1. Question. What does the pope exhort all his subjects everywhere to do?
Answer. "All Catholics should do all in their power to cause the constitutions of States and legislation to be modeled to the principles of the true church."—Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical, 1885.
2. Ques. In what are Catholics exhorted to seek an alliance with non-Catholics?
Ans. "In spite of rebuff and injustice, and overreaching zealotry, we should seek an alliance with non-Catholics for proper Sunday observance."—Baltimore Catholic Congress, 1884.
3. Ques. Is there any authority for the change of the Sabbath to Sunday?
Ans. "There is authority for the change from the Sabbath to Sunday—ample authority; but it is the authority of the Catholic Church."—Catholic Columbian.
4. Ques. What is your advice to Sunday-keeping Protestants?
Ans. "Either to retire from Catholic territory, where they have been squatting for three centuries, . . . commence forthwith to keep the Saturday,—the day enjoined by the Bible from Genesis to Revelation,—or, abandoning the Bible as their sole teacher, cease to be squatters, and accept the Catholic Church in ALL her teachings."—Rome's Challenge, page 35.
5. Ques. What do you think of those Protestants who do not observe Sunday?
Ans. "Violators of Sunday laws are the worst of criminals."—Archbishop Ireland.
6. Ques. What kind of law do you Protestant Sunday-keepers want?
Ans. "We want a law for the nation that will prevent the desecration of Sunday by any one."—Dr. McAllister (National Reformer), speech at Lakeside, Ohio, July, 1887.
7. Ques. Why do you want to set up Sunday thus?
Ans. "We must set up Sunday for the salvation of the nation."—Senators Hawley of Connecticut, Colquitt of Georgia, Frye of Maine.
8. Ques. What do you think of a thief?
Ans. "It is right that the thief be punished, but I have more sympathy for that man than I have for him that works on Sunday."—A preacher in Selma, California, 1888.
9. Ques. What do you think of the man who lifts his hand against the American Sunday?
Ans. "The man who lifts his hand against the American Sunday is an enemy of the republic. He is an enemy of the race. He is an enemy of God."—Rev. Dr. R. S. MacArthur, Calvary Baptist Church, New York City, Sunday law meeting, March 11, 1890.
10. Ques. What do you think of those who oppose the enforcement of Sunday upon the people?
Ans. "It is high time they were either boycotted or crushed."—Methodist minister in Franklin, Manitoba, 1910.
"They ought to be in the penitentiary."—Rev. Dr. Hill, of Quebec Lord's Day Alliance, 1910.
H. A. ST. JOHN.
3568 — The World Coming to an End
By Editor
Will the world come to an end before the twentieth century is entirely out? Is this idea correct? B. H.
There is nothing in the reckoning of ordinary chronology which shows us just when the world will come to an end, or when it will not come to an end. God has these times in His own hands, and He has not revealed them to any soul. Nor will He until probation shall close. He gives us many time-tables of history, great lines of prophecy. He gives us many signs and omens of the last days which will occur right down in the time of the end, all of which are heralds of His coming. And when we see all these things, we may know that He is near, even at the doors; but nowhere does He tell us that we may set times for His coming, or endeavor in any way to locate just when that event will be. If we knew that, there would be little watching until the event was near; and the question then is, whether carelessness of soul would not lead to absolute unbelief. The constant command which God has given to "watch, for ye know not when the time is," is the attitude which the church itself ought to assume. Watch, and pray, and work.
Criticizing Love
By Anon.
ABOUT once in a thousand cases a word of personal criticism may properly be spoken by one human being to another. The remaining times, the criticism will probably do more harm than good. But there is one rule against criticism which we may safely set down as final and without an exception even once in a thousand times. "Don't criticize what love does," is the rule as Mr. S. D. Gordon gives it. When we know that any action has been prompted by love, then, it matters not how mistaken or wrong we may think the action, let us seal our lips against a syllable in criticism of the person whose love has been expressed. No wound hurts more than that of being condemned for an unselfish effort to help others. Criticism then is cruelty. The historic illustration of this is Judas' criticism of Mary when she lavished the costly ointment on Jesus. Every-day life teems with other instances of this refined cruelty: fathers and mothers criticizing their children; children their parents; brothers and sisters, teachers and pupils, friends and fellow workers, all sharply condemning each others' actions of love. We revolt at the thought, but let us watch ourselves and others for a day and see. It is well to recognize that it is the Judas side of our natures that prompts or permits us to wound and crush another's love by criticizing when we ought to commend. Love is to be cherished, not stifled.
