placing in new combinations what it\nhas received. There is, however, a _spirit_ in man. To this I turn your\nthoughts. Deep in your nature is the grandest of all your endowments.\nThere, unthought of, it may be, is that divine faculty which separates\nyou from the brutes and allies you to the seraphim. There, smouldering in\ndarkness or selfishness, is a spirit which nothing earthly can satisfy;\nwhich sends forth aspirations after God; which hungers after the good;\nwhich protests against that filth of animal indulgence under which it\nis often buried; but which, on the other hand, can be moved, and grow,\nand expand, and become the dominant principle, and bring all evil into\nsubjection to itself, and become elevated in wisdom and ascendency,\ntill, shaking off every encumbrance of corruption, its powers are free,\nglorious, and triumphant.\n\nLet me quote to you a sentence from one of the profound religious\nthinkers of our age: \u201cThe religious talents compose the whole Godward\nside of faculty in us. There is the talent of being illuminated,\npermeated, guided, exalted by the Spirit of God. There is also the talent\nor capacity of religious love. Man can appropriate the love of God, which\ncan pour itself in as a tide with mighty floods of joy and power. There\nis also the power of faith, which can fall on God in recumbent trust,\nand appropriate him in all his personality of goodness and love. These\ntalents are the highest, noblest, closest to divinity of all the powers\nwe have.\u201d\n\nMost of the visitors to the Exhibition of Industry of 1862 saw that\ncostliest of all diamonds, the Kohinoor. There was a time when that\npriceless gem gave not out a ray of brilliancy. Deep in the darkness it\nlay; no light shone on it; no light came back from it. But it was placed\nin the light; its opaque substance was opened. Its power of receiving had\nfreedom. It now allowed the minutest ray unimpeded passage through its\nmass. And then how marvellous the transformation. It shone and glittered\nand shot back light like the most brilliant star.\n\nBy these analogies have I sought to reveal to you the nature of that\nspiritual growth to which you are summoned. Hearken, I implore you, to\nthe cry of your own immortal spirit. Open your nature, that you may\nreceive the quickening life of the Almighty. You hear at this time much\nabout religious cant and hypocrisy. It seems as if even the better\nclass of novelists of our period could never expound their own moral\nprinciples without a contemptuous sneer at the religious phraseology or\nlife of their fellow-Christians. But let me tell you, the cant which is\nthe most irrational, and the hypocrisy which is the most insane, is that\nwhich deems it manly to live without communion with God. Ashamed to be\nin communion with heaven! Ashamed to be inspired by your Creator! What\nmadness would be this\u2014if the sapphire should be ashamed of the light that\nmakes its beauty; if the quivering beech-leaves should be ashamed of the\nsunbeams that dance on their smooth surface; if the flowers should be\nashamed of the daybreak that reveals their hues; if fields, hills, and\nthe whole realm of nature should be ashamed of the precious influences\nwhich the heavens pour down upon them. But for you, a child of God, to\nbe ashamed of receiving illumination and impulse, wisdom and elevation,\nfrom the Father of your spirit, is the most pitiable misjudgment of which\nany creature can be capable. Talk of religious cant\u2014there is no cant\nthat is so hateful, because there is no cant that is so unreflecting\nand senseless, as that which sneers at man having fellowship with his\nMaker. It is God, my brother, who gives to every star its brightness,\nto every cloud its nameless colors, to every lily its snowy whiteness,\nto every tiny ocean-shell its mingled hues. Oh, then, go to him. Ask\nhim to condescend to bless you with his indwelling life, to give power\nto the right thing in your nature, to irradiate you with his light, to\nactuate you by his love, and to be an impulse of perfection within you.\nAs you open your nature to receive God, the spirit within you will spring\nforward; it will respond swiftly to the touch of its original Source;\nit will rise in protest against the weaknesses and passions that have\nchoked and smothered it. Blessed with the movements of God, it will glow,\ndevelop, acquire ascendence; it will bring all your nature into harmony\nand peace; it will be an impulse to all that is \u201clovely and of good\nreport.\u201d\n\nBut observe this, my friend\u2014if you will hearken to your carnal\ninclination; if you will give heed to the drivelling folly of fools;\nif you will not receive Christ; if you will have none of his counsels,\nnone of his institutions; if you will choose none of his ways\u2014then in\nyou there never can grow up a spirit trained for perfect bliss. Men\nobject to hell. What is hell, but to be outside the loyalty and love\nof heaven? It is an infinite right due to the universe to keep out of\nheaven a spirit that has rejected the aid that would have made it fit\nfor heaven. It may be a mercy to keep a soul, all of whose tastes are\ncarnal and earthly, out of heaven, as it is a mercy to take a creeping\nworm out of uncongenial sunlight, and place it in darkness. If you have\nallowed idiots to teach you that it is manly to sneer at prayer to God,\nwhat right have you to complain if you remain unblessed by God? If you\ndeliberately choose darkness instead of light, what wrong is done you\nif you are left in the \u201couter darkness,\u201d whatever that may be? If a\nflowering plant should say, \u201cI will not have what heaven\u2019s influences can\ndo for me,\u201d it would be righteously excluded, in its hideous deformity,\nfrom the monarch\u2019s banqueting-hall. Ah, that plant _must_ be obedient.\nBut you, akin to the angels, have the awful liberty of disobedience. If\nyou choose not Christ, it will be because you harden your heart against\nhim; because you close your nature to the heavenly drawings that would\nbless you. There is a passage of Scripture of fathomless significance.\nThe gracious gifts of God to the spirit of man are said to be to eternal\nlife, but \u201csin\u201d is said to \u201c_reign unto death_.\u201d Yes, the principle\nof sin in the nature, if yielded to, if not overcome by God\u2019s Spirit,\nquenches the innocence of infancy and the purity of youth; corrupts the\nimagination, defiles the affections, inflames the passions, hardens the\nfeelings, degrades soul and spirit to be slaves to the flesh, deadens\nreligious capacity, extinguishes holy susceptibility, darkens the\nunderstanding to the things of God, makes gross the heart, dulls the\nhearing, murders the angel in a man, and kills every heaven-directed\naspiration; and then\u2014and then\u2014what remains for such a spirit but to\nabide in death, and be left to wander for ever in the unknown realms of\ndisloyalty and everlasting darkness?\n\nOn starting in life, then, I would charge and beseech you to rise to\nthe true elevation of your nature. Among men there are _five classes_.\nThe _lowest_ class are the slaves of fleshly appetites. These are the\nsensual, the debauched, the lascivious, the drunken. The _second_ class\nobey the world, and judge after the worldly standard. These are the\nlovers of pleasure, lovers of style, lovers of money, lovers of power.\nThe _third_ class are the intellectual. Wisely they culture intellect,\nbut they neglect the heart. They acquire information, but not benevolent\nemotions. They investigate nature, but do not see the glories of nature\u2019s\nGod. Higher still, there is the _fourth_ class\u2014the moral. They are the\nsoul of honor; they love liberty; they teach political principles; they\nprofess to comprehend the duties that man owes to his neighbor. The\nsummit, however, of greatness, is when, with attention to intellect and\nmoral laws, there is the development of the capacity of religion. It is\nhere humanity culminates\u2014the development of the spirit in man. These\nof the _highest_ class are lighted up from within by the Spirit of God.\nBy the inbreathing of the Almighty, they have understanding of things\nunseen; they do not despise intellect, but intellect in them is warmed\nand vivified by a divine brightness; they honor morality, and seek a\nright standard for measuring its duties; they fall into the movements of\nthe Perfect Mind and the Perfect Love; they learn to renounce self, to\ncontrol the fleshly; they acquire a disposition that can forgive; they\nare prompted to do good, and are enlarged with beneficence; they have\naptitude for spiritual enjoyments, and receive constantly new accessions\nof joy and power, whereby they become fitted for those blissful regions\nwhere love, purity, nobleness, peace, and benignity have place for ever.\n\nYoung man, just beginning your immortal existence, behold your true\ndestiny. Oh, for God\u2019s sake and your own sake, do not fall short of it!