Part 3 (1/2)
Fathers and mothers, the yearnings of whose hearts you read full easily in your love for your own sons, whose happiness, whose very lives are bound up in the honor and prosperity of these sons and brothers, call to us from their distant homes in quiet villages, and on the open farm lands, call to us with agonizing earnestness-deal gently for our sakes with the young man. Our community, our country, calls to us. Oh, when I look upon society and see what characters ride rampant there, when I look at government and see the awful corruption festering there, when I see how men in power, from the chief magistrate of the nation down to the humblest postmaster, will sell their souls for party, and betray their country to its enemies through l.u.s.t of power, or something else, G.o.d knows what; when I see drunkenness holding high carnival in the nation's capitol, reeling in the seat of the President, and retailing its maudlin declamation before a sickened country from Was.h.i.+ngton to Chicago, I can only turn to G.o.d and the future. Our only hope is in the work of the Christian church through all its agencies, social, ecclesiastical and educational, moulding out of the glorious material so abundantly at its disposal, a band of men who shall convert the seats of power into seats of righteousness, and make government and purity synonymous terms. The young men themselves appeal to us. This ma.s.s of intelligence, clear wit, energy, tact, education; these n.o.ble brows on which G.o.d has set the seal of power; these frank, manly, generous natures, these enthusiastic impulses, all speak to us, saying, deal gently with us, and teach us by the power of Christian love how to use our power; they speak to us, and warn us against letting so much power and energy and culture be turned against us, or left to hang as a drag on our wheels. And Christ speaks to the church, Christ who loves these young men, Christ who died for these young men; Christ who from his seat of glory at the Father's right hand, yearns over these young men, Christ is calling to his church to-day, to you, to me, to all the pastors and congregations of this city, ”_take care of them, take care of them, deal gently for MY sake with the young men_.”
Christian young men, you have heard the call, and in some sort are obeying it. In proportion as you have not feared to use the range of gospel agencies, in proportion as your love has been kindled for the souls of these youths, and your hands and tongues have been devoted to this end, G.o.d has blessed you. Go on as you have begun. Go on, not defiantly, but firmly, boldly, prudently. Dare to be singular, if it will compa.s.s your end. Take the word of G.o.d as your highest authority. Use no means that is not sanctioned by it. Use none of doubtful expediency, but enlarge the range of your agencies. Wrest from the devil attractions which belong to you rather than to him. Leaven them. Separate them from the debasing a.s.sociations with which sin has identified them, and in the name of Christ your Master, set up your banners, rally your forces and join the churches in their work of salvation.
And you, unconverted young men, one word to you. For your own souls' sake, for the sake of your best interests, for the sake of the parents who love and hope in you, for the sake of your country, for Christ's sake, deal gently with yourselves. Remember, the only true manhood is Christian manhood. No restraints which the church can throw round you will ensure your safety against temptation; no strength of resolution on your part will keep you pure, if you be not the children of Christ. Come to Jesus.
Come this very morning. Come and learn of him. He will deal very gently with you. His yoke is easy, his burden is light. The life he gives you is full of the highest impulses and of the purest enjoyments-a living spring of water-and the eternal rewards he promises are such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived.
THOUGHTS FOR THE CLERGY ON THE AMUs.e.m.e.nT QUESTION.
As pastors, we can no longer evade this question. Our people are hearing, reading, and being influenced by discussions of the subject in various quarters. Obviously, we must not let our congregations form their conclusions on so important a matter, independently of their chosen spiritual guides. The word of each pastor will carry with it, in most cases, a weight which can attach to no other's word. Let us see to it that we separate ourselves, as much as possible, from prejudice in our examination of this question. Let us face the facts fairly, and inquire what provision is furnished by the gospel to meet them. We have nothing to do with any other consideration. Whether the gospel principles and methods applicable to this case appear to us safe or unsafe, we have no right to advocate any other. We have no right to be silent.
What are the facts?
1. _The youth, as a cla.s.s, are vitally important to the church and to the state._ Our work as Christian teachers reaches beyond our own generation.
We owe to the future the proper training of the men and women who are to mould its destinies. The present youth are the future leaders of church and state. How they shall lead them, depends very much upon us. These truths are self-evident.