—Anon.
Lovers of Religious Liberty, Harken!
By Editor
[In presenting these replies we are glad to concede that they do not represent the feelings or sympathies of all who are working for a Sunday law; but place Sunday laws upon our statute-books, and a potent weapon of persecution is placed in the hands of men who hold the sentiments quoted below. Let liberal souled men—true lovers of religious liberty—ponder the matter well before they support a Sunday law. If Sunday be of God, He will care for it; if not of Him, it is unworthy to exist. [ED. S. OF T.]]
Question Corner
By Editor
(Continued from page 2)
from intimations which are given in the Scriptures, and facts which have come under the observation of many. It is commonly known that spiritualistic mediums, when possessed by their familiar spirit, have a tremendous drain upon their vitality. When God's servants are possessed by His Spirit, it gives them strength. In the records which have come down to us through the Scriptures, angels have invariably strengthened God's servants. Evil angels sap the vitality and power and intellect of those whom they possess. The one is a channel of life, the other becomes a death-leech, so to speak, which draws life from those whom they possess. During the thousand years, it seems clear from Isaiah 34, there will be animal life upon the earth. It is not until the end of the thousand years that the earth is entirely wrapped in flame. Whether these evil spirits, or demons, depend upon the animals, or whether they have some other means of sustenance during that period, we do not know. Yes, we believe that these spirits can assume different forms; that notwithstanding all the deception and humbuggery there is in Spiritualism, there is such a thing as materialization, by which these spirits appear as men or women. Our only hope of being saved from these deceptions is in the truth of God's Word.
Just what is meant—God's comfort to His people. The prophet was to speak to Jerusalem, tell her that her warfare is accomplished, her iniquity is pardoned. God had furnished all that was needed to restore her to her exalted position before Him. She had received pardon covering all her sin, doubled to her for assurance; and the comfort which He sends her is the great consolation of having a God who is high and holy, exalted and great above all conception, so much so that the world is counted as "the small dust of the balance," as nothing and "less than nothing" in His sight; yet that same God gives power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increases strength. That mighty power of God is used to strengthen the weak among His people. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." This is God's comfort to His children.
John 8:11, the last clause, reads, "Go, and sin no more." 1 John 3:9, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he can not sin, because he is born of God." We see no inharmony between the scriptures. The first is the word of our Saviour to the poor, sinning woman who was brought before Him. He forgave her her sin, and simply told her to "go, and sin no more"—not to continue in sin.
1 John 3:9 declares that when one is born again, and his nature changed, he will sin no more. That is, he can not because he will not. He does not practise sin; that is not the object of his life; that is not its purpose. He has been freed from its power. It does not mean that it is physically impossible for him to sin, any more than it was physically impossible for the man who had married a wife, to come to the marriage feast.
He said, "I have married a wife, and therefore I can not come." He did not have it in his heart to come; he preferred to remain with his wife. So the man who is born again does not wish to commit sin; he has a higher object and purpose in life.
Presumptuous Sin and the Sabbath
By D. A.
3571 — Num. 15:32-36. D. A. — The story there told is simply the record of an example which forcibly illustrates God's injunction against presumptuous sin. In verse 30 we are told that "the soul that doeth aught presumptuously, . . . that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the Lord." The Lord had commanded (Ex. 35:2, 3) that no fire should be kindled on the Sabbath day. Fire was not needed in that very warm climate. But presumptuously, and in defiance of the Lord's command, this man went out and gathered sticks on the Sabbath day. He was brought to Moses; but inasmuch as the man had not transgressed any regular law, he was put in ward until the mind of the Lord was declared. The Lord declared, He "shall be surely put to death." He had committed presumptuous, daring sin against God. That was all it was — not a general law; neither was the prohibition against fire building a general law. It was applicable to the warm climate through which the Jews were then passing.