\nHere is the culminating point of humanity. Do not be degraded, and live\nunworthy of yourself. This is the end of Christ\u2019s gospel: not merely to\nsave, as a man is saved from fire or from drowning\u2014just brought out of\nthe water or the flames alive; but to save by conducting a human spirit\nto the victory over sin, self, and the world. \u201cI am come,\u201d said the\nSaviour, \u201cthat they might have life, and that they might have it more\nabundantly.\u201d\n\nThis elevation to which I call you is not in opposition to other\nattainments\u2014it embraces them. Piety will not give the intellectual talent\nwhich nature has withheld; but, if true, it will vastly improve whatever\nintellect a man has. It will not supply high reasoning powers if they\nwere not there before; but it will save reason from that blindness of\nconceit and prejudice whereby so many are fatally hindered and misled.\nWith piety, a man\u2019s intellect will be keener, his understanding will be\nsounder, his judgment will be wiser, and his tastes improved and refined.\nRich and Cobden is represented as having declared that he never felt\nconfidence in a man who was not possessed by religion; he was not at all\nsure what action he would take. Myriads of facts confirm the observation\nof the statesman. Of two poets, otherwise equal, the Christian is the\ngreater, of two statesmen, the Christian attains the more permanent fame;\nof two artists equally gifted, the Christian takes the higher place; of\ntwo merchants equally practical and far-seeing, the Christian reaches\nthe surest success. There were Arabian sheiks as magnanimous as Abraham;\nbut none acquired his ascendency over all times and nations. There were\nin Egypt many learned men besides Joseph; but none so influential. There\nwere many great kings of the East besides David; but none reached his\nelevation. There were many wise men in Babylon besides Daniel; but none\nso illustrious. There were in his age many scholars like Paul; but none\nwho so powerfully affected humanity. There were many Saxon kings who\nloved their country like Alfred; but none so great. There were in his\ntimes many who loved liberty like Milton; but none whose writings are\nmore read in these. There have been many investigators of nature like Sir\nIsaac Newton; but none so distinguished. There have been many soldiers\nwho have won splendid honors like Washington; but none whose name is\nsuch a spell of might to a great nation as is his. There were many great\nstatesmen in England when this century commenced; but none who died so\npopular and so honored as Wilberforce. There have been many princes who\nhave been cultured and benevolent; but none whose name \u201chereafter and for\nall times\u201d will be such \u201ca household word\u201d as that of Albert the Good.\n_These were all men of sincere piety._ Ah, I might tell out a record of\nnames that would have towered to the loftiest heights; but around which\nthere are sad and awful memories through the absence of a governing and\nmaster sentiment of the soul. No prejudice is so contradicted by facts\nas that which conceives of piety as allied with weakness. Piety is the\nnurse, the handmaid, the inspirer of all that can give man greatness. \u201cA\nman\u2019s religion,\u201d says Dr. Huntingdon very finely, \u201cfertilizes the whole\nfield of his being. It makes his business safer, his scholarship wiser,\nhis manhood manlier, his joy healthier, his strength stronger. It is the\ncrown of his enterprise and the charm of his affections, the humility\nof his learning, and the glory of his life. And because it has sight of\nthings not seen and eternal, it is the splendor, the transfiguration, and\nthe sanctity of things seen and temporal.\u201d\n\nObserve, however, it is not greatness to which I would urge you. There\nis the _attractiveness_ of piety, which, in the humblest sphere you\ncan exemplify. Oh, the beauty and power of a man who has tranquillized\npassion, has subdued the lower appetites, has acquired gentleness and\nconsiderateness, amenity and affectionateness; and who, reposing in the\nlove of Christ, and taught by the Spirit of Christ, is having formed in\nhis life some transcript of the superhuman loveliness which dwelt in\nChrist himself.\n\nThis, then, is the point to which I come. If you would have your nature\nto reach the highest place of which it is capable, yield yourself to God.\nYou cannot create the good in yourself. You can no more form yourself to\nthe divine and heavenly than the rosebud can open its beauties without\nsunlight or atmospheric moisture. It is your happiness to receive. It is\nyour privilege to open your nature that you may receive. The holy and\nall-helpful Spirit will swiftly draw near at the voice of your sincere\ncry to him. Myriads have proved this on earth: a multitude which no man\ncan number affirm it in heaven.\n\nIt was once my privilege to know one\u2014the Rev. Jonathan Glyde of\nBradford\u2014in whom the combination of excellencies I have sketched was\nexemplified. His had been for many years the reach after this moral and\nspiritual perfection; and he attained, as many admiringly witnessed,\nhis own ideal of gentleness and dignity, consideration for others and\nabnegation of self, beautiful humility and scholarly attainment, saintly\npurity and unfailing charity, childlike reliance upon the Saviour, and\nunwearied zeal for his fellow-men. When he was dying he was heard gently\nto murmur, \u201cHigher, higher!\u201d His attendants, misconceiving his meaning,\napproached the head of his bed to raise the pillows. Seeing their\nmistake, he fell back upon the Latin word, and with an ineffable smile,\nraised his enfeebled hand, saying, \u201cExcelsior, excelsior!\u201d To his waiting\nspirit the glimpse was given at that moment of the career of immortal\nglory, growth, and blessedness which was then before him.\n\nAnd now, in view of what has been said, let me add these counsels.\n\n1. _Religion is the necessity of your existence._ If, like Cain, you had\nstood at the beginning of the race, there might have been some excuse\nfor you in attempting to find happiness without God; but you stand with\nthe open book of six thousand years behind you. There has not been a\nsolitary case of a nation, or individual, who resolved to find permanent\nhappiness in sensual things, who has not been disappointed. Read history:\nyou will see how the experiment has been tried again and again, and has\nalways failed. Babylon tried it, with every advantage of Oriental luxury\nand splendor, and failed. Greece tried it, with every advantage of art\nand literature, and still the wisest men busied themselves to find the\nlost treasure of human happiness. Rome tried it, with every advantage of\nwealth and spectacle, and the more we pierce to the heart of society in\nRome\u2019s proudest days, the more do we find despair preying there. England\ntried it in the days of the second Charles. Puritanism had been silenced;\ngodliness was satirized on the stage; lust was the commodity of poets\nand wits; license was the fashion; but the unrest and craving of society\ngrew deeper, louder, and more troubled, as rivalries, intrigues, and\nlicentiousness abounded.\n\nIt has been the same with individuals. You have been told of the gay Lord\nChesterfield recording at the close of an enviable life of fashion and\npleasure, \u201cI am now wise enough to feel and attest the force of Solomon\u2019s\nreflections, that all is vanity and vexation of spirit.\u201d Mr. Lewes tells\nus in his life of Goethe, that the great poet wrote at thirty years of\nage: \u201cThe period in which I have mingled with the world I dare not yet\ntrust myself to look at. God keep me, that I be not as those who spend\nthe day in complaining of headache, and the night in drinking the wine\nwhich gives the headache.\u201d In advanced age the celebrated skeptic said\nof himself, \u201cThey have called me a child of fortune, nor have I any wish\nto complain of the course of my life; yet it has been nothing but labor\nand sorrow, and I may truly say that in seventy-five years I have not had\nfour weeks of true comfort. It was the constant rolling of a stone that\nwas always to be lifted anew.\u201d To me, as a Christian, such a testimony is\ninexpressibly affecting. In the seventh volume of \u201cGibbon\u2019s History\u201d you\nwill find a description of the founder of the city, palace, and gardens\nof Zehra, three miles from Cordova. Three millions sterling were spent.\nSculptors and architects were invited from Constantinople. Nothing that\nthe world could render to minister to the tastes and passions of the\ncaliph was wanting. After his death this authentic memorial was found\nin his cabinet: \u201cI have now reigned above fifty years in victory or\npeace; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my\nallies. Riches, honors, power, and pleasure have waited on my call, nor\ndoes any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In\nthis situation I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine\nhappiness which have fallen to my lot: they amount to FOURTEEN! O man,\nplace not thy confidence in this present world.