Eight: Young Men, Don't Drift!
Eight: Young Men, Don't Drift!
YES, IT IS the drifting that is most to be feared. Men don't become atheists and swindlers at a leap. For everyone who resolutely sets his face against God, there are hundreds who drift from Him.
An illustration occurred once in my own holiday experiences which taught me to estimate fully the power of the tide to drift. We were staying on the coast of North Wales, and were desirous of visiting an island famous for its ruins and traditions. Nothing seemed easier than to cross the narrow straits which lay between it and the beach on which we stood. But as soon as we had got beyond the jutting headland we found ourselves caught by a strong current, which persistently carried us out of our course, and would have drifted us, had we yielded to it, far down the coast. It took four of us four hours and a half of hard rowing to cross the straits which, with a flowing tide, we retraversed at night in about half an hour.
Never since have I ignored the power of the current, so gentle, so imperceptible, so pleasant to yield to, so difficult to resist. And often have I been reminded of the episode when I have seen young men drifting before the currents of moral influence on the great ocean of life.
Young men come up to our great centers of population from holy and blessed homes, where they have been born and bred. They are nice, amiable, well-meaning fellows, with no intention of going wrong, though perhaps with no very strong resolution to go right. The last words of advice from father or mother ring in their ears, urging them to keep up the good habits in which they have been trained since childhood, and they intend to conform to them.
If they fall in with a strong religious influence, it is not at all unlikely that they will turn out well. But if they go into some establishment or house where there is a fast, gay set, where the Lord's day is unkept, where filthy allusions pollute the talk and gambling fills the leisure hours, after the first momentary shock is over they give themselves up to the strong prevailing current, and begin insensibly, but swiftly, to drift. It is not necessary at first that they should commit some flagrant sin; it is enough that they cease to resist the insidious influences around.
Young men, is this a true picture of your condition? If so, heed the advice of an elder brother, who has himself passed through city life, and who gathers up all the advice which he has to give in the words-Don't drift.
DON'T DRIFT INTO A LOOSE WAY OF KEEPING SUNDAY.
When you are away from home, you do not know where to go, what church to attend, what minister to hear. If you enter a place of worship, no one knows and perhaps no one welcomes you. You miss the familiar faces and voices of your childhood's earliest memories. You feel that your absence from that congregation, and indeed from any other, for the rest of the day would not be noticed, and so you stay away. Your pursuits may be quite innocent, and yet your absence from God's house, according to your olden practice, and without sufficient reason, is the first symptom of yielding to the swift current which urges you to drift.
My advice is to go to the several places of worship in the near neighborhood of your residence. Go once or twice to ascertain the character of the ministry and of the work carried on, and then attach yourselves to the one you find most helpful. Make for the minister direct, tell him who you are, whence you have come, and your intention of settling down in his congregation; and if he be a true man, he will be only too glad to welcome you. If he doesn't, I would advise you to betake yourself to some one who will.
When you settle in a new place, be sure also to find out the nearest Young Men's Christian Association. Ask for the secretary, and he will introduce you to friends, and home, and many things young men want.
DON'T DRIFT INTO LOOSE COMPANIONSHIPS.
A man is made or marred by his friends. As fish take on the mottling of the ground on which they lie, and as the butterflies resemble the flowers over which they hover, so do we become like those whom we choose for our companions. Don't drift into familiarity with any man till you are pretty sure of him, and have asked for God to show you his true character.
Beware of the man who goes in for a lot of showy jewelry, and professes to be able to show you a thing or two about life. He perhaps knows a little too much, and wants to see life at your expense. And when you have spent your last shilling, and he is tired of you, he will cast you off without mercy.
Beware of the man who talks slightingly of mother, father, home, or of women generally. Many men ridicule any allusion to the purity and tenderness of the home circle, and apparently have no belief that woman can be other than the toy or victim of man-never his equal and confidante and friend. Beware of such men. The probability is that they have only lived to tempt the weaker sex whom they now traduce, and that their vices have necessarily excluded them from the society of the pure and virtuous.