Gen. 15:13 is the prophecy made to Abraham that his seed should be strangers, and should serve others four hundred years. That is, they would not own the land in which they would dwell, and would be more or less subject to those who surrounded them. This would take in the sojourning in the land of Canaan, as well as in the land of Egypt, but the end of that sojourning came in the land of Egypt. The Septuagint and the Samaritan version of Ex. 12:40, 41 read as follows: "Now the time of the sojourning of the children of Israel and of their fathers which they had dwelt in the land of Canaan and in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass at the end of four hundred and thirty years, even on the selfsame day, that all the hosts of Jehovah went out from the land of Egypt."
With the period in Ex. 12:40, Gal. 3:17 agrees, while Acts 7:6 refers directly to Gen. 15:13, the 430 years dating from an earlier period — God's first call to Abraham, the 400 years from the offering up of Isaac, altho some have taken it as simply referring in round numbers to the four centuries. There is no contradiction in the texts at all.
"A Condition and Not a Theory"
By T.
WHEN Grover Cleveland was President, he said, in discussing the admission into the Union of the Hawaiian Islands, "We have a condition confronting us, and not a theory." And all over this old world of ours we have actual conditions that it is vain to theorize about. The conditions are there; and there is no mistaking them. And to take the view of these conditions that is held by the majority, is worse than folly; it means disaster to every one who allows himself to be thus deceived.
The conditions to which we refer are the world-wide spirit of revolution growing out of the fostered discontent with present social institutions. Almost the whole of this discontentment is circling around the "century-vexing problem of capital and labor." Fortunes and business combines have been created that are without a parallel in history, and a battle is on over this situation. It is useless to close our eyes to the facts. The struggle is actually on, and it is becoming more and more intense and revolutionary as the days pass.
England has just been passing through a labor trouble that has amounted to civil war, and the end is not yet. It is an actual "condition" that Socialism has reached a position of immense power in England. It is not necessary, for our purposes, to pass opinions as to the theories and doctrines of Socialism. It is a fact that the Socialist is intensely aggressive, and that he is opposing all his powers against allowing a comparatively few men to hold the wealth of the country while the great mass are in either limited or distressing circumstances. His doctrines strike a popular chord, as shown by the large numbers that are constantly flocking to his standards. The theory of the Socialist is to bring about the desired reforms and changes in a humane way. But the very facts that he tells, and the arguments that he uses, have a tendency to inflame the popular mind; and when the occasion comes and the strife begins, it is immediately apparent that the very air is full of the revolutionary spirit that has violence in it. This was abundantly demonstrated in the recent strikes in England.
As the Socialist tells of the luxuries of the rich, and that they are controlling everything in business and commercial lines, and that they have more than they can use while the poor are actually suffering from want, it is easy to see that the popular mind will become inflamed to the point where reason no longer controls, and where excited conditions of the mind sway the populace hither and thither in acts of fury and violence. This discussion is on, not merely in England, but in all the great nations of the world. Germany is honey-combed with it; Russia is a stronghold of it; France is filled with it, and so is the United States, and so are the other great nations.
Men will say that it ought to be suppressed, for it is breeding revolution and violence. But such talk is folly. The Socialist is altogether too numerous in all countries of the world to be suppressed by a wave of the hand. Even the iron power of Emperor William, with all his well-trained army, dare not try it. Too large a portion of his country is composed of this class of people to allow him to do such a thing, however much he might like to do it.
We have these facts before us. A few men have secured control of the industries of the world, and have their multi-million dollar trusts, which during very recent years have grown into even multi-billion dollar trusts. These combines of wealth are on the defensive, and are determined. And many of the sons and daughters of the wealthy, as well as an occasional wealthy man of the older set, strike out from time to time to make extravagant and foolish displays of wealth. The Socialist papers pick these things up and publish them broadcast. A man of wealth gives a hundred thousand dollar dinner, or a woman spends thousands of dollars on a special train to get an aged dog across the continent to a noted dog doctor; and immediately all the people know about it. The daily papers furnish this information; but the Socialist takes the fact that is already in the mind of the individual, and enlarges upon the selfishness of the rich, and the extreme injustice of conditions that allow such extravagance for the few while the many have to suffer.