\u201d\n\nIn mentioning these things, I have no desire to detract from the\nreal happiness there is in human life. There are a thousand sources\nof enjoyment that are open to you. Life is joyous\u2014it has its endless\ngratifications; but I solemnly tell you that you will be utterly\ndisappointed if you seek happiness apart from personal goodness and from\nGod. Why should you ignore the testimony of all times? Why should you\nnot avail yourself of this universal experience? Why should you, by the\nwreck of your own comfort, add your life to be another beacon of warning?\nNo doubt sin has its fascination; but if men whose opportunities were\ngreater than your own tell you that at \u201cthe end it biteth like a serpent\nand stingeth like an adder,\u201d is it not consummate folly for you to shut\nyour ears to the testimony? You are too good for the world; \u201cyou are\nof too noble a make and too lofty a mien\u201d to give yourself to any thing\nlower than God. There was a young man starting in life, as you are. He\nhad not your advantages. He was surrounded by the licentiousness of a\ncorrupt paganism. He went wildly astray into vicious indulgence. Little\nmore than thirty years had gone over his head when he turned aside\nfrom the gratifications of passion, and then he poured out his soul in\n\u201cconfessions\u201d which have come down to us, and which tell us in eloquent,\npathetic tones that man is doomed to an unsatisfied craving till he turns\nto know, to love, and to serve God. You may be able to read these noble\nLatin words which have been well quoted by a university preacher from\nthe great Augustine\u2019s first confession: \u201c_Fecisti nos ad Te, Domine, et\ninquietum est cor nostrum donec requiescat in Te._\u201d\n\n2. _Take heed of the first wrong step._ In the Life of the late Mr.\nBaines, Member of Parliament for Leeds, it is recorded that one day\nhe was watching an apprentice, whose habits were doubtful, fold a\nnewspaper. At the first fold there was a wrinkle, and at every succeeding\nfold the wrinkle grew worse and more unmanageable. Mr. Baines said\nsignificantly, \u201cJem, it is a bad thing to begin wrong.\u201d The poor fellow\nfound it so, for he soon after fell a victim to his vices. \u201cWho ever was\ncontent with one sin?\u201d said a heathen moralist. There are, indeed, young\nmen who, in an unguarded moment, have gone into scenes of temptation, and\nhave turned away with horror and recoil, like a bird that, having strayed\ninto the poisonous atmosphere of chemical works, has rushed back quickly\nto the pure air of heaven. But such cases are the exceptions. There is a\nwitchery about sin. One lie demands a second to back it; and thus a man\nbecomes that most contemptible and hopeless of men, a confirmed liar. A\ngreat preacher, the late Dr. Winter Hamilton, once said that he had known\nmen of all other kinds of wickedness converted; but a confirmed liar he\nhad never known converted. One night in a music and dancing saloon may\nso pollute the imagination as to break down the barriers of years. One\nthrow at a gaming-table, one bet on a race, may so excite the craving\nfor this perilous speculation that it may be followed by the frenzy\nand suffering of years of gambling. One indulgence of the lusts of the\nflesh may so damn a man in his own eyes that in a year he may be utterly\nfoul. Dear young man, nothing deadens the conscience so much as sin;\nnothing creates a desire for repetition so much as sin; nothing so rises\nin its demands from every concession made to it so much as sin. Among\nthe most striking things in our language is a sentence of Jeremy Taylor\non the progress of sin: \u201cSin startles a man\u2014that is, the first step;\nthen it becomes pleasing; then it becomes easy; then delightful, then\nfrequent; then habitual, then confirmed; then the man is impenitent, then\nobstinate; then resolves never to repent, and then is damned.\u201d My young\nbrother, it is in mercy that our heavenly Father sweeps away all the\ntrifling with sin by those strong but loving words, \u201cThou shalt _not_.\u201d\nOur poor self rises; passion raises its tempest of desire; experts in\nvice solicit; the wrong waits to claim us and hold dominion over us, and\nour good God, who sees the end, says, \u201cGo not in the way of evil men;\navoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away.\u201d It is just now,\nwhen boyhood is over, that you are to gain the victory. Hearken to that\ntrue man within you. Listen to that protest of God\u2019s Spirit in your soul.\nResolve to obey and conquer, and the victory will make you stronger, and\nmake temptation weaker. No one, however, can win the victory for you. The\ntest to prove whether you will be ignoble or noble, is for you to grapple\nwith. With the first temptation, then, contend; for it may be a fight for\nlife or death.\n\nI know there is a maxim very common that \u201ca young fellow must sow his\nwild oats.\u201d They shall not be my words that reply to that saying. They\nshall be those of a man who knows the world, and an ardent lover of\nthe pure pleasures of the world. \u201cIn all the range of accepted British\nmaxims,\u201d says Mr. Thomas Hughes, M. P., \u201cthere is none, take it all in\nall, more thoroughly abominable than this one as to the sowing of wild\noats. Look at it on which side you will, and I will defy you to make\nany thing but a devil\u2019s maxim of it. What a man, be he young, old, or\nmiddle-aged, sows, _that_, and nothing else, shall he reap. The one only\nthing to do with wild oats, is to put them carefully into the hottest\npart of the fire, and get them burnt to dust, every seed of them. If you\nsow them, no matter in what ground, up they will come, with long tough\nroots like couch-grass, and luxuriant stalks and leaves, as sure as there\nis a sun in heaven\u2014a crop which it turns one\u2019s heart cold to think of.\nThe devil, too, whose special crop they are, will see that they thrive,\nand you, and nobody else, will have to reap them; and no common reaping\nwill get them out of the soul, which must be dug down deep again and\nagain. Well for you if with all your care you can make the ground sweet\nagain by your dying day. \u2018Boys will be boys\u2019 is not much better, but that\nhas a true side to it; but this encouragement to the sowing of wild oats\nis simply devilish, for it means that a young man is to give way to the\ntemptations and follow the lusts of his age.\u201d\n\nAs I am in these addresses to picture life as it is, and to let facts\nspeak, I will still add corroborative instances that have fallen under\nmy own observation. I feel sure that hundreds of young men would have\nshunned vice if facts had been told them of its issues. They have few to\ntell them. It is intensely disagreeable to tell them. But I cannot see\nyoung men coming into our great cities without forewarning them of the\nrocks ahead of them. While these sheets were passing through the press,\nI had a most painful illustration of the ruin and sorrow following upon\nthe indulgence of sin. A young man came to London, bearing with him the\nconfidence and affection of a godly and afflicted mother, the pride of a\nChristian father, and the yearning love of pure and beautiful sisters.\nBecause of his intelligence and probity, he was placed in a situation\nof trust, and went on well while the thought of home and its sanctities\nwas with him. The tempter tried her arts, and caught him in her wiles.\nThe expenses of the dancing-room and the habits it led to were beyond\nhis limit of wealth. He took from intrusted money; the embezzlement was\nnot at first discovered. He grew confident. Satan wrapped blinding folds\naround him. Alas, the success was brief. From a gloomy prison he sent\nup a message to ask my prayers for him. I do not know him. None will\nknow him through this reference. At twenty-one he has brought a dark\nshadow over his life-dawn. Deep as is the darkness, it may be God\u2019s only\nmeans of answering his mother\u2019s prayers. Alas, for five years of his\nimprisonment has that mother\u2019s heart to be riven!\n\nWhen I was a minister in Leeds, a fine youth came to that town. He was a\nnative of a far-off land. He came to acquire mechanical knowledge more\nperfectly prior to becoming head of a great house. Wealth and possessions\nwere before him. An attached family circle delighted in him. He was\namiable, fascinating, and naturally generous. A group of wild young men\ndetermined to allure him to pleasure and sin. He fell into the snare.\nThe billiard-room was visited; it led to the tavern, and then to the\nbrothel. His kind employer remonstrated with him and pointed out the\nconsequences of his courses. It was of no avail. He had consulted the\n\u201csecret physician,\u201d or, rather, quack. A severe cold brought to a climax\nhis virulent disorder. His magnificent form was tossed upon a bed of\nanguish. Loved ones hastened over the sea to seek to save him. It could\nnot be. So loathsome was his chamber that nurses could hardly be secured\nto attend him, and those most loving him rushed overpowered from his\nbedside. His pearly teeth all dropped out, and at length, decayed and\nagonized, he died a dreadful, hopeless death.