A WORD TO YOUNG MEN

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 7, 1881

A WORD TO YOUNG MEN.

How about your companions? Where and how do you spend your evenings? If you have not given serious thought to these questions before, we would urge you to stop and consider them now. Sit down a moment seriously with the old Bible, and if you do not know just where to look to find what God says about these things, let us direct you: Open first to 1 Cor. 15 : 33, and with it compare Prov. 15 : 9, and Prov. 13 : 20. Well, you say, who are fools? We reply, The man who thinks his own way right, Prov. 12 : 15. And then we think that man a fool who occupies his time with trifles; who neglects important truths and realities, and who does not prepare for great and unavoidable events. Eccl. 7 : 4; Prov. 28 : 26; 1 Tim. 6 : 3, 4. "See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise." Eph. 5 : 15; Prov. 4 : 14, 15. A surgeon in the army, on being asked why it was that most of our boys come back so much improved in every respect, while some who stood so much higher when they went away were utterly ruined, said: "It all depends upon the tent-mates they have had." Note the blessedness of the godly in the first Psalm, and the doom of the ungodly; and remember, "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." You may find companionships that will tend to lead you in the better way, and there are those who will love to lead you to Him who is "the way, the truth, and the life." "In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death."

— Philadelphia Association.