2. _They are exposed to peculiar dangers calling for special effort on their behalf._
Special efforts are being made to ruin them. The self-interest of vice is interested in this work; for to youth its appliances look chiefly for support. As one has happily expressed it, ”Age has few pa.s.sions to which profligacy can appeal; and the proselytism of decrepitude and years are enlistments of little value.” The withdrawal of young men from the rolls of the intemperate and licentious, would leave two-thirds of the drinking saloons and brothels bankrupt. The pa.s.sions to which these appliances appeal are such as are most active and dangerous in youth. They offer the freedom and license which youth loves. They throw off the shackles which youth hates. Our cities and villages swarm with traps set expressly for them. Thousands are freely expended to invest the bar room and the gambling hall with the cozy attractions of the parlor. The harlot's palace opens wide its doors. The public ball room displays its fascinations.
Dissipation draws round itself the attractions of wealth and taste and fas.h.i.+on, and in its splendid club rooms secures for itself the pleasures which expediency forbids it to seek more publicly. Vice literally flaunts its banners in the face of the public. But a few days since I saw from my window a banner carried through the streets, blazoned with the name and attractions of one of the vilest fas.h.i.+onable groggeries in the city, and preceded by the music of a drum and fife. The snug retreat, known only to the initiated few, where licentiousness and drunkenness are secluded, and thousands lost and won, was never more popular than now. Practiced decoys lie in wait for the daughters of our families, and the whirl of general society in which so many of them, at a tender age, are madly revolving night after night, is no poor preparation for the fatal success of these wiles. Young girls, who come from quiet country homes to seek employment, cast adrift on these surging tides of life without a friend or an adviser, readily fall victims to the wiles of young seducers whose social position ensures their security. In a certain city, I was informed not long since, of one keeper of a fas.h.i.+onable brothel who had removed her trade, because it was too largely usurped by victims of this cla.s.s to render it any longer profitable. Young men, too, are coming to the cities in crowds, to engage in business or study. They must have society and recreation; and the votaries of vice are sparing neither pains nor expense to give them abundance of both, fraught with ruin to soul and body.
Without going outside of our special sphere as pastors, viewing this subject solely with reference to the youth of our congregations, as, in common with others subjected to these and other temptations, _what ought to be our influence in arresting and counteracting these evils_?
It ought to be second to none but parental influence. If the name pastor mean anything, our position as the chosen religious teachers of congregations ought to give us free access to every household in our flocks, and the strongest influence over the youth whose moral training we directly or indirectly shape. We ought to be not only _respected_ and _reverenced_, but so loved as to be the familiar advisers and confidants of the youth of our charges. Our word ought, next to the parents', to have weight in turning them from improper courses and a.s.sociations, and in keeping them from such. Moreover, our influence ought not to be merely restrictive and admonitory. We should be sufficiently in sympathy with them, familiar enough with the demands of their age and with the best means of satisfying them, to be able to offer positive suggestions respecting their employments, recreations, society, reading, and the like.
If we sustain proper relations to the youth of our charges, they will be as likely to refer such questions to us, as matters of theology or practical morality.
Now, the question of the amus.e.m.e.nts of our youth is as good a test question in this matter as we need ask. _What, then, is the influence of the clergy at large in regulating the diversions of the youth?_
I appeal to the experience of the ma.s.s of ministers, not with the few _special friends_ and admirers, which most of them have among the young people of their congregations, but with the _ma.s.s of the youth_. I appeal to those judicious, fa.r.s.eeing Christians, who are wont to observe carefully the tendencies of society, _if this influence is not a comparative nullity_. In a question which, perhaps, as much as any other, concerns the welfare of our youth, which has the most vital relations to the attractions of home, which will enter, whether we may think it right or not, into the considerations which influence the choice or rejection of a religious life; at a point which the ministers of vice are fortifying most strongly, wresting the best diversions to themselves, striving to make them peculiarly their own, and to invest them permanently with a.s.sociations which shall exclude them from Christian homes; here, I say, the Christian church, the appointed regulator and instructor in the ethics of amus.e.m.e.nt, is, to a great extent, _at open issue with her own intelligent youth, and practically powerless to execute her own decrees_.
