Life thoughts for young men

Preface

THIS book has its origin in a series of Sunday evening lectures, delivered to the young men of the author's pastoral charge. Their presentation in the present form is owing to the repeated solicitation of ministers and others who heard them, and a desire that they may secure a wider field of influence than was at first contemplated. I entertained no thought of publishing them until one-half of them had been delivered, and even now, if my own fame were the highest consideration, I should not suffer them to see the light. They are not without many defects, and no one can be so conscious of these as the author himself; but no time has been allowed me for that finish and clearness of statement which would commend them to the cultivated. More than the half of them appear precisely as they were first written and delivered. Though commenced in, and continued through midsummer, they had a large hearing, and were not without gratifying results at the time. I have thought that in this time, when so many influences are at work which are designed to vitiate the lives of young men especially, a book with an

aim so specific might be regarded as timely. If it

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IV PREFACE.

shall prove that in this book I have brought to " Our Young Men" a warm heart and a helping hand, I shall feel abundantly compensated for any ill-fortune that may happen to it on its way across the critic's table. The fact is, the book is what it was designed to be — a simple, frank, and friendly statement of truth to young men. It lays no claim to striking originality, and is not entitled to any special literary merit. It is possible that some repetition will be noticed in these lectures. In some instances it is intentional, and designed to give greater emphasis to vital truth ; in others, it is an inadvertence which I can only now regret. A humble tribute, I lay it at the feet of the Master, assured that if He own it, it will not fail to prove a benediction to those for whom it is intended.

M. R.

CHAPTER J,

PAGE.

Our Young Men 7

CHAPTER IE Evils to be Shunned 33

Chapter I. Our Young Men

FEW months ago an intelligent young man, lonely and dejected, came to my door, and handing a letter to the servant, asked that it be given to me.

An extract or two will explain its mission.

" Rev. and Dear Sir : You may remember me

as the reporter of the' , who met you several

times last summer and reported four or five of your sermons for the paper. * * * For over a month I have been confined to my room with a severe attack of chills and fever from which I have but lately recovered. To the extent of my ability I have used every effort to obtain employment, but without any hope of success, save an indefinite and somewhat vague promise that if I can bridge over the interval,

an opening will be made for me on the , about

the middle of March. * * * I have always earned fair salaries, but having an invalid brother and a widowed mother who are partially dependent on

me, I have never saved much of my earnings. I am, consequently, now in a position I never occupied before, without means to secure even the necessaries of life. Everything - of intrinsic value which I possessed, my , etc., has gone to the pawnbroker

to secure needed food and a place of shelter at night. **.•** While I do not profess to be a Christian in the orthodox sense of the word, I am one in its broader significance. Reared as I was by godly parents, I have ever had the greatest reverence for sacred things, and ever participated in the privileges of the sanctuary where I could do so. My present unfortunate condition is alone to be attributed to illness and improvidence. * * * * In the conversation which I had with you last summer and the sermons which I reported, you attracted me as one in whom I could repose my confidence, and so I have frankly done. * * * Can you not among your circle of friends find one, who can give me some temporary, if not permanent employment, by which I can earn my daily bread ? * * * Plainly stated, my condition is this, 1 am penniless and homeless ; I have not tasted food to-day and do not know where I shall find shelter for the night. * * * With your permission I will call on you this evening, when I trust you can give me some encouragement.

" Respectfully,

A subsequent interview with this young man confirmed in my mind the sincerity evinced in his letter.

I was not without promptings to some suspicion in his case, but I remembered how easy it is to act the part of the Levite in the parable and to relieve our responsibility in a cautiousness that is only unmanly selfishness in cruel disguise. The young man secured employment, not by any effort of mine, but of his own, and in it, met with an accident that disabled him for a considerable time. When he had sufficiently recovered, he addressed me a letter from the hospital. The following is an extract :

" During these long weeks I have been confined to my bed, I have had time and opportunity to review my past life, and it has been by no means satisfactory. The memories of my dear old mother's prayers and counsels have haunted me constantly, and I have tried to confess the many sins of my life to God, and plead his forgiveness, and determine that I will hereafter try to live a consistent Christian life.