Beware of the man who professes himself too deeply versed in the science of the day to believe in the Bible, and who ridicules those who do. It is an easy thing to ask a question which might take days of teaching and investigation to answer. Destructive criticism is child's play. Any fool can fire a cathedral which would take centuries in building; and any street-arab may smash a window which neither modern wealth nor art can reconstruct. True wisdom is not destructive but constructive. A man has no more right to steal away or spoil your faith than he has to deprive you of your eyesight or rob you of your purse. And if he attempt it, he betrays a dangerous character, of which you do well to beware.
DON'T DRIFT INTO EXTRAVAGANT EXPENDITURE.
Better live on oatmeal porridge and brown bread than spend more than you can afford or drift into debt. The pleasure of a day's outing or of an evening's gaiety has a nasty after-taste, when for weeks or months you have to avoid certain people because you owe them money which you can not repay.
It is a temptation for us all to imitate the people above us in the social scale, but it is a miserable life to live, and very unsatisfactory, because we generally imitate their weaknesses and vices rather than their virtues. And yet it appears to afford much passing pleasure for the poor clerk to dress and speak with the airs of a young lord. One evening's conquest of the barmaids and bar-loafers must be a rare luxury! But this kind of thing can not be done without money. You can not throw much money away out of ten dollars per week. The result is that a young man sometimes spends in a single evening money enough to fill his heart with anxiety for many a weary day, and is perhaps tempted to take money which does not belong to him, in order to stay pressing demands, and in hope of the opportunity of repayment, which never comes.
DON'T DRIFT INTO HABITS OF GAMBLING.
There is plenty of it all around us, and a man feels rather lonely when he refuses to join in. I felt so some time ago on board an ocean steamer, when I seemed to be nearly the only one that refused to join in a sweepstakes. The workshops and establishments are comparatively rare which are not filled with the buzz of excitement on the eve of some great race. And there are places in most large towns, clubs and such like, where men have the opportunity of losing fortunes, if they only are fools enough.
It is not chiefly the love of money that urges men to bet, but the excitement of the chance, which relieves the monotony of their otherwise aimless existence. We can form no concept on of the fascinations of this kind of life as we look on them from without; just as we can not realize the irresistible force of the whirlpool till we are being sucked into its gurgling vortex. But it is surely needless to fling ourselves into them to see what they are like. Once in, we shall probably find it impossible to get out. And we may get in almost imperceptibly. To deposit the first coin in a raffle or sweepstakes, to stake the first shilling on a horse, to lay a bet of a pair of gloves-these things may seem trifles, but they are a yielding to the outer rim of the whirlpool. Of course it is easy to break from them. But they may lead to other things, only removed from them by a single hair's-breadth, which will lead to others, and still others beyond. How much better to put the foot down and refuse the first! You mean to refuse the second; but if you are going to refuse at all, it will be unspeakably easier to refuse at first than afterward.
Betting is a bad thing. It undoes society as the white ant the wooden houses of the tropics. Men who bet care for little else. Love and home are sacrificed to the companions of the betting ring. Business is neglected because they live in the feverish hope of coming in for a windfall, and of getting money without giving an equivalent of any sort.
DON'T DRIFT INTO HABITS OF DRINKING.
Nothing is easier than to do this. The tides of strong drink are running swiftly through our streets, and every corner saloon is a jetty from which men may enter the boats and launch out upon the current. A few may enter it and yet escape; but for an enormous number there is little hope of escape, when once fairly afloat on the fascinating but perilous waters.
They say that smoking leads to drinking. If so, it would be well to a void the first cigarette. Some of us have so many natural appetites to keep in order that we are thankful never to have awakened the habit of smoking, which seems a very masterful one, and terribly apt to become a tyrant. It would be foreign from my purpose to call smoking a sin. What right have I to add another to the ten commandments? But it certainly is to most people "a weight." In many cases it is the innocent little boy who, when once in the house, opens the door to a gang of thieves.
You are not specially a sinner, dear young fellow, because you smoke. But is it wise to begin a habit for which you can not plead any good reason except that others do it, and which may lead you into drinking, bad companionships, and other things?
But other things drift a man into drinking habits. Loafing about the streets in the evenings; standing treat to companions, because you want to look large in their esteem, and with the certainty that you will have to drink what they provide in return; doing business over a wine bar; spending your evenings in places like music-halls, where drink passes round, and where the proprietor looks shyly on those who don't patronize the buffet-all these are easy methods of drifting into drink.
