LETTERS TO A YOUNG MAN

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 11, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 27.

LETTERS TO A YOUNG MAN

BY A YOUNG MAN

V. Sunshine—Prayer—Radiant Christians—Evening Gatherings—Higher Ideals

MY DEAR ROBERT,— This is a gray day. Dull, heavy clouds shut in the horizon on all sides, and the air seems oppressive. There is all the bareness of winter with none of its tonic quality. Every one I have met this morning has looked sad. What an effect sunshine has on us! What a pity we can not on such days as this reveal a little more of the sunshine within! If a man were to determine deliberately to put on a smiling face whenever the weather happens to be of the gloomy kind, would it not cheer the hearts of his associates? and might it not indirectly lighten the gloom in his own heart? We are all more or less creatures of moods. We may go to bed feeling bright and happy, and awake in the morning with a brooding sense of utter misery. The cause may be a change in the weather, an attack of indigestion, a bad headache, or something lying deeper, unexplainable, perhaps, but very real.

What is the cure for such moods? In the first place, they should as far as possible be ignored. Do not remit one iota of the day's duties because of moods. Follow the regular program. Put on a clean collar and a bright tie; dress with more than usual care, so that there will not be the slightest suggestion of neglect in your outer garb. Then, for the inner: Think of God's mercies,—"count your many blessings, name them one by one." Let the mind in its vacant moments dwell lovingly on the goodness of the great Creator. Think of the hearts that are torn and bleeding as the result of real suffering; think of the many lonely hearts, of men and women who are struggling bravely against great odds; and determine with all your might to look pleasant, and to say something kind and pleasant to as many persons as give you the opportunity. If possible, too, think of some absent loved one who is living under trying circumstances, and plan sometime during the day to write him or her a letter of sympathy which shall be full of brightness and blessing. It is one great advantage in having these sad moods ourselves that we are able at such times to understand the sorrows of others.

Christians should be happy, and they should look happy. A gloomy Christian is a contradiction of terms. "These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." To indulge the spirit of murmuring, to look on the dark side even for a moment, is to open the door of temptation. Backsliding begins with unthankfulness. The Bible, while it gives some dark pictures of human depravity, is on the whole pervaded with the note of joy and triumph. Its heroes were men who knew that the joy of the Lord was their strength. If they lost the feeling of joy, they knew that sin was the cause; and putting away the sin, they prayed with David, "Restore unto us the joy of Thy salvation; uphold us with Thy free Spirit." Men of to-day who have accomplished great things, have been men of good cheer, whom it was good to look upon. George Müller, the revered founder of the Bristol orphanages, where for many decades now, some two thousand orphan children are cared for year by year, the money and supplies coming in wholly as a result of prayer, was one of these cheerful, radiant saints. It was his habit to spend the first half hour or more in the morning in communion with God, and he was accustomed to say that the result of these meditations was always in the direction of producing a spirit of joy and confidence. "I make it my first business," he would say, "each morning, to be first of all happy in my God. Then only am I ready for the duties of the day."

I did not intend to write at such length on this subject, but the dulness of the day suggested it; and pardon me if I mistake, but it seems to me that I have detected something of a slight undertone of gloom in some of your recent letters. You have been too considerate of me to express this feeling in so many words, but I have detected it, and I want to encourage you to fight it. Young people are supposed to be largely free from melancholy; but as a matter of fact they are much affected by it, and need special grace to rise above it. In fact they need to recognize it as sin, and flee from it as they would from any of the grosser forms of vice.

I see that you are giving a good deal of your time to "social duties," as they are called. I don't know much as to the nature of the evening gatherings that are occupying your energies, but I hope they are more profitable than some I have attended. I rarely come away from such entertainments without feeling that precious time has been worse than wasted; not because there has been any undue levity of behavior on the part of the guests, not because anything strictly improper was said or done, but rather because the whole thing wasn't worth while. In the first place, the hostess nearly always labors under the delusion that we are so many little children that must be amused by some childish game every minute. There must be contests of skill in this, that, or the other utterly inane and worthless pursuit that no young person of sense would think of doing at home, but which he is supposed to enter into with great gusto just because he happens to form one of the company. It is unnecessary to specify. You know what I mean. All the papers and magazines teem with programs and suggestions with which the hostess is supposed to relieve the tedium for the young men and women who have been unfortunate enough to be brought together for a couple of hours, and are presumably so bored with one another's presence as to require some antidote. Personally it seems to me a wicked waste of time.

How much better to give young people some opportunity to converse with one another, and if necessary suggest topics now and then, and in one way or another encourage them to exercise themselves in this well-nigh lost art! We believe that the happiness of heaven will largely consist in the harmonious social intercourse of the saved ones with one another and with the holy angels. Then can we not here and now begin to cultivate the art? I don't mean mere chit-chat, I don't mean gossip, and I don't mean endless remarks about the weather. I mean sustained conversation on some subject that is worth while,—some good, inspiring book that has been read, some project for mutual helpfulness, some topic of current news—anything that will employ the energies of mind and heart so that at the close of the evening's entertainment, one can feel that something was done that was worth while.

If these evening gatherings are to serve the purpose of enabling young people to become acquainted with each other with a view to selecting their life partners, then it is all the more incumbent on the hostess to encourage the higher ideals that I have mentioned. The happiness or unhappiness of a life union often depends on whether the acquaintance was formed on a high or a low plane. The young woman who shines best at one of these frivolous entertainments, may be least fitted to make a true helpmeet for the young man with a serious purpose. And the young man who may be the life of such a gathering, may prove worthless in the stress and conflict of real living. Life is such a solemn thing that we can not afford to spend any part of it in mere frivolity,—killing time, as the saying goes. Life is especially solemn for the young man, because such infinite consequences follow the least misstep. If anybody might be excused for spending evenings in a foolish way, it would be the old men and women who have about finished their life-work, whose characters, for good or evil, are formed, and who would therefore suffer less from such a letting down than the young people.

It is a fine thing, when invited to a gathering which does not promise some definite good, to have a previous engagement; if not with some one else, then with yourself. If you have a program, as you ought to have, and try to carry it out conscientiously, you will find very little time for social cares, and your progress in all worthy things will be correspondingly rapid.

I believe this is all for to-day. Ever yours, L. P.