" When I called on you, you treated me so kindly that I want to write you of my determination and ask your assistance to carry it out. * * * I am in

Division , Ward , where I should be gfad to

receive a line of encouragement from you." %

I was deeply impressed with these communications, and felt that there was a great wrong among us, in the little attention given to our young men, and resolved that I would correct my own fault here, by greater sympathy and effort in their behalf in the future.

This young man is but one of many, especially in our large cities, who, sometimes from fault of their own, and sometimes from circumstances over which they have no control, are cast adrift, and not unfrequently allowed to perish, when a hopeful rescue was entirely possible.

Surely the ministers and people of God should not be less earnest in efforts to save them, than are evil men to destroy them. It does not meet the case, nor contribute any honor to Christian sympathy and instrumentality, to say that the fault and the folly are their own ; that if they did right and were prudent they would be saved the miseries that often come upon them. Very true. But is it not true of all, and if such a method and spirit obtained, would any be saved ? would we have been saved ourselves ? If these imperiled or fallen ones are culpable, it is only the one brand that blackens every brow, and yet it did not rouse the anger, but stirred the sympathy and love of the Father above us, and moved him to a redemption that compassionates the worst, and invites all to its salvation.

The question is not so much, how these fallen, deluded ones came into the plight some are too blind to see, but rather this — they are by unspeakable considerations worth saving. If we would combine the salvation of the soul with the relief of the body, we may not stop to ask whether these lost ones that come to us now and again are worthy of our sympathy and help.

I am fearful that not a few young men are sacri-

LIFE THOUGHTS FOR YOUNG MEN. I I

ficed to the excessive cautiousness and guilty propriety of many who might do much for their recovery and ennoblement.

And now, if I shall be able to stir up the good everywhere to more earnest endeavor in behalf of our young men, to encourage those who are devoted to their rescue and elevation, and especially to kindle in young men themselves high and noble aspirations, I shall be more than repaid for this effort in their behalf. And I claim a hearing at your hands, my young friends, for various reasons, not the least of which is the point in life to which I have come. I am not any longer a young man, neither am I old. My place is at that point " where the roads of youth and age seem to dip," as the poet has written, " beneath the ford of the stream of middle life."

I have the memories, and am not a stranger to the perils of youth, and trust that I may claim some just discernment of the possibilities of which this class is capable. And may not the claim to a hearing find emphasis at such a crisis in life? With the memories of its frailties and temptations yet fresh in mind, and with . that experience which to many of you is yet wanting, may we not speak with an earnestness and truthfulness that will challenge respect ?

But after all, young men, it is not any position or personal claim that summons me to the task I have undertaken, so much as what you are, or may become yourselves.

There are many classes of men, and these differ again as individuals in a manner that answers all the interminable phases of our wonderful life. Barring all but the highest standard and best habit of living, there is need for this diversity. The arrangement and the operation of it in human life are evidences of a Divine mind. There is sad perversion and prostitution of gifts and opportunity, but it still remains true that God hath made everything beautiful in his time.

But amid all the variety of men and mind, I can conceive of no class more important than our young men. For many considerations they are worthy of special regard. To talk about and to them with any reference to manhood and destiny, is to speak in a sense for all time. Are we not deliberating for the generations, and may we not in these words, have respect to the foundations of government, to the greater scope and purity of the church, to the peace and happiness of homes, and to the noblest civilization under the sun ?

I am not 'over-enthusiastic, nor lost in figures of speech, when I affirm that in speaking on such a subject we may kindle a light that will be the glory of the ages as they come and go. It will not be wrought by any words we may utter simply, nor by any organized method we may set in motion, but rather by a right apprehension of the importance and the possibilities of the class in whose behalf we speak.

Think of their number. What thousands of them tramp our streets. They are an exceeding great army, athlete, the possessors of the best gifts and forces of life. The middle-aged have attained their growth, have become settled in their habits, and have chosen their life-work. The old have spent their day, wrought out their destiny, and whatever it be, shall soon enter upon it. With the middle class the sun is at high meridian; they may look either way, but can only go on ; we think of them as established in character and aim, and must write their names where the shadows will soon fall. But on the other side, flushed with the glow and beautiful with the freshness of the morning, what stalwart ranks confront us!

