ADOLESCENCE by Mary Wood-Allen

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 4, 1903

ADOLESCENCE

By Mary Wood-Allen

BY MARY WOOD-ALLEN, M. D.

III. Religious Significance.

Students of adolescence have in the last few years brought to light some very significant facts. They have discovered that the majority of criminals in our penal institutions are in the adolescent period; that the average age of so-called incorrigibles, both boys and girls, is sixteen. One of the dailies in Detroit lately noted the fact that within the preceding two weeks twelve girls had been reported missing from their homes in that city, and that the ages were between fifteen and seventeen. Observation in all phases of life elucidates the fact that youth is particularly susceptible to evil influences, and as we see how young they are easily led into sin we become discouraged and depressed. But we have looked upon only one side of the subject if we stop here. It has at last dawned upon statisticians to investigate the susceptibility of youth to good influences, and a wonderful discovery is made. The majority of Christians date their conversion to the same youthful years wherein are found the majority of criminals. Between sixteen and twenty-one are the years when most conversions take place. Eccl. 11:9; 12:1; 2 Chron. 34:3.

This is not the deduction from a few isolated cases, but the accumulated evidence from hundreds of cases found in all grades of social life.

What does this prove? Only that adolescence is the time when the individual is most susceptible. Whether he shall choose one course of conduct or another depends largely upon the character of the influences which surround him. That there are more Christians than criminals indicates that youth tends more naturally to good than to evil. The adolescent youth is reaching out after something, he hardly knows what. He feels in his heart undefinable desires and aspirations. These, wrongly directed, become purposes, while rightly guided they grow into noble impulses. Lam. 3:27.

If there is any special time in life in which there should be wise Christian training it is in adolescence. But the teacher must remember that this is also the natural time of skepticism, simply because the youth is beginning to think for himself, and very often the only way in which he can prove his power to think is to express a doubt of the beliefs entertained by those about him.

If, instead of sneering at him, or censuring him because he dares to question, his doubts were patiently heard and lovingly answered, he might readily be led into the faith his deepest being longs for.

The boy that seems so aggressive, so skeptical, is being stirred in the very depths of his nature by the touch of the Spirit. It is a pathetic time in life. He is cutting loose from the restricting bonds of childhood and endeavoring to walk alone. The path is new, the loneliness is intense. He is trying to find and realize himself, he is reaching out after something greater and stronger than himself. He does not realize all this. He only knows that he is restless, that nothing pleases, nothing satisfies. Old things are passing away, and he does not know what are the new things that are to appear. Is it any wonder that he should show evidences of this upheaval of his nature in conduct that is rather erratic?

It would seem as if God had chosen this time of life to turn the human heart most strongly towards Himself. Prov. 8:17; Hosea 11:1. In the silences he calls, but the child untaught in spiritual truths does not understand the voice.

A beautiful illustration of how God does speak to each heart is illustrated in the life of Helen Keller, that wonderful girl, who, blind, deaf, and mute, is yet a profound student, not only of facts, but of abstract truths. Her teacher had felt that it would be impossible to teach her of the great and all-loving infinite Spirit. It was a subject impossible to explain to one whose only sense was that of touch. But when Helen was about fourteen the teacher felt that she must make an effort to give her some glimpse of spiritual truth, so she tried to tell her of God, His infinite love and protecting care. With her sensitive fingers placed on the lips and throat of her patient teacher, Helen followed the words with a face that began to glow and shine more and more until the lesson was ended. Then with a sigh of relief she said, “O, I am so glad you have told me His name, for He has often spoken to me.”

Hellen Keller is shut out from the world of sight and sound, but not from the world of infinite Spirit, and the same voice that spoke to her is speaking to every youth. She in the stillness and silence of her life heard the voice, and felt its joy. The youth who lives in the world of material things is deafened and bewildered and does not clearly hear, and so he blunders and falls.

Just here does youth need the most patient, tender guidance. Religion should come naturally into his life, and this he should be made to know. It is not a strange and inexplicable mystery, it is simply knowing that God is All-Father, and that just now when the youth is seeking to liberate himself from the life of childhood in the flesh he need not be orphaned or unguided, for he is a child of God and needs only to know this fact and arrange his life in accordance with it to realize the blessed freedom that comes with the knowledge. John 8:32; 16:13.