\n\n3. _Be courageous._ I have spoken of the perils of great cities. I\nmight speak of their grand opportunities. They are the schools for the\nhighest education of which man is capable. They have their thousand\ninstrumentalities for noble development. They have their incitements to\nthe most pleasurable excitation. They bring a collision of mind largely\nbeneficial. They open channels for benevolence and greatness as no other\nplaces do. But my advice is, let no man come to a great city without\ncourage. If he is weak, yielding, cowardly, let him not venture upon the\nencounters of a city life. Let a youth aim to live a godly life, and\nthe sluggish will sneer, the empty-souled will laugh, the wicked will\nthrow out sarcasms. Woe to the man who cannot brave the laugh of fools.\nMy friend, it is the first step that costs. My observation leads me to\nsay that fast and depraved men, with all their brag, are the greatest\ncowards. They like to make conquest of the inexperienced, but their\nforced laugh very poorly covers the secret awe they have of the manly\nand the firm. They know what is the right thing to do, spite of their\nsarcasms. Do I say, Trust in yourself? By no means; if you wish to be\nbrave, God will provide you armor. If, on the other hand, you go into\nthe world saying, \u201cI am not of the sort that yield; I am, afraid of no\ndanger,\u201d then let me say there is fear for this self-confidence. It is\na proverb we need to repeat to ourselves: \u201cSeest thou a man wise in his\nown conceit, there is more hope of a fool than of him.\u201d But be sure, my\nyoung brother, God is interested in your going the right way. He loves\nto help those who call upon him. I think of David as a young man crying\nto his pious mother\u2019s God: \u201cSave the son of thy handmaid.\u201d Morning by\nmorning ask God to arm you from head to foot, and then be strong and\ncourageous.\n\n4. Having decided on the right course, _go forward_. That right course is\nbefore you. No past guilt of yours is a barrier. \u201cChrist has put away sin\nby the sacrifice of himself.\u201d There is an open pathway of reconciliation\non which you may walk. But oh, for God\u2019s sake and your own sake, when\nyou have found that path, do not stand still. I have known young men who\nstarted well: their standard was high; their ideal of what Christianity\ndemanded was just and lofty. They resolved they would scorn the mean,\nthe money-loving, the selfish in life. They wound their conscience up\nto that point. But there the finger stopped, just at that figure: it\ntold out still what their ideal had been at starting. And this was all;\nthe clock did not go. They now have no sound, no tone about them. They\nstill say they scorn the mean, without aiming to _do_ noble things; they\nstill tell you they hate avarice, but they are not benevolent; they have\ntheir theories about selfish Christians, but none bless them for their\nself-renouncing deeds. This is of all things the most pitiable, that a\nman should sink lower than his own standard, and go through life false to\nhimself.\n\n                \u201cTo thine own self be true;\n    And it must follow, as the night to day,\n    Thou canst not then be false to any man.\u201d\n\nI surely need not say, Turn not back. Should the eagle which has soared\nhigher than his compeers break his pinion, he would drop lower than the\nlowest. It is related that in the American War of Independence, the army\nof Washington had crossed a bridge over a deep river. With the river\nbehind and the enemy in front, the great general proposed the question to\nhis officers: \u201cShall we burn the bridge?\u201d \u201cBurn it!\u201d said the staff; \u201cwe\nmay want it for a retreat.\u201d \u201cRetreat!\u201d said Washington; \u201cif that is the\nonly reason for retaining it, then it must perish.\u201d \u201cBurn the bridge!\u201d\nwas his instant order; and it was laid in ashes.\n\n5. _Cultivate helps to the spiritual life._ That life cannot take care\nof itself. It sprung forth first to meet the touch of God\u2019s Spirit, and\nit can only grow and become strong by communion with the Spirit. You see\nsome who appeared to be religious youths at fourteen, and who are worldly\nat twenty. No doubt there were fine religious susceptibilities which\nwere quickened into activity at the former period, and which gave them\nvantage ground for a fine start; but they lived on themselves, which is\nthe same as feeding the body upon emptiness. No wonder their apparent\nreligious life should have died. It is very much to be deplored, that\nwith the facilities which are afforded to many through early closing\nmovements, the opportunities for social religious culture should be\npassed by. Remember the secret of growth I have indicated\u2014co\u00f6peration\nwith God. When a man has saplings in his orchard which bear only wild\nfruit, like a good orchardist he seeks to improve them by grafting. He\ncuts his grafts from a last year\u2019s growth of wood; takes care that they\ndo not evaporate their moisture; then on the stocks grafts his scions If\na sapling is unbenefited; if the wood above the graft is just like the\nwood below, which it ought not to be; or if the fruit be of a mongrel\nkind, partly of the original stock and partly of the scion, what will he\ndo? Try again, it may be. But if, after repeated trials, he has the same\nresult, he will reject his unprofitable stocks, and turn his attention\nto fresh young trees. This is Christ\u2019s law of spiritual life. That which\nbeareth not fruit receiveth no more attention from the husbandman. \u201cWhen\na young man has much given to him\u2014religious training, divine movements on\nhis soul, glimpses of the beauty and blessedness of a religious life\u2014if\nthen there is a self-confidence, badness of heart, levity with Scripture,\nnegligence in prayer, trifling with holy things, indifference to growth,\nthen Christ suspends the vital influences. The branch remains, but it\nis sapless, lifeless, joyless. If the little life is in thy heart, my\nbrother, let me implore thee to seek its growth by prayer, by public\nand social worship, by seeking acquaintance with the mind of the Spirit\nin holy Scripture. The _Times_ newspaper\u2014and the testimony of a secular\njournal may have weight on this matter\u2014said not long ago in a leader: \u201cWe\nquestion if any person of any class ever read the Scriptures regularly\nand thoroughly without being or becoming not only religious, but sensible\nand consistent.\u201d\n\n6. _Ally yourself with the like-minded._ You will take your character\nfrom your chosen companions. You may not mean it, but you cannot help\nit. \u201cHe that walketh with wise men will be wise,\u201d saith the proverb,\nand the reverse side is true also. As a religious young man you cannot\nstand alone. Associate yourself with the aspiring. Seek the sympathy and\nhelpfulness of a Christian church. You will not do this because you are\nstrong, but because you feel weak. You will go into a church not because\nyou are wise and holy, but because you need prayers, and the impulse\nof mutual fellowship. There is a most unreasoning prejudice in this age\nagainst church communion. \u201cDo not be a sectary,\u201d you will be told. You\nmay reply: \u201cThere never has been an age in England when the very best,\nholiest, and most useful men were not counted sectaries.\u201d The grandest\nworks which have gone to save and bless the world have been done by\nChristian denominations; the noblest of men have been in firm alliance\nwith some Christian church. The outsiders have mostly been the critics,\nthe sentimental, and the ineffective. As a young man, a Christian\norganization offers a grand scene for your labors and for your dignified\ninfluence.\n\nIt may be you feel you cannot take your place among the righteous. Let\nme then conjure you not to let a day pass without resolving that you\nwill give yourself in loyalty through Christ unto God. He is calling\nyou through these words to glory and virtue. He strives with you to win\nyour love. His garments have been dyed in blood for your salvation. He\nbows himself to you and deigns to knock at the door of your heart.\nOh, for the sake of what is holiest, dearest, infinite, do not resist\nhis pleadings. On this the starting-point of your manhood, you are in\nyour own power. God appeals to you and says: \u201cI set before you life and\ndeath.\u201d The end of life now seems far off. Believe me it will come sooner\nfar than you think. Ceaselessly, noiselessly, swiftly will life pass.\nYour life must be looked back upon. If, after your opportunities, it is\nproved to have been a life of waste and evil influence, heavier will\nbe your remorse and doom. May God in mercy grant that yours may be the\nplace among the consecrated ones who have blessed humanity, and who now\nknow the meaning and grandeur of a destiny that called them to glory and\nimmortality.