How their faces glow as if they were transfigured ! what elasticity is in their step! what music in their voices! what expanse of chest ! what majestic port ! Plant a star on every one of their brows, for the lamp of hope swings over their path and makes it radiant as the sun in his course. They are our young men — in all that is good and great in every sphere of life, they have the right of way and such advantage of choice and opportunity as no golden age has ever offered, and no exalted mind will scorn. On the top of the hill I look back and shout "All hail! ye favored of God! not forgetting that opportunity and responsibility go together, you may make your pathway a street of gold, and achieve a destiny that would not demean an angel." Think of the possibilities of which these are capable ; rough, rude, unsightly many of them are, but the wild flower is not less fragrant because it blooms on the rocks in the wilderness ; the gold is not less valuable because it lies embedded in the clay and rock ; the diamond is not less brilliant because it sleeps in the mire and angry waters dash over its bed. The sculptor cares not for the roughness of the block, so that it is clean, clear marble. So, whatever the surroundings, however much the fine gold has become dim, there is still glory in the wreck, and what, with the grace of the Gospel, and the renewing, brightening fire of the Spirit, these may yet come to be the adornment of the race, and saints in heaven that shall shine as the stars of the firmament.

I declare them capable of infinite enlargement. And you are what you are, as young men. Your pre-eminence and hope consist largely in the fact of your youth. The ideal that invites you to its reward is not possible to any who fail to apprehend and aspire to it in youth. It contemplates all these precious years, all these rare opportunities, and all that vigor of gift which you enjoy now. What you squander now can never be recovered, and what you achieve now for God, and right, and manhood, and immortality can never be excelled.

Oh, you know not what hidden hopes, what reaches of power, what sublime forces lie concealed within you, only waiting your own development in a direction worthy of them, and which alone can furnish the endowment to appropriate them.

What a " chosen generation" you are, and what an opportunity and what motives you have to become " a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people," the sons and witnesses of the Lord Almighty.

I would I could lead you to put such estimate upon yourselves as would quicken everything noble in you, and rouse you to such endeavor, as would bring you into the liberty of a true manhood and "the power of an endless life."

But take another view, and the importance of our young men as a class will not appear less obvious. In sensitive and moral beings a capacity of development in one direction involves its opposite, and that in an equal degree. He who is capable of moral elevation must be and is capable of moral degradation. A young man may be in his character and life a beautiful illustration of superior excellence ; but he may also be a shocking manifestation of vice and sin. The better, the higher, the purer, the nobler any being is capable of becoming, the more fearful will be the downfall and ruin. It requires an angel to make a devil. It is a dark glass through which to look, yet even in this, see the greatness, the manifoldness of man, especially of the class now referred to. Touching the extremes of being, our young men are capaable " of development on the level of any nature of which they are partakers, and at any point along a line that reaches from the instinct of the animal up to God himself." They may become beastly and devilish, or they may rise until in thought and consciousness and moral aspiration they commune with the Infinite.

If they go down, the depth of the fall will be proportionate to the hight to which they might have risen. Let a young man become thoroughly vicious, eaten with vice, shackled all over until he is the whipped slave of himself, and who can estimate the calamity ? The shock of such a fall sends a shudder through the very holiness of God, for it is a blow at it. As he goes reeling in his madness to his own place, he cannot stir a single star in its orbit, the very flowers would grow unconscious on his path or grave, and yet, like an enraged child resisting parental love and rule, he can, he does reproach his Maker and sting his heart. In a community, in a family, in a city, he is like the dead fly in the ointment, defiling all he touches.

Harm ! he is as a spark to the magazine, as the leak to the vessel, as the germ of fatal disease to the destroying plague. Such a one may attain a capacity of evil that is simply immense, and the reach and ruin of it may be traced largely to the fact that he is a young man. I would think, and I would have you think, of our young men as a class pre-eminent in importance, not simply because they are involved in the common ruin and may be saved, but because of what is lost to all true, and noble, and lasting achievement in their loss. It is their exceptional endowment in every way, and their prominence of position by reason of it, that augments their worth, and challenges the earnest employment of every right means of rescue and elevation. We look upon them in an army and say they are the flower of the nation ; save them, ennoble them, gird them as God would gird them ; let life in them be more than a physical force, a profitless drudgery, or a mere opportunity for the gratification of lawless passion ; let truth shine in their buoyancy ; let purity put holy harmony into their joy ; give them an aim adequate to the sublime compass of life ; harness them up for God and right, and they will be "a spectacle to the angels," and the noblest manifestation of a royal humanity on earth.

