p. 12 | LETTERS TO A YOUNG MAN

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 30, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 21.

LETTERS TO A YOUNG MAN

BY A YOUNG MAN

II. System—Social and Religious Duties—It Pays

MY DEAR ROBERT,—

You are doubtless right in thinking that a man may carry system to unjustifiable lengths, so that from being helpful it becomes burdensome; but with most young men the tendency is all the other way. They are so afraid of getting into a rut that they shun even a well-beaten road. The men of accomplishment in all ages have been systematic workers. When John Wesley was working in Georgia he recorded in his journal the work not only of the day but of every hour of the day. Moreover it was his custom to begin each hour with a short ejaculatory prayer, and to bring it to a close with a few moments' quiet meditation. This was carrying systematic devotion pretty far, but it did not prevent Wesley's performing an immense amount of valuable work. Indeed, he was throughout his long and busy life a remarkably systematic man; and it was his methodical habits, first brought into prominence at the founding of the Holy Club in Oxford University, that gave the name to the denomination which is numerically the greatest of the Protestant bodies in America, as well as very strong in other parts of the world.

Taking men of an entirely different type, Napoleon owed much of his success to his love of system. The ruling passion showed itself strongly even in those last sad years at St. Helena. No sooner had the melancholy prisoner reached the island than he laid down for himself and his associates a regular daily program which he rigidly followed. The Duke of Wellington was almost laboriously systematic; and the same is true of England's Chief of Staff to-day, Lord Kitchener, who, it has been aptly said, conquered the Boers by means of a card catalog and thousands of feet of barbed wire.

In your case there is, of course, only a part of the day's work to plan. Your duties at ——'s will be planned for you. There you drop into a great and finely organized concern, and take a certain share in its activities. But you will have your evenings to yourself, and if you retire at a proper hour, can also count on a little time in the morning for self-improvement. With the help of these precious leisure hours you must carve out your destiny. Do not, then, despise them. The wise use of leisure time gives strength of character which will make you worth more in your present position, and fit you for a broader field of usefulness hereafter. Many a man has achieved world-wide fame as a scholar and writer by careful use of the hours which with most people go to waste. To mention only one instance, Elihu Burritt, called "the learned blacksmith," found eight to ten hours spent daily at the forge in no way inconsistent with an evening devoted to Arabic or some other difficult tongue, and throughout his busy life he combined physical toil with linguistic studies of a high order.

Now to proceed to actual hours, beginning work as you do at nine o'clock, you ought to have a little more than one clear hour in the morning, presumably before breakfast. This will be the freshest hour of the day, and it should be devoted to what is most difficult. Besides this hour given to arduous intellectual toil, you should have adequate time for your morning Bible study and devotions, for a few minutes' brisk exercise, followed by the morning bath and breakfast, after which you will have to take the car to your place of business. The program would be something like this: Rising, 5.30; exercise, bath, and toilet, 5.30-6.00; Bible study, 6.00-6.30; study hour, 6.30-8.00; breakfast, 8.00-8.30. So much for the morning. In the evening there will be a longer period of time that can be devoted to intellectual pursuits. Your dinner hour, I believe, is 5.30. Allowing generous time for it and for a little recreation immediately following, you should be able to resume your studies at 7.30 and continue them till 9.30. There would then be a few minutes for helpful reading of a less arduous kind and for a chapter or so in the Bible before retiring. The program I have roughly sketched out would give you from three and a half to four hours on working days for pursuing studies along the lines in which you are most interested; and if carefully adhered to, it would not only make definite and satisfactory progress well-nigh certain, but it would also add greatly to your happiness. Regularity always produces the latter result. It is wishing to be regular and continually failing in the effort that brings discouragement and unhappiness.

Of course, too great rigidity should not be insisted upon. Social and religious duties are not to be ignored. For one evening in the week your study hour will be cut short by the weekly prayer-meeting; and there will be occasional lectures of a helpful character, which it will be well for you to attend. Now and then you will wish to make a call, or some one will call on you. But back of your daily life there will be this program; and if true to the idea of systematic work, you will not break into it unless the good to be derived from the interruption will more than make up for the loss sustained in missing the regular pursuit of the hour. I might say that in first starting out on such a program it is well to adhere as strictly as possible to the regular routine, in order that fixed habits may be formed. It will then be an easy matter later on to introduce a little elasticity without overturning the scheme as a whole. If you should incline to think the program leaves little time for rest, I reply that change of work is the best rest for a healthy young man. Moreover, there is the weekly Sabbath rest, not to mention the valuable time we necessarily spend in bed.

The advantages to be derived from a life according to program are both direct and indirect. The direct advantage lies in enabling a man to give some time daily to what we may call his avocation — something apart from the work by means of which he earns his living, but which duly cultivated may in time enable him to earn a better living, as well as more nearly fulfil his destiny in the world. The indirect benefits are various. Intellectual effort is bracing. To have a program and adhere to it gives one a certain independence of time and circumstances, and fosters the sense of power and achievement, thus making a man more valuable in his every-day business. Then it frees him from many temptations which come to the man who has idle time on his hands. The program, again, tides a man over his dull days. When one has something to do each hour, and goes about it as a matter of habit, he is not likely to waste time waiting to feel like taking it up. Feelings come to be a secondary matter, and duty looms larger and larger. The value of time becomes a very real thing, and life fills with interest and movement. It becomes a habit to pass quickly from one thing to another, and no time is left for listlessness or idleness, nor for foolish dreaming. But I need not expatiate further. I touched on some of these things in my previous letter; and my only excuse for repeating them here is that irregularity is so common a vice, especially with young men, and one so hard to break away from.

I am well aware that it will cost you a severe struggle to adopt a daily program and faithfully carry it out. You will gain the day, however, if you enter the conflict whole-heartedly, looking to God for help, and realizing that the maintenance of your religious life is itself dependent on the formation of right habits of work. The weakest thing about the religious life of many a young man, is that it is such a shifting thing, lacking so largely in that element of fixedness and permanence which is a very large factor in a successful career. Religion is conceived of as having to do only with the emotions, and as therefore fluctuating and uncertain. But the rational element is large in any religion worth the name.

It is with the mind, all its powers of apprehension and reasoning, as well as with the heart, we are to serve God; and the Sacred Book tells us, "Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established." Our Master said, "I must work the works of Him that sent Me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work."

Needless to say, it is only when the day's routine is permeated by a great life purpose that its various duties rise above the mere mechanical and become enjoyable in themselves. Self-improvement becomes selfish as soon as it loses the inspiration of an all-embracing purpose. Time itself is valuable in the fullest sense only as we see it as something given us in which to do God's will and finish His work.

But I must not continue this letter to greater length. I see you are already troubled over the matter of amusements. Perhaps some of the thoughts dropped in this letter may indirectly throw a little light on the subject. In any case I shall give you my full mind later. Meanwhile believe me as ever, your friend, L. P.