\n\nThus do I lay these counsels before you, my friend, as you enter upon\nlife. They have been written amid the demands of a large charge and the\nwearying claims of public life. They might have been better. But they\nare the outpouring of an intensely anxious heart. Looking back upon the\npast, I feel, with thousands more, that the great boon of existence\nwas the disposition to ally my nature with Christ\u2019s when eighteen years\nof age. From that time with what inexpressible benignity, patience, and\nsympathy, has Christ helped me! And now, should I be called to no other\nservice, in the closing moments of life the hope that these few words had\ninduced some young men to choose Christ and all his mighty love, would\nbe most precious and grateful to my heart. This I know, that if old age\nis welcomed when it brings to Christ only the relics of a wasted life;\nfor you, when you offer him the force of your will, the glow of your\naffections, the opening powers of your intellect, for you there will be\nmore than welcome; there will be \u201clavish acknowledgment.\u201d He will deign\nto call it \u201cthe kindness of your youth,\u201d which he will \u201cremember\u201d for\never.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n[1] There is a sin of which I can hint only to you. Alas, its terrible\ntemptations and its awful consequences are becoming frightful. It is\nnot safe to omit notice in an appeal to a young man who may be entering\nlife in a great city. If you could know the little that has come to my\nknowledge, your very hairs would stand on end. I could tell you of the\nfinest physical constitutions, which, after twelve months\u2019 tampering with\nthis perilous fascination, have become pitiable wrecks of disease. I\ncould tell you, on medical authority, of men now dragging out a useless\nexistence, with reason dethroned, and drivelling in idiotcy. And the\npunishment once done to the flesh does not depart. Life ends in early\ndeath, or is a long suffering of humiliation; yea, worse still, the\nsuffering is perpetuated in the third and fourth generations. Young men\nstarting in life have none to tell them these things, therefore I have\nforced myself to the hateful task. The displeasure of God against this\nsin is awful. What would you think of a man who should pluck a flower\nfrom a yawning chasm, when there were ninety-nine chances to one that he\nwould fall into the abyss below, and even if extricated, be scarred and\nbegrimed to the end of his days?\n\n[2] In Memoriam, p. 143.\n\n[3] Not very long since, a public lecturer was proceeding to Sheffield,\nand in a railway train astounded me by arguing that the apostle Paul\npreached the gospel before Jesus Christ was crucified. A Sunday-scholar\nof seven years of age would have taught him better. I was lately in a\nlarge meeting in Pentonville, when an intelligent man, who avowed himself\na skeptic, who had read Mr. Buckle\u2019s \u201cHistory of Civilization,\u201d declared\nthat men who believed the Bible could never be expected to attend to\nman\u2019s social condition; for that Christ taught, in John 6, that we were\n\u201cnot to labor for the meat which perisheth.\u201d Now mark, the very verse\nbefore the one quoted tells us that a multitude had followed Christ, not\nat all caring for what he would teach them, but because he had fed them\nwith loaves and fishes. Their miserable motive he exposed, and bid them\nlabor for meat which endured unto everlasting life. Suppose a son of this\nskeptic had taken what professed to be a letter from his mother, and\nsingled out a clause from its context to bring the letter into contempt\nbefore a meeting, what would that father have called such a son? A\nscoundrel. God probably pities him as he would not his son. But let young\nmen take heed of reasoning which is not merely a reproach to candor, but\nto common intelligence.\n\n[4] See Quarterly Journal of Geological Society, No. 86, p. 88. See note,\np. 129.\n\n\n\n\nIn Business\n\nRev. J. D. Wells, D. D.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                 CHAPTER I.\n\n    Boys                               PAGE 7\n\n                CHAPTER II.\n\n    Employers in Relation to Boys           9\n\n                CHAPTER III.\n\n    Boys in Relation to Employers          13\n\n                CHAPTER IV.\n\n    Young Men and Success                  22\n\n                 CHAPTER V.\n\n    Other Conditions of Success            32\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION.\n\n\nSeveral years ago a man, now venerable for age and character, gave\nthe writer some valuable hints about boys and young men in relation\nto business. He had himself begun life a poor boy, and achieved large\nsuccess. Coming to New York more than sixty years ago, he was familiar\nwith all the changes in methods of doing business up to the time then\npresent. Nor has he ceased to be active in the affairs of a large concern\nat this later day. The passing years have made him old and have not\nleft me young. The thoughts he gave me, supplemented by my own reading,\nobservation and reflection, move me to set down some things that may be\nhelpful not only to the classes of persons already referred to, but to\nothers as well.\n\nThe great change in business methods does not warrant any change in the\ncharacters and habits of those who have a right to expect success in any\ntrue meaning of the word.\n\nI would gladly speak a helpful word to the thousands of boys and young\nmen who are looking hopefully into the future, and yet may not have in\nmind the true conditions of well-doing for themselves or their employers.\n\n\n\n\nBoys and Young Men in Relation to Business.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n_BOYS._\n\n\nIf there were no boys there would be no young men and no old men. To\nthis truism add the saying, \u201cThe boy is the father of the man,\u201d and our\nsubject has dignity and greatness at the outset. There may be aspects of\nit that provoke merriment; but there are more of a different character,\nand we are kept sober-minded in view of them.\n\nThe boy on shipboard is the \u201cmonkey.\u201d The boy among types and presses\nis the \u201cprinter\u2019s devil.\u201d The boy at school is \u201cJack,\u201d or \u201cBill,\u201d or\n\u201cDick,\u201d \u201chail-fellow well met,\u201d and a peer among peers. The boy in\ncollege, if any boys go to college, is a \u201cFreshman,\u201d bound\u2014if not happily\nemancipated of late\u2014to serve the learned \u201cSophomore,\u201d or take a ducking,\nor something worse, for his disobedience.\n\nIn business the boy is just what his character, his companions and his\nemployers make of him. He may be a butt of ridicule, or a greenhorn to\nbe ripened into smartness and wickedness by those who are older and\nwiser and worse than himself. He may be a poor drudge, to sweep and run\nof errands, which may be all right; or to suffer untold indignities and\ncruelties, with no uplifting to a better future and very little pay for\nvery much work, which is all wrong.\n\nOr, by way of contrast, he may be treated from the start as having in him\nthe germ of real greatness, the undeveloped qualities of a man yet to be\nacknowledged as the peer of those he serves, and the possible superior\nof them all. No one but God knows what may be hid and struggling for\nopportunity and recognition and reward in the obscurest little fellow who\ntakes the lowest place in any store or office or shop.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n_EMPLOYERS IN RELATION TO BOYS._\n\n\nI do not think the first thing to be considered is what a boy may do for\nhis employers, but rather what they may do for him, and so, at last, for\nthemselves through him. In all ordinary circumstances they can mould him\nto their will. They are the masters, he is the servant. They are strong,\nhe is weak. If they do not recognize their obligation to him, in the\nrelation to which they invite and receive him, they ought not to complain\nof his failures in duty to them. As well expect a son to know and meet\nhis duties to his parents while they utterly fail to recognize theirs to\nhim.\n\nIf an employer requires a boy to do what in his home or the sanctuary he\nhas learned he must not do, and if he requires him to do the forbidden\nthing on pain of losing his place or his pay, the requirement is not\nonly a grievous wrong in itself, but an outrage upon the inalienable\nrights of the boy. Children are required to obey their parents only\n\u201cin the Lord.\u201d No man is great enough to lord it over his own child\u2019s\nconscience. And this great principle holds in the relation of employers\nto their servants of all ages and grades.\n\nBoys sell their time and service to their masters. They cannot sell their\nconscience, soul, and body. They must do right if they lose a thousand\nplaces in succession and starve to death for want of work. I can think of\nno persecution more cruel and infamous than that which is practised upon\nboys just starting on their career for life, here and hereafter, when\nthey are required to practise deceit; to say things that are not true\nabout goods to be sold, or in any other way to debauch conscience. The\npenalty of disobedience may be sending them home to widowed mothers or\norphaned sisters without recommendation to any other place of business.\nThis is martyrdom with a vengeance, and it is by no means uncommon. I\nhave in mind glaring instances that have come under my own observation.