But, after all, this is only a possible picture; as we look about us it seems far more a hope than a realized fact ; but it is a hope, and I should be glad if young men themselves, and those interested in them, would get inspiration from it ; the one to strike off every fetter and assert their true freedom, and the other to persevere in every effort to hasten the grand result.

But to appreciate the true destiny of our young men, we must not be blind to the extent and character of their ruin. It is not a pleasant contemplation, but in treating a malignant case we must not be content with a superficial diagnosis; we must. go to the root of the disease and comprehend it most in its hidden and most perilous parts.

Alas ! almost any community, anywhere, will furnish the illustration we need. I rejoice in the goodly number in whom the spell of delusion is broken, and whose fresh, joyous, and vigorous lives thrill with noble impulses. Than this bright company moving toward a destiny worthy of them in this world and in the next, our eyes look on no sight more beautiful. The good of earth are not privileged with a transfiguration on this earth that glows with a brighter effulgence than is witnessed in the consecrated march of young men toward a character and destiny that God approves. But we shall gain nothing by being indifferent to fact, because the fact may be shocking. History has many a shadowy page, and its testimony in reference to godless young men, their influence and fate, may be turned to good account if the warning may lead the steps of others in a better direction. The fall of Babylon still sends its sepulchral reverberations down through the generations, and the mysterious hand, in a thousand sins and calamities of youth familiar to our times, is still writing its silent but awful warning on the wall. And whence the cause of that fearful overthrow in the by-gone time ? The race of the Chaldeans, says Dr. March, were " tender and delicate, given to pleasure, dwelling carelessly, and trusting in wickedness. Their young men were ' showy, sensual, and self-indulgent. They frequented dramatic entertainments in which female singers and dancers appeared on the stage with little dress and less decency, for the amusement of the audience. They drank wine and sang lewd songs, and were out late at night; and they did everything else that wild, half-intoxicated young men are most likely to do. * * * * The day of doom is not far from any great city when its young men have become tender and delicate and given to pleasure ; when they have grown effeminate, self-indulgent, fond of amusement, and afraid of work; when they are excited and passionate about trinkets and trifles — nerveless and spiritless about the nobler demands of effort and duty. There is no more effectual way to destroy a great and mighty nation than to give its young men all the money they want, provide them with plays, and festivities, and amusements, and dances, and wine, and then leave them to sweat the life and manhood out of body and soul in the hot-bed of pleasure and self-indulgence. That is the way Babylon was ruined. That is the way imperial Rome became an easy prey to Northern barbarians. That is the way Christian Constantinople came under the debasing and abominable sway of Mohammedans. That is the way Venice ended a thousand years of independent and glorious history with shame and servitude.

" And nothing worse could come upon any city than to have a generation of tender and delicate young men, without principle, without conscience, but with money enough to support elegant pleasures and costly vices. Let such young men give tone to public opinion, and take the lead in the highest circles of society in any city in our land, and they would soon make it the Sodom of America."

Admit this to be an extreme picture, yet does not nearly every city in the land present all the approaches to a like destiny? Do not the same insidious and corrupting vices that helped to shake Babylon from her foundations, and that have scattered the ruin of her desolations all over the world, still curse and waste the masses of our young men in all our cities ? What a reeling army they are, and where are they not found. Their trail is over the tapestry and Axminster of elegant homes, and across the bare floors of wretched dwellings ; they stalk, and hoot, and shout the battle-cry of the Commune on our streets ; they bow at the gilded shrine of the palace of infamy, and sit at the greasy tables of lowest dens of vice ; in godless glee they weave profanity into their midnight songs, and dance to the clanking of chains they cannot see. With God's image under their feet they give up their faculties and forces to unmanly and wicked enjoyments ; they glory in the scorn and derision of all that is sacred and pure, and so glory in their shame. Endowed with the solemn responsibility of the ballot they claim the right, and prostitute the noble privilege of citizenship ; and utterly lost to all sense of right and manhood, they fling themselves upon the dripping Moloch of horrid crime, and leave behind them a memory that is a blot and a scourge upon society.