It could not be otherwise than that such arguments will have their weight; and it does not take long to get the man who has to work hard all day for a dollar or so, to fall in line, ready for extreme measures to put down such conditions. Cool, level-headed men will insist that the change must be brought about in a lawful, humane manner; but the large majority, even tho they start out cool and level-headed, will soon lose their balance, and rioting and violence are the result.
Better Organizations
During the last half century, capital has organized as it never could have organized before, for the reason that there were no such facilities for communication in the past centuries as we have to-day. And in like manner Socialism has organized labor as it was never organized in the past. These facilities for world-wide communication have brought11before us new conditions for which the world has no precedent, and it is folly to reason wholly from the experiences of the past.
This organization of capital on the one hand and labor on the other, has given us in these days two belligerent forces that are grappling in a life-and-death struggle. The war spirit between them is becoming more and more intense. A present-day instance of this is the struggle now going on over the coming trial of the McNamara brothers, charged with dynamiting the Los Angeles Times Building last year. The newspapers and magazines are trying these cases beforehand. The charge is made by the business combines, that the explosion was the work of the labor-unions in trying to intimidate capital and bring it to terms; and on the other hand the labor organizations are just as strong in presenting the claim that the deed was done by the capitalists themselves in order to crush the unions.
Around the cases of the McNamaras the Socialists are arousing all their forces. It is the central theme of their literature at the present time. Eugene V. Debs heads a recent article upon the subject, "Wanted — A Few Men Not Afraid to Die." Some characteristic sentences from the article are the following:
Let us arouse the working class and invoke their power to smite the conspirators and set our brothers free!
They can be saved in no other way. The lawyers will plead for them to deaf ears; organized labor will protest against their taking off in vain.
We are confronted by a heartless, soulless plutocracy. Let us buckle on our armor and fight!
If Morgan, Guggenheim and the steel trust, and Otis and the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association want red hell they can have it, but let them take notice that when it comes the working class alone will not furnish all the victims. The plutocrats who are responsible for the revolt when it comes may hide their cowardly carcasses as they always do, but there will be an avenging force, let loose by themselves, to hunt them out and feed them to the furies.
Let us marshal our forces and develop our power for the revolt! There are no courts to which we can appeal. The Morgan machine seats the judges to pronounce the doom of those who dare oppose it.
THE PEOPLE VERSUS PLUTOCRACY!
That is the issue and the line-up. Let the slogan be sounded until it echoes and re-echoes from Boston Common to San Francisco Bay, from the Canadian line to the Rio Grande, from Casco Bay to Florida Keys!
At this very hour the slaves of the British Empire are demonstrating to the lords of misrule the power of an aroused working class.
Let us develop without delay all the power we have and prepare to strike in every way we know how.
With a general strike we can paralyze the plutocracy from coast to coast. Hundreds of thousands will join eagerly and serve loyally in the fight. We can stop the wheels, cut off the food supply, and compel the plutocrats in sheer terror to sue for peace.
We need only to have the manhood to be true, the nerve to do our duty.
In striking for the lives of our brothers we shall have scant regard for the property of our masters.
Arouse, you working men and working women of America!
Sound the tocsin of revolt that the hosts of labor may rally to their comrades and thwart the satanic conspirators who are thirsting for their blood!
A few men may be needed who are not afraid to die. "Be ye also ready!"
Let us be men and women, not worms of the dust! Let us stand up and defy the plutocrats to murder our brethren!
Let us swear that we will fight to the last ditch, that we will strike blow for blow, that we will use every weapon at our command, and that we will never surrender!
Let us fight loyally together in this crisis! Roll up a united Socialist vote in California that will shake the Pacific Coast like an earthquake, and back it up with a general strike that will paralyze the continent.
Waste no time on Otis, the festering abortion and the small fry that feed on his stenches, but train your guns on Morgan and Wall Street! There is where the black hand of plutocracy holds the key to the prison doors of our condemned comrades.
Strike at the vitals of plutocracy with all your power and the victory will be speedy and complete!