\nA man now belonging to an old and wealthy business house was thrust out\nof his place when a youth because he refused to sell goods damaged in a\nvital though hidden part as goods in perfect order.\n\nAnother, in a position of great responsibility and usefulness for a\nnumber of years in a heathen land, when a boy served his employer\nfaithfully six days in the week, and was required to sell his goods on\nthe Sabbath. His conscience forbade this and he was discharged, with very\nserious consequences for a time.\n\nThese are specimens of classes. But it is always safe and wise for boys\nfirmly and respectfully to resist human authority in all such cases.\n\nThere is another great wrong to boys, to wit, leaving them at the mercy\nof subordinates who hold positions grading all the way from those held\nby the boys themselves, to those just below the high positions of the\nemployers. I have seen something of this petty tyranny; good boys harried\ninto desperation or pushed and badgered into immoralities and the loss of\nself-respect.\n\nHappy are the boys who go from their homes to the care of good men,\nand to the companionship of co-workers who help them to success by\ninstruction and example.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\n_BOYS IN RELATION TO EMPLOYERS._\n\n\nThus far I have written some plain things about employers in relation\nto boys. With equal plainness I now write of boys in relation to their\nemployers.\n\nClearly they must always do right even if the stars fall. It is weak and\ncontemptible to be eye-servants, showing all diligence in the presence\nof employers, but lapsing into idleness, carelessness or mischief when\nthey disappear. In the long run boys that always do right will do well.\nThe hearts of their employers can safely trust in them. If for no higher\nreason than their own interests they will advance them from one position\nto another of responsibility and emolument.\n\nBut other reasons will prevail. Personal attachments will be formed. Men\nof business are commonly men of heart. They have sons of their own and\ncannot help admiring the excellencies of other people\u2019s sons. It is not\nuncommon to hear them boast of the virtues of boys employed by them.\nSome time ago I was in an office and within a few moments two gentlemen\nof the firm called my attention to a lad who was moving quietly about,\nabsorbed in the duties of his calling. They spoke with great interest of\nhis fidelity and efficiency in relation to them; of his great self-denial\nin order to minister to the comfort of his family; and of his brilliant\nprospects.\n\nThere is a proverb as true as when written, \u201cA wise servant shall\nhave rule over a son that causeth shame, and shall have part of\nthe inheritance among the brethren.\u201d There is another which is not\ninfrequently verified, and suggests a very pleasant way in which boys\ngrown to manhood sometimes share in the \u201cinheritance among the brethren;\u201d\nit is this: \u201cHe that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child\nshall have him become his son at length.\u201d\n\nAgain, boys must give their best thought and energies in business hours\nto the interests of their employers. Nor should they forget or in any\nway endanger those interests out of business hours. They are in and of\nthe concern. They represent it. Its reputation attaches to them and\ntheirs to it. It may be amusing, but it is pleasant, and suggestive of a\nbright future, to hear a boy just beginning his business life speaking\nloftily of \u201cour house.\u201d He belongs to its personnel. His life mingles\nwith its life. It is for his interest to give much thought, at all\nproper times, to the duties of his station. If, by extra labor adding to\nhis qualifications for business, he can become more useful than he was\nexpected or is required to be, he may cut off weary months and even years\nthat must otherwise lie between him and higher service and better pay. I\nknew a boy who in this way passed over the heads of several older than\nhimself, and in early manhood fairly won a position which others never\nreached. As a rule, I think boys may count on being promoted when they\nhave outgrown the places which they wish to leave. If they can sweep\nstores and set things in order better than others, and run of errands\nwith swifter feet, and acquaint themselves with streets and places of\nbusiness quicker than others, they will not have to do these things for a\nlong time. Higher service awaits them, and they will find that the habits\nof thoroughness and dispatch already formed are worth more and more as\nthey advance to higher and more responsible positions.\n\nIn all things right, boys must sink their wills in the wills of their\nemployers. This is not to become slaves. Children have safest and\nsweetest liberty in obeying their parents; scholars their teachers;\nsoldiers their commanders. In the shop, the office, the store, there must\nbe authority on the one hand and obedience on the other. Boys should\nrejoice that above them there are men who, once boys like themselves,\nare now wise enough and kind enough to assign them their duties and to\nguide them in the way to success, and firm enough to require obedience\nto their directions. Prompt and cheerful obedience will not fail,\nin ordinary circumstances, to attract the attention and secure the\napprobation of employers. Wise boys will watch for opportunities to make\nthemselves useful, gladly doing what has not occurred to anyone else and\nyet everyone will be glad to have done; and if they can do all to please\nHim who seeth in secret and rewardeth openly, rather than for any lower\nmotive, they are to be congratulated as having made a right start not\nonly for this life but for that which is to come.\n\n\u201cIt is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.\u201d A great but\nvery sad prophet wrote these familiar words long ago, but they have lost\nnone of their truth. If a thousand boys, already in business or about to\nbegin their business lives, were reading the words I write, I would put\nall possible emphasis in what follows: do not fear any amount of work,\nor any kind, lying fairly within your power. I have been an office-boy,\ndoing many things, besides writing, that were not easy or pleasant. I\nknow that many things needing to be done may be left undone without\nincurring blame. But he that does them wins the approval of his own\nconscience and the favor of men. If one does unpleasant things cheerfully\nthey lose half of their unpleasantness, and will not have to be done many\ntimes.\n\nIt is mean to shirk, and it never pays. The ease it brings for the moment\nis punished by long drudgery, and he that habitually shirks may look back\nat the end of a miserable life with unavailing regrets upon the weakness\nand neglect of his early years. Even a horse that will not draw his part\nof a reasonable load is despised and whipped.\n\nBlessings on the good boys that have pluck and purpose to succeed;\nand may all that are otherwise become like them, as doubtless many of\nthem mean to do. \u201cYou will be proud of us one of these days,\u201d was the\nassurance of a bright but mischievous boy to an anxious teacher pleading\nwith him and his companions to mend their ways. A boy of this kind who\ngave me great solicitude a few years ago, as I was his pastor and the\nteacher of his Sunday-school class, came suddenly under the power of the\ntruth. Deeply convicted of sin, and coming to Christ on his invitation,\nhe was soon rejoicing in the hope of pardon and eternal life. He is\nnow the efficient superintendent of a Sunday-school and bears a most\nimportant office in the church of which he is a beloved member.\n\n\u201cI have a noble boy,\u201d said a deck-hand on a ferryboat as I fell into\nconversation with him. Then he gave me his history. From his school days\nto full manhood his career was honorable and his life in and out of his\nchurch relations very useful. To the father he was still his \u201cboy\u201d and\nhis pride.\n\nBoys, you are all old enough to know that somewhere you will live\nforever. The characters you form here will go with you into the world and\nthe life to come. If they are right here, and now, they will be right\nforever and grow better and better. If they are wrong here, and continue\nso till God calls you away, early or late, they will be wrong always and\nwax worse and worse. Boys do not all live to become old men\u2014or even young\nmen. There is just one way of starting right and being in the right way\nuntil God calls you to a better world. Listen to the sweet words that\nyou have often heard: \u201cI love them that love me, and those that seek me\nearly shall find me.\u201d Determine to be boy Christians. Believe that Jesus\nChrist, the only Saviour, loves you. He is able and willing to save you\nfrom the sins of your youth. If you hear and obey his loving call he will\nguide and guard you safely until you are forever with him and like him.\nBelieve that you need him every hour and moment. Trust him to do what he\npromises. Keep company with those who delight in his service. Fear God\nand keep his commandments. \u201cRemember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.