No man means to be a drunkard when he starts drinking. Those who are now in the agony of delirium were once as pure and true as you; but they were carried down an almost insensible gradient. Beware of their fate, and don't follow their earlier steps, lest you acquire a momentum you can not arrest, and go down to hell. There is no better safeguard to a young man in life than to take the pledge of total abstinence. He perhaps may not sign a pledge at a meeting, but he can write one in his own chamber, and resolve, by God's help, never to touch this accursed foe of human hearts and happiness and homes.
DON'T DRIFT INTO HABITS OF IMPURITY.
In all of us there are appetites and desires which are beautiful and innocent enough when kept in their right place; but they are very reluctant to be kept there, and are ever chafing to ascend the throne of the being, and assume the mastership of the life. It is pleasant to allow them thus to ascend; but who shall depict the horrors of the wreckage of all that is bright and beautiful and happy in the life of the miserable victim who has yielded to their first suggestions?
Beware of drifting into secret sins, witnessed by no eye but God's. Beware of the society of those who are familiar with the ways of darkness and impurity. Beware of spectacles and pictures, of amusements and books, that excite the lower passions. Never go to a place to which you could not take your mother or sister. Never get familiar with a girl whom you could not introduce to the purest woman you know. Never treat a girl in another way than you would like a man to treat your own sister.
It is not necessary to yield to temptation. Abstinence from strong drink and excessive animal food; plenty of gymnastics, cycling, and muscular exercise; hard mattrasses, cold bathing, early rising, will answer many of the questions which so often perplex young men. And there is better than all-the power and purity of Jesus, which you may claim and use in all moments of need. One earnest, believing cry for help will bring Him near. And when He enters the soul, impurity can no more stand against His indwelling than straw before fire, or darkness before day.
DON'T DRIFT INTO AN IMPRUDENT MARRIAGE.
It is well when a young man meets a good girl. I never object to an early engagement when the couple are well mated, though I would urge a deferred marriage, until the comforts of a home can be provided either by the love of friends or by the results of united savings. And no home is so sweet as that which has been chosen and furnished by the taste and self-denial of those who are to enter it.
You ought not to choose your life-partner only from seeing her in evening dress or in company. All sweet faces do not tell a perfectly true story of the inner temper. You need a wife who knows something more than how to play one or two set pieces on the piano, or sing half a dozen songs. The girl who understands all the details of household management, who knows how all should be done though she may never have to do it, who has been good to her parents and younger brothers and sisters, who dresses simply and neatly, who knows how to make a dollar do a dollar's work, who is deeply religious-that is the kind of woman who will make a good wife; and till God sends her to you, don't flirt or play with a girl's affections, or lead any to think you care for them when you don't.
DON'T DRIFT INTO A MERE MONEY-MAKING MACHINE.
Some seem to live for nothing else than to add a few more coins to their rising pile; and to do this, they sacrifice all that makes life sweet and noble and honorable. Have a lofty aim. Spend your life for the best results. Be more eager to get up than to get on. There is no harm in ambition, when it is directed to doing the best you can to make the world better and those around you happier; but it is a detestable passion to seek money for money's sake. Your aim must be to seek first the things that make for righteousness and peace, for God's glory and man's good. Be faithful in these, in your small sphere, and it will be almost certain that you will be put in a position where you will have the chance of being faithful also in much.
You tell me that you can not resist the strong current on which you are already launched, and that you have already commenced to drift. But it is not too late. Send up a cry of distress to the Lord Jesus, asking Him to come on board your boat. He is stronger than the mightiest current. And then if you like to put it so, give Him the towing-line, that He may take it in His hand, and tow you up the strong stream to His own bright Home.
There is no better policy, dear young brother, than to give your heart to Jesus. Take Him as your Saviour, Master, and Friend. Ask Him to live in your soul, making you pure and sweet and strong. Follow Him in His footsteps of self-sacrifice for the sake of others. Go to no place where you can not take Him also. Let His friends be yours, and see that yours are His. Ask Him to put you into that position where you can please and glorify Him best. Remember that prayer and waiting will untie the stoutest knots and unravel the greatest difficulties.