Let us once more hear from Boston and let the Common again resound with the portentous cry of a hundred and fifty thousand revolting workers: "If the McNamaras die, twenty million working men will know the reason why."
It requires only the most casual glance at the foregoing quoted statements to show that they are really a call to a determined fight to the death. At last reports the circulation of the particular issue of the paper in which this article occurred was about two million copies, and orders coming in at such a rate that it was thought it would reach the three million mark. The discussions of the capitalists and the discussions of the Socialists on each side of this question can not fail to influence the court that has the case in hand. And it should be easy for any one to see, from what is said, that the effort to inflame the whole country is not in the least disguised. Business is to be paralyzed, and life and property put in jeopardy and destroyed.
The discussions of these things in this country reach the Socialist of England, Russia, Germany, etc., and the matter becomes more or less world-wide. At least the discussions in each country act upon and encourage similar discussions and sentiments in other countries; and so the thing spreads, and spreads, and spreads.
With an unvarying course, this journal has pointed out for a third of a century that these things were coming and that they would become more and more intense. The prophecies of the Bible make this plain. Nearly two thousand years ago it was said: "But know this, that in the last days grievous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of self, lovers of money." 2 Tim. 3: 1, 2. Note how plainly it is stated. We are to know that in "the last days" "grievous times" will be occasioned by self-love and money-love. And in the fifth chapter of James it is pointed out that men will "heap" treasure together in the last days, and it will result in miseries that will cause men to "howl" even while they "weep." Other scriptures speak of the awful violence that will come in connection with this.
We have reached the days of which the prophets have spoken, and what we see now is only the beginning. Men should be able to see with half an eye that the conditions of the whole world to-day can result in nothing short of world-wide revolution and violence. The Bible has made plain what it all means, and this is no time to be found in either camp of the controversy. We should see that the only wise thing is to spend our remaining days in careful preparation to stand before the Christ at His coming; for He and He alone is able to meet this great situation that is before the world. And His Word makes it clear that He is about to do it by His personal coming.
A scene in Llanelly in connection with the strike in England, from the "Illustrated London News." The firing of freight sheds by the mob caused the explosion of cans of powder on cars, by which five were killed.
Florida Harbor, Texas Schools, and Banking
By Editor
"The National Tribune," the Grand Army organ of Washington, D. C., sends out a good map of Florida to its subscribers, and advocates a new harbor and city in Western Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico, said to be "the finest, largest protected deep-water harbor on the gulf, and the shortest route from any such harbor to the Panama Canal." This harbor is on St. Andrews Bay, at Lynn Haven, the suggested new name for which is Panama City. The G. A. R. people are building a strong colony there. The climate and environments are said to be excellent. It is troubled with neither mosquitoes nor high temperature. The Government is improving the harbor.
The State of Texas claims the greatest progress in the erection and equipment of educational buildings. Its total number last year was 770, an average of two every day; 643 of these were in common school districts; the average cost $3,340 to a building; and during the same year the people expended for school furniture, apparatus, and libraries, $2,026,230; for the repair of schoolhouses already erected $691,899; and nearly $150,000 for the purchase of school sites.
The Bankers' Trust Company, controlled by Mr. J. P. Morgan, has bought the Equitable Life Insurance Society's holdings in the Mercantile Trust Company. It means a transfer of $72,000,000 in assets into the aggregate of the banks under the control of J. P. Morgan & Co. The banks under his domination have an aggregate capital exceeding $1,100,000,000, by the means of which Mr. Morgan and his henchmen can control the money of the United States.
Mexico's troubles are not over, by any means. On September 3, five men were killed and sixteen wounded, and Gen. Bernardo Reyes, candidate for the presidency against Francisco Madero, was stormed and forcibly robbed of 3,000 pesos by a mob of Maderistos in the principal thorofare of the capital. Madero has expressed his regrets. It may be found that Diaz understood the Mexican people, and knew better than some of his would-be successors.
It was an astonishing outbreak of mob violence in Wales the other day against the Jews. In various cities, in towns and villages, the Hebrews were attacked in their own houses and brutally beaten. It was not unlike outbreaks in Austria and Russia. But it shocked the best citizens, and was speedily put down by the authorities. A few, a very few Jews seem to have been cruel landlords; but what excuse was this for attacking a race?
