Late Hours | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 5, 1872

Late Hours.

HENRY WARD BEECHER preached, April 24, on “Late Hours” and the “Unfruitful Works of Darkness,” and in the course of his sermon, said:

“If you want to make the ruin of a child sure, give him liberty after dark. You cannot do anything nearer to insure his damnation than to leave him at liberty to go where he will without restraint. After dark he will be sure to get into communication with people that will undermine all his good qualities. I do not like to speak to parents about their children; but there are thousands who think their child cannot do wrong. Their child will not lie, when his tongue is like a bended bow; he will not drink, when there is not a saloon within a mile of his father’s house where he is not as well known as one of its own decanters; he never does iniquitous things, when he is reeking in filth. Nineteen out of every twenty allowed perfect freedom at night will be wounded by it. There is nothing more important than for a child to be at home at night; or, if he is abroad, you should be with him. If he is to see any sights or take any pleasure, there is nothing that he should see that you should not see with him. It is not merely that the child should be broken down, but there are thoughts that never ought to find a passage into a man’s brain. As an eel, if he wriggle across a carpet, will leave his slime, which no brushing can ever efface, so there are thoughts that never can be got rid of, once permitted to enter; and there are individuals going round with obscene books and pictures under the lapels of their coats, that will leave ideas in the mind of your child that will never be effaced. There are men here who have heard a salacious song, and they never will forget it. They will regret having heard it to the end of their lives. I do not believe in a child’s seeing life, as it is called, with its damnable lust and wickedness, to have all his imagination set on fire with the flames of hell. Nobody goes through this fire, but they are burned, burned, burned, and can never get rid of the scars.”