IS it not about time that our youth have a change, and be drilled awhile on learning to say, Yes? For decade after decade they have been taught that the main duty of a boy or girl is to "learn to say, No." And the lesson has been impressed upon them with very little discrimination. It is little wonder that when duty calls to some important work in connection with the cause of God, especially in actual missionary work, the rising generation are so prone to hesitate and say, No. It is little wonder that when the Spirit says to the young people of the world, Come, take of the water of life freely, they are ready to say, No. When they are called to give up the pleasures into which they have fallen by following their elders both in and out of the church, the ever-ready answer, in word or act, is, No. When confronted with the essential choice to "keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus," that they may obtain eternal life, too many—alas! the great majority—respond with the repulsive No. The inherent disposition of the human heart is to rebel—to say, No. The infant that can not pronounce an intelligible syllable will kick, or strike, or scream its innate No! against its parents or attendants. Let the lessons be wisely divided between the counsel to say, No, and to say, Yes. That which is most difficult to instil is to answer, Yes, to the Spirit's call; Yes, when the Word of God speaks; Yes, ever to the call of duty. If this lesson be well learned, the saying No, to evil influences will come comparatively easy. The lesson to say Yes to parental authority will pave the way for the instinctive rejection of many evil suggestions.
The Christian life is not a succession of negative actions, it is not a system of don'ts. It is a positive life, a life of yielding to the Spirit and saying Yes to the will of the Father in heaven. It was because Jesus Christ had led a life of obedience—of saying Yes—to the leadings of the Holy Spirit, that He so readily, instinctively, said No when confronted with the strongest temptations of the enemy under the most discouraging circumstances. A merely negative backing never can sustain a positive life. A succession of noes—we might say, the "no" habit—never can, never did, build up a positive, forward life.
The youth whose training has "no" for a leading-string will naturally become a chronic objector, deeming it a virtue to say No on all occasions, and to every proposition that he has not originated. True, it often requires courage to say No, but it requires judgment to know when to say No, and it requires an education along the line of accepting and saying Yes to the teachings of the Spirit through the Word, to give that judgment and that moral courage.
Young man, young woman, learn to say Yes, from the standpoint of the Word of God, and the "no" proposition will be a much easier matter. That was what sustained the Master, and it will sustain you. There are hundreds of propositions before the young people of to-day that ought to have hearty affirmative answer; but a selfish backwardness, a lack of education in practical yielding to the Spirit's calls, is inclining too many to say No, and to procrastinate. Think of these things, and learn to say Yes, to the promptings of the Spirit.