I see a deep, dark margin about society in our great cities, but of all the saddest sight is the teeming hosts of our young men, without an exalted aim, and wasting in every faculty and force which they possess. Hear their tread ! See them swaying in the blast like withered stalks in the tempest ! On they rush, recruiting as they march, their brain cloudy with delusion, their hearts hot with consuming " fires, their blood dull and thick with impurities that will run in the veins of the generations, their feet swift to shed blood, the snare of death in their example, and their presence in the home, in the community, anywhere, a moral leprosy the infection of which is sure and often fatal.

What does it mean as we look into the future ? It means the hope of the nation thrust under the smiting of angry lightnings ; it means the security of the Church imperiled ; it means the order and well-being of society deranged and defeated ; it means the sanctity and loveliness of homes violated; it means a ruin so wide and deep as to rouse a real anxiety in all who love and seek to benefit mankind.

There is no estimating the calamity of such a catastrophe to our young men, or to the country or community in which they live.

I have spoken strongly and with fervor, and whilst there are many not nearly so bad as the examples I have named, yet I question if the half has been told ; and then the road to ruin is one, and its by-paths skirt often with flowers, and trodden by the less dissolute, all lead into the broad and thronged thoroughfare whose end is hopeless despair. I have not meant to speak with harshness or undue censure, for I am not unmindful of the disadvantages many of our lost young men have labored under. Surrendering themselves to the disposition in them, aggravated and answered by the circumstances without them, we would not expect them to be better than they are.

I am sure the very worst of them challenges the sympathy of every compassionate heart, and no one feels for them more than that gracious Redeemer in whom harlots and publicans found a friend. Nor would I look upon one of them as hopeless. Somewhere among the lowest of them, God has jewels that are yet to shine as the brightness of the firmament, and to stand as kings and priests before him, and what a reward will his be, here and hereafter, who is wise to win them to paths of virtue and religion. See the issues that may come of such a rescue. Save a young man to himself, to God, and humanity, set his feet firmly on the Rock of Ages, turn his bright eye from low indulgence toward the pure bright stars, put a harmony into his soul out of which will come a tribute of music for God, make his life redolent as a garden of flowers with the fragrance of virtue and piety, and you have not only saved an immortal being, which is itself an unspeakable achievement, but you have given a new revelation, another manifestation of God's grace to men, and interpreted to the world the great importance of the class from which you have gained a trophy.

Consider the time you have redeemed, the forces you have quickened and put into right and accordant motion, and the vast and noble possibilities you have recovered to assurance of realization. What ripples of influence you have started on the great sea of life, and what a benediction is insured to the generations to come. You have not only wrought a spiritual salvation, but you have taken all the vast endowment of this nature, of body, mind and soul, all the advantage that comes of youth, and lifted them into a dignity and exercise worthy of them ; you have linked a life to immortality here and hereafter. We are to seek to benefit all, but for many considerations, we have wrought a pre-eminently blessed work, when under God we have saved one of our young men.

Were it possible to see all the young men of the land, rescued, moving forward under right impulses, and toward right aims, the sons of God by grace as well as -by nature, happy in the right development and wise adjustment of all their powers, the whole being instinct with a new life, the world would be lifted so near to the throne of God, that it seems to me the heavens above us must rend asunder with the shout of jubilee. Oh ! shall we, whom God has given to see what these are, how dreadful their ruin, how great their gifts, how bright their possibilities if saved — shall we, with such a vision, and the instrumentalities and opportunity of so great a redemption at our hands, be indifferent to effort, or hesitant to encourage it in others ?

Rather shall we not renew our efforts, and labor to become more and more skilled in our approaches, that, by any means and every means, we may save at least some of our young men. No man can afford to look on the ruin of these with indifference. Has he sons ? He knows not what snares are set for their feet. Let him beware, lest as with Eli, if they break not his neck, they do what is worse, pierce his heart with many sorrows and hurry him to the grave. But in any event, no man can afford to be indifferent to the well-being of this class. Your homes, your business pursuits, your highest social and secular interests, are all more or less identified with and dependent upon this class. He who by an unholy example, or a chilly indifference to the young men of the community, either misleads or repels them, is an enemy to the best civilization, and to the truest social order, and to God and his law.