\u201d\nCling to your Sunday-school and church. Confess Jesus Christ before men,\nand he will confess you before his Father and the angels. If irreligious\nboys make fun of you, because they think you have given up all the\npleasures of boy-life, let them know that the peace which God gives you\nis far better than all their forbidden pleasures, and do what you can to\nwin them from their evil ways to a true and blessed life.\n\nIn any case, boys, be sure that the favor of God, which is life, and his\nlovingkindness, which is better than life, will fit you for the truest\nand best success in business. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he\nwill direct your steps: God will be your patron and friend.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n_YOUNG MEN AND SUCCESS._\n\n\nThe line between boys and young men is invisible. Those who pass it\ncannot tell where it lies. But the time comes when they no longer admit\nto themselves or others that they are boys. They bear about the pleasant\nconsciousness that they are nearer the heart of a business life than\nthey were a while before. They may be apprentices, collectors, entry\nclerks, shipping clerks, bookkeepers, salesmen behind the counter, or\non the road, but they are no longer boys and they are not yet partners.\nA numerous class, they will become largely the business men of the next\ngeneration. Even now they represent immense personal, domestic and public\ninterests. Who can think of them without emotion! It does not require\na broad sweep of observation and recollection to bring into view from\nthe two extremes young men who have utterly failed and others who have\nwon honorable success; those who have sealed their own doom and dragged\nothers down with them to an abyss of shame and misery, and those who have\nbecome princes in the earth.\n\nIt is worth asking at the outset what meaning we ought to attach to the\nwords \u201csuccess\u201d and \u201cfailure\u201d in business.\n\nWe do not account him successful who gains large wealth, leaving it to\nhis family and even to public institutions of great usefulness, but who\ndoes it at the cost of personal integrity, character and reputation. We\ndo not need examples of men who have grown rich by doubtful methods of\nbusiness, by perversion of office and trust funds, and who have already\nsunk or are now sinking into depths of infamy and woe opened by their own\nhands.\n\nNor is he successful who gains wealth honestly, and hoards it\u2014against\nall the claims of humanity and the revealed will of God\u2014until his riches\nare corrupted, his gold and silver cankered, the rust of them even now,\nbefore the last day, eating his flesh as it were fire.\n\nMen utterly fail, though possessed of millions, who make shipwreck of\ncharacter in the sight of their Maker and their fellow-men.\n\nMany fail for lack of qualities and habits, and, it may be,\nopportunities, that condition success. But _they do not_ fail who use\nall diligence, and their best wisdom and opportunity, and yet become\npoor without the loss of a good conscience toward God and man. And they\ncertainly succeed who amass wealth or a competency while maintaining\ntheir integrity in relation to God and their honor among men.\n\nIt may be well to state here some of the well-ascertained facts in regard\nto the percentage of success and failure in business, using the words in\ntheir most limited meaning.\n\nOnly from three to five in every hundred men who embark in business\nhave large and permanent success. And these are not chiefly those who\nbegin with large capital. For the most part they are men who have been\narchitects of their own fortunes. Beginning as boys on low wages, and\npassing through all grades of advancement from the lowest to the highest,\nthey have at last become strong enough to make their own terms with those\nwho have gladly recognized their ability and integrity as the equivalent\nof large capital; or without such aid they have worked their way to\nsplendid success.\n\nAbout ten out of a hundred have moderate success. Without aspiring to the\nrank of millionaires they have an abundance for personal and family use,\nand are able to share freely, if so inclined, in the beneficence of their\ntimes.\n\nThe remaining eighty-five in a hundred are on a sliding scale from\npartial success to utter failure. Leaving out of view all the cases\nin which men of integrity and ability fail by reason of unavoidable\ncalamity, or lack of opportunity, how shall we account for the large\npercentage of failures? And as the percentage continues from year to\nyear, and perhaps increases from generation to generation, it seems clear\nthat the reasons are permanent and powerful.\n\nIt certainly throws a deep shadow over households and communities to\nthink that young men have before them such gloomy prospects. Can we not\nbrighten them? Must every hundred young men, full of the strength and\nenterprise belonging to their age, advance toward the goal of their\nambition under the depressing thought that only from five to twenty are\nlikely to win prizes? At best the cares and responsibilities and risks\nof business men are very great. But I do not believe that circumstances\nexternal to themselves control the business destiny of young men. They\nmay avoid disastrous failure and win success. At least a very large\npercentage of them may win the wholesome success which consists in having\nneither poverty nor riches; for this after all may be welcomed as the\nsafest and best condition. But they may also be prepared by excellence\nof character, and by habits of business and of life, for the possession\nand use of large wealth, under the great responsibility of stewards who\nare yet to give account to the real Proprietor of all the treasures in\nthe world.\n\nIt should be remembered that young men may succeed as clerks and utterly\nfail as the responsible heads of business concerns. For this reason the\nconditions of success, of which I am about to write, have reference\nlargely to times beyond the years of apprenticeship and subordination.\n\nYoung men may enjoy the confidence of their employers while they are\ndisqualifying themselves for independent action. Devotion to their\ninterests may secure rapid advancement in positions and salaries. They\nmay be extravagant and immoral, and yet have qualities that cover their\nfaults and commend them to favor. While they remain under the direction\nand control of men better and stronger than themselves they may be\ncongratulated as already successful, while they are bearing about in\ntheir own persons all the conditions of sure and disastrous failure.\n\nThe first and fundamental condition of real and permanent success is good\ncharacter. This may be set down without qualification. Character is an\nengraving. A good character answers to a divine ideal or pattern. It is\nnot made in a day, and if marred it can be restored. Bearing the deep\ncuts and finer lines of truth and righteousness and pureness, it will\nbear the violence of temptation in private, social, and business life,\nand the severer testing of the last day.\n\nOf course such a character is secretly and openly religious. Only when\nyoung men consent to commit the keeping of their souls and bodies to\nJesus Christ, and to bear any cross that in his love and faithfulness he\nmay lay upon them, can they be strong in the Lord and the power of his\nmight.\n\nHow suggestive the words of the disciple whom Jesus loved with a\npeculiar personal affection: \u201cI have written unto you, young men, because\nye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome\nthe wicked one. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the\nworld.\u201d\n\nI hope no young man searching for the conditions of success in his\nbusiness life, if he reads these pages, will make light of this, which\nis first and most important of all. That cannot be called success which\nsecures more than heart can wish for the life that now is, and not the\nlife to come. \u201cLook well to thy goings,\u201d was the earnest counsel of one\nwho knew well the dangers of the young man. \u201cLook well to thy goings; it\nis a narrow path. Look well to thy goings; it is a new path. Look well\nto thy goings; it is a slippery path. Look well to thy goings; it is an\neventful path.\u201d\n\nIn a long life I have seen many young men begin a business career with\ngreat advantages and brilliant prospects, but their light went out in\ndarkness because they did not cleanse their ways by taking heed thereto\naccording to God\u2019s word.\n\nBut I have also seen and now have in full view young men who early sought\nrefuge from their sins, and from all the perils of life, by coming\nfrankly to Jesus Christ in their conscious need. Invited to his presence,\nand assured of his love and help, they took him at his word and found\nrest to their souls. There is no harmless lawful pleasure that is denied\nthem. The peace of God is in their hearts. The service to which they are\ncalled brings its own reward. The joy of the Lord is their strength. They\nconfess Christ as their Saviour and look forward to the momentous time\nwhen he will fulfil his word and openly confess them. They keep company\nwith those who bear the Christian name, and give the full vigor of their\nyoung manhood to well-doing in their daily business and in all the\nrelations of life.