Benefits of Adversity in Youth by E. H. GATES.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 23, 1908

Benefits of Adversity in Youth

By E. H. GATES.

E. H. GATES.

Many a parent who has in youth been obliged to endure hardship and privation, and to suffer poverty, has said, “My children shall never be obliged to pass through what I have if I can prevent it.” While this desire may be a perfectly natural one, and is apparently prompted by feelings of love for the child, the carrying out of such a plan may be the very thing that will deprive the future man of the discipline that is needed above all things to fit him for a place of responsibility and usefulness. The world is full of men and women who are mere driftwood, and anything should be gladly welcomed that will develop fortitude, courage, and Christlike independence. Persons who in youth have had all the difficulties and hardships removed from their pathway, seldom excel in anything, and are not the ones who are chosen by the Lord to stand in positions requiring stick-to-itiveness, courage, and real moral power. The Word of God has stated the importance of this matter when it says, “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” Lam. 3:27.

To remove from the pathway of youth all the obstacles, to unwisely sympathize with the boy who tumbles down, instead of encouraging him to get up like a man and go ahead, is to effectually handicap him in the future race of life, as far as any real excellence is concerned. When God sets out to make a man who can be trusted in times of darkness and apostasy, who can be relied on when the work goes hard and cowards are deserting from the ranks, and who will stand by the truth if it leads to the dungeon and the stake, he gives such a man an experience in hardship and suffering of the severest kind. There are probably few exceptions to this rule.

At the time when the professed Christian church was sunken in the depths of Roman apostasy, and a champion was needed to lead the people into the light of the great Reformation, a man was chosen who had been schooled in poverty and adversity, who had in childhood known what it was to go hungry, and who had been willing to toil at the most menial employments in order to secure means with which to secure an education.

Speaking of Martin Luther, the historian says: “It was a stern age. John Luther [the father of the reformer], with all his excellence, was a somewhat austere man. As a father he was a strict disciplinarian; no fault of his son went unpunished, and not infrequently was the chastisement in excess of the fault. This severity was not wise. A nature less elastic than Luther’s would have sunk under it into sulkiness, or it may be hardened into wickedness. But what the father on earth did for his own pleasure, or from a mistaken sense of duty, the Father in heaven overruled for the lasting good of the future reformer. It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth, for it is in youth, sometimes even in childhood, that the great turning-points of life occur. Luther’s nature was one of strong impulses; those forces were all needed in future work; but had they not been disciplined and brought under control, they might have made him rash, impetuous, and headstrong; therefore he was betimes taught to submit to the curb. His nature, moreover, rich in the finest sensibilities, might, but for this discipline, have become self-indulgent. Turning away from the harder tasks of life, Luther might have laid himself out to enjoy only the good within his reach, had not the hardships and severities of his youth tempered his character, and imparted into it that element of hardness which was necessary for the greater trials before him.

“We can not but mark the wisdom of God in the training of the future reformer. By nature he was loving and trustful, with a heart ever yearning for human sympathy, and a mind ever planning for the happiness of others. But this was not enough. These qualities must be tempered by others which should enable him to confront opposition, endure reproach, despise ease, and brave peril. The first without the last would have issued in mere benevolent schemings, and Luther would have died sighing over the stupidity or malignity of those who had thwarted his philanthropic projects. He would have abandoned his plans on the first appearance of opposition, and said, ‘Well, if the world won’t be reformed, I shall let it alone.’ Luther, on the other hand, reckoned on meeting this opposition; he was trained to endure and bear it, and in his early life we see the hardening and the expanding process going on by turns. And so it is with all whom God selects for rendering great services to the church or the world. He sends them to a hard school, and he keeps them in

it till their education is complete. Let us mark the eagle and the bird of song, how dissimilar their training. The one is to spend its life in the grove, flitting from bough to bough, and enlivening the woods with its melody. Look what a warm nest it lies in; the thick branches cover it, and its dam sits brooding over it. How differently is the eagle nursed. On yonder ledge, amid the naked crags, open to the lashing rains, and the pelting hail, and the stormy gust, are spread on the bare rocks a few twigs. These are the nest of that bird which is to spend its after-life in soaring among the clouds, battling with the winds, and gazing upon the sun.”

“Luther was to spend his life in conflict with emperors and popes, and the powers of temporal and spiritual despotism; therefore his cradle was placed in a miner’s cot, and his childhood and youth were passed amid hardship and peril. It was thus that he came to know that man lives not to enjoy but to achieve; and that to achieve anything great, he must sacrifice self, turn away from man, and lean only on God.”

In harmony with these words of the historian of the Reformation, we read the following from the spirit of prophecy:—

“Like the first heralds of the gospel, Luther sprang from the ranks of poverty. His early years were spent in the humble home of a German peasant. . . . Hardship, privation, and severe discipline were the school in which Infinite Wisdom prepared Luther for the important mission of his life. Luther’s parents bestowed great care upon the education and training of their children. They endeavored to instruct them in the knowledge of God and the practise of Christian virtues. . . . Their efforts were earnest and persevering to prepare their children for a life of piety and usefulness. With their firmness and strength of character they sometimes exercised too great severity; but the reformer himself, though conscious that in some respects they had erred, found in their discipline more to approve than to condemn.”

“At school, where he was sent at an early age, Luther was treated with harshness, and even violence. So great was the poverty of his parents, that upon going from home to school in another town, he was for a time obliged to obtain his food by singing from door to door, and he often suffered from hunger. . . . Yet under so many and so great discouragements, Luther pressed resolutely forward toward the high standard of moral and intellectual excellence which attracted his soul.”

Few men have ever attained to eminence or real usefulness who have not learned in youth the lesson of endurance through severe self-denial and hardship. Many a youth with excellent natural qualities, who might be a strong, useful man in God’s service, will always remain a weakling because of unwillingness to “endure hardness, as a good soldier.” Ashamed to be seen doing menial service, or wearing poorer clothes than his wealthier neighbor’s sons, he sinks down to the level of the driftwood crowd, and is lost sight of in the seething multitude that believe that the world owes them a living irrespective of their own laborious efforts.

Singapore, Straits Settlements.