A HINT FOR THE YOUNG

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 22, 1881

A HINT FOR THE YOUNG.

Sidney Smith, in one of the ablest of his essays, says: "I know of no principle which it is of more importance to fix in the habits of young people than that of the most determined resistance to the encroachments of ridicule. Give not up to the world, nor to the ridicule with which the world enforces its dominion over every trifling question of manner and appearance. Learn from the earliest days to insure your principles against the perils of ridicule. If you think it right to differ from the times, and to make a stand for any valuable point of morals, do it, however rustic, however antiquated, however pedantic it may appear; do it, not for insolence, but seriously and grandly, as a man who has a soul of his own in his bosom, and does not wait till it shall be breathed into him by the breath of fashion. Let men call you mean if you know you are just; hypocritical, if you are honestly religious; pusillanimous if you know you are firm. Resistance soon converts unprincipled wit into sincere respect; and no aftertime can tear from you those feelings which every man carries within him, who has made a noble and successful execution in a virtuous cause."