\n\nAsk them if they are in bonds that they wish to break. You will get a\nquick and emphatic answer: \u201cOurs is the liberty of doing right because we\nlove to; and that is the glorious liberty of the children of God.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\n_OTHER CONDITIONS OF SUCCESS._\n\n\nIt does not follow, however, that a good moral or religious character by\nitself will ensure success in the business of life; one must have certain\nwell-known qualifications and habits, and the reputation of possessing\nthem.\n\n1. Reputation. Probably it stands next to character, if a young man\nis to depend upon others for help in his work. Character is what one\nis in himself and before God; reputation is what others take him to\nbe. A bad reputation certainly blocks the way to success. A good name\namong business men is the equivalent of capital. Every young man who is\nstarting in business for himself must rely upon older men to help him\non his way. They have watched others closely. They have seen successive\ngenerations of young men come to the front, and climb the hill of\ndifficulty till they have reached positions of safety and honor, or go\ndown to the abyss of dishonor and misery. In a word, watching others\nclosely they have accumulated facts that make it easy for them to\nforecast the future of younger men with marvelous certainty. They are as\nsensitive to the outward appearance and the known or suspected habits of\nthose who approach them for favors in trade as mercury to the changes\nof temperature. No young man can afford to have the reputation of being\nextravagant, or reckless, or mean, or untrue to his word. He cannot even\nappear to be such without danger to his credit, on which to so large an\nextent, as business is done, success must depend.\n\nAn acquaintance of my own came to the city a youth without capital. He\nwas honest, frugal, industrious, and of firm will. Having begun business\nin a small way, and mostly on credit, he was invited by a friend\u2014after\nbusiness hours\u2014to ride beyond the limits of the city behind a fast horse\nand with a fine turn-out. He accepted the invitation, but found the\npleasure of the ride reduced to a minimum by the tormenting thought that\nhe might be seen by some of the men who had given him credit.\n\nIn a new firm, with very large capital, one of the younger partners\nsecretly bought a horse. A senior partner learning the fact quietly\ninformed him by letter that his early extravagance would hurt the\nreputation of the house.\n\nIt may be a hit at our times, but I have seen it stated that business men\nsometimes inquire of persons seeking advanced positions whether they have\nalready supplied themselves with such trifles as elegant jewelry and fast\nhorses, hardly daring to risk employing them if these things are yet to\nbe secured.\n\nIt remains a truth that needs to be made very emphatic that young men\nlaying their plans for success in business, whether as subordinates or\nprincipals, must look well to their reputation.\n\nAre they given to billiards? There are many reasons why they would do\nwell to limit their indulgence. Of one thing at least they cannot afford\nto make light: conservative men older and wiser than themselves, on\nwhose favor they must depend for a while at least, look with distrust on\nyoung men who indulge largely in this game, and especially in not very\nreputable places.\n\nA young man drinks beer, wine, whisky or brandy with his dinner. This\nhabit will grow upon him. His young blood needs no quicker rush than\nit has. If he gives it the force of such a stimulant when he is young\nhe will be old before his time, and never enjoy the full confidence of\nmen with whom he wishes to stand well and without whose favor he cannot\nsucceed. He may not spend half his income in extravagance but other\npeople cannot be sure of this, and he has need both to deserve and keep\ntheir confidence. Credit is the equivalent of reputation. It may be hurt\nby not saving at the outset and increasing capital. In that case one\nmust pay more for goods than men who have better credit. Or he may not\nbe able to buy at all of men who know him well and have the goods he\nneeds. Then he must buy of others goods that will not suit his customers;\nand so his lack of credit or loss of reputation will bring him to speedy\ngrief. The first bad year in the business would leave him like a vessel\nthat hardly floats when the tide is at the full, but sticks fast in the\nmud at the first of the ebb.\n\n2. Another condition of success is diligence. Mark the word. It is\nnot the precise equivalent of industry. It implies choice, selection,\ndelight. One needs to have true delight and enthusiasm in his business.\nTherefore the great importance of choosing wisely at the outset. We pity\nmen and women who in their babyhood had inflicted upon them fanciful\nnames, but this is nothing to the blunder of putting a son to a business\nin which through his whole life he can take no delight. His only relief\nis to set himself, with all possible energy and enterprise, to lift his\nbusiness, supposing it to be right in itself, up to a plane so high that\nhe can sincerely rejoice in his achievement, as very difficult to make\nbut of great worth when it is made.\n\nDiligence supposes a fixed purpose and constancy of effort, as well as\nenthusiastic devotion. When Isaac Rich trundled his wheelbarrow from\nthe oyster-boat in Boston to the market-place three miles off, having\ninvested all his worldly goods in what was before him, there was light\nin his eye and warmth in his heart though the day had not dawned. He was\na poor young man from Cape Cod. He had made choice of his business for\nlife. I do not know how long he followed it behind the barrow. Years ago\nhe gave a million and three quarters of dollars to found a college in\nthe city that itself yielded this treasure to his diligence and thrift.\n\u201cThe hand of the diligent maketh rich.\u201d \u201cSeest thou a man diligent in his\nbusiness? He shall stand before kings. He shall not stand before mean\nmen.\u201d Let young men bind these divine proverbs upon their foreheads, and\nwrite them where they can be seen, as rules of their business lives.\n\n3. Another condition of success is force, or energy. This comes often by\nheredity, transmitted from parent to child. In any case it is a precious\ngift, a great talent, for the right use of which every one receiving it\nmust give account. From it, as a reserve power, one may draw at will\nto push on any work in which he takes delight. Call it the magnetic or\nelectric power of the will, if you please. It may be like the same subtle\nfluid in destructive flash, or like it in the crisp air of a winter\u2019s\nday, nerving one for almost tireless effort.\n\n4. It may seem almost superfluous to add to the list of personal\nqualities conditioning success in business the quality of competency. It\nmay be said to include all that have been already noticed, and all that\na business man needs. It is the state of being competent or adequate\nfor what one has to do to win success. It supposes that in theory and\npractice he has acquired fitness for his calling. The theory he must get\nby careful observation of everything connected with his business, by\nconversation with others, older and, it may be, wiser and more gifted\nthan himself; by carefully reading what is current, and what is past,\nbearing upon the work he has in hand, and by much thought of his own.\nHe may then be able to reach conclusions far in advance of any dreamed\nof by the heedless. He studies fabrics, woods, metals, fruits, sugars,\nteas, coffees, markets, finance, men. So he grows in mental power and the\nconsciousness of it. He commands an increasing influence among business\nmen, and learns how to expend the force that urges him on to larger and\nbetter ventures in trade.\n\nBut he must have practice with theory; habits of doing as well as\nthinking. This he can accomplish only by putting his own hand to the\nwork, as a child learns to write, or to master the key-board of a piano.\n\nThe men who take the lead of affairs, whatever they lack, are sure to\nhave a most minute and entire knowledge of their branch of business; such\na knowledge as can be got only by taking hold and doing every part of it.\n\nYoung men should see things with their own eyes, and touch and fashion\nthings with their own hands. With character, and reputation and diligence\nand force and competency, in all ordinary circumstances they can make a\nbusiness for themselves. If they have little money and live within their\nmeans they will find it growing on their hands fast enough for their\ngood. If they go largely on credit they will be in danger when a panic\ncomes. Let a young man keep safely within due limits, be content with\nmoderate gains, ask of the Lord \u201ca prudent wife,\u201d and take his place\namong the true and strong men of the land and the world.","title":"Young Men; In Business","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":31309}