It is well for us as ministers, to look this fact squarely in the face, and to call things by their right names. How many pastors are in the confidence of their youth with respect to the amus.e.m.e.nts of the latter? Is not the fact rather that there is a tacit antagonism recognized between the youth and the clergy on this subject, an antagonism growing, too, every year less tacit and more avowed? Can it be denied that a very large proportion of our youth regard their ministers as the foes to recreation, and would sooner think of consulting them on any subject than on this? Is it not the fact that while presbyteries and conferences and conventions pa.s.s long and stringent resolutions on the subject of dancing and on the use of cards and billiards, mult.i.tudes of Christian families practice dancing; scores of them may be found playing whist at their own firesides, and scores more with their billiard rooms fitted up in their own houses?
It will not answer to say that those who practice these things are backslidden in heart and worldly minded, and that, if they were truly Christ's children, they would neither practice nor desire them. This is begging the whole question at issue, and moreover is flatly contradicted by facts. Many of those who engage in these recreations are among the most devoted, enlightened, faithful members and even ministers of our churches.
Is it not the fact, again, that the pastors of these individuals would be very much at a loss to administer discipline in such cases? Do they not know that any attempt at authoritative interference would be regarded as trenching upon individual rights of conscience, and would send scores of active and faithful members to other communions? The truth is, and there is no s.h.i.+rking it, that, in the cities especially, in the largest and most powerful churches, the clergy are practically brought to a stand in this matter. They do not and cannot control it. A vast ma.s.s of enlightened Christian sentiment is against their attempts to enforce the traditional church doctrines on this subject. Their people pay little or no heed to the official utterances of church a.s.semblies. Many of them treat them with ridicule. There is no denying these facts. Hundreds of pastors are painfully impressed with them. The church's position in this matter is most humiliating.
What then is the course of the clergy?
Some of them are more than half persuaded that the more liberal view of their people is correct. They fully sympathize, perhaps, with that view, yet they remain silent. They cannot conscientiously reprove; they refuse to come boldly forward and define their position for fear of awakening prejudice, or for fear their views may be misunderstood or misconstrued.
In short they think it is not safe. And yet, all the while, the initiated in the congregation know pretty well the general drift of their minister's sentiments; that, though he says little, he winks a tacit encouragement to many indulgences which far over-step the bounds of ancient orthodoxy. But is _this_ safe? Is it safe or honorable for the church to be impotent to carry out her own dogmas? Is it safe for her to be under the charge of inconsistency from the world because her statute books and the practice of her members are at open variance? Is it safe for the views of an influential Christian teacher to be known only generally and vaguely, that his church and the world may draw undue license therefrom? If he is convinced that the church has been mistaken in this matter, and has in past years committed herself to undue stringency, is it safe to let the error remain untouched, and going on working its pernicious consequences?
If the gospel teaches a larger liberty, a broader conception of Christian living and Christian enjoyment than the church has preached, has that minister who conscientiously believes the fact any right to withhold the truth because he deems it unsafe, and to let a falsehood (as he believes) gain currency and power, and forfeit moreover the attraction presented to a sinful world by his more cheering and liberal conception of Christ's teachings? Not safe! Will not G.o.d take care of his truth? Doubtless men will misconstrue it. Doubtless they will wrest the preaching of gospel liberty to the confirmation of worldly license. But the greater the danger of this, the more reason why the truth, the _whole truth_, should be proclaimed loudly, boldly, distinctly, frequently. When the water is first let into a reservoir, it is apt to be very muddy; but that is no reason why the reservoir should remain dry forever. The water will settle by and by, and the whole people be refreshed. If there is truth in these more liberal views of amus.e.m.e.nt, it is in vain for religious newspapers to s.h.i.+rk the discussion of the question. It is in vain for influential ministers to beg young men's Christian conventions not to raise it. It is in vain for the pulpit to preserve a discreet silence. The thing will out.
The truth will stay swathed in no cave in the rock. The things that have been spoken in the ear in closets will be proclaimed upon the house tops.