A despatch from New York reports that as the result of eating toadstools picked and cooked under the belief that they were mushrooms, three persons are dead in the Fordham Hospital, one more is dying, and the condition of five others is serious. It seems to be the old story: "If it is a mushroom you survive; if it is a toadstool you die." It would be worth while to discard the fungous growth as an edible in all cases.
A despatch from Minneapolis dated September 2 declares that a palatial gambling house, patronized exclusively by women in the high walks of life and operated by a woman, has been in operation for many weeks, according to the police. Complaints were made by husbands that their wives were losing money, and the woman operator was summoned by the police, she agreeing to suspend, if not prosecuted.
There are many people in the country who are disappointed because the duty on wool was not reduced, and because the farmers' free list bill did not pass. Many thought these would naturally follow Canadian reciprocity, and would be of decided help to wage-earners and to the poor of the country.
Experts acting under the Department of Agriculture have recently reported that the increased cost of food products in the retail markets does not in any wise help the farmers. In general, the farmers receive less for their investment than they did years ago.
The huge battle-ship recently launched at Quincy, Massachusetts, for the navy of the Argentine Republic, is the largest war craft afloat in the world. It is called the Rivadavia.
Italy is suffering greatly from cholera. Hundreds have already fallen victims, and new cases are constantly developing.
LETTERS TO A YOUNG MAN
By L. P.
BY A YOUNG MAN
MY DEAR ROBERT,—
There are some things I have been wanting to say to you for a while past; but I have held back, thinking the opportune moment had not arrived. Your last letter convinces me that I should wait no longer. You are now entering social life in earnest, and are making the nearer acquaintance of certain young women. There is nothing wrong in this, providing you do not give an undue amount of your time to such matters, and thus come to neglect those studies, the faithful carrying on of which are vital to your mental growth and development. I am not displeased with your learning to know these young ladies; but I am a little disappointed at the tone of the remarks you drop concerning them. No doubt they have their weaknesses as well as young men; and sometimes the little foibles of a woman seem silly or utterly unintelligible to the opposite sex; but if these girls are worthy your acquaintance a deeper look will reveal hidden strength. A good deal of the frivolity that we deplore in young women is owing to the habit both men and women have of showing their least worthy side when in society. A man treats a woman as a sort of plaything, and unconsciously she responds to this treatment by showing the most superficial and least lovable side of her character. Some few women perhaps are wholly superficial, and lack the nobler elements of character; but with such you can not afford to spend your time, and from such you surely can not afford to form your mature judgment of woman.
Unworthy association with the fair sex has a highly corrupting effect upon the young man himself. He may think he is merely being amused at the expense of these frivolous girls, when he is really destroying the gentler, nobler affections of his own nature, and thus making it impossible for him ever to enter fully into the deep, mysterious joys of a happy marriage.
The Middle Ages, it is true, had their drawbacks; but one thing at least the present generation could learn from that so-called benighted period of the world's history—the reverence for womanhood which lay at the root of the whole of the vast fabric to which we give the collective term chivalry. The knight errant of those days went forth to do great and mighty deeds, but not wholly in his own strength, nor for his own glory. It was a woman who had buckled on his armor, it was a woman who watched over him all through the fray, and it was the love and approval of this same woman that was to be the reward of the battle. And it is largely so to-day if we could but realize it. No man fights the battle of life with all the courage and fortitude of which he is capable whose heart is not cheered, and his arm nerved, by the love of a woman. It was so ordained from the beginning. Woman, weak in herself, has the power of infusing wondrous strength into man. And it is to the boundless credit of woman that she is so willing to pour the richest treasures of her inner life into the lap of the man she loves and honors,—so willing to serve him in the highest sense as well as in the humbler things of every-day life.
But rightly to profit by all this, the man must understand and reverence the opposite sex; and if he would ever be able to love and be loved by a pure, good woman, he must begin by learning to reverence womanhood itself.
We hear a good deal of talk nowadays about the need of educating the girls for wifehood and motherhood; but it seems to me that our young men have equal need of an education which shall fit them to be good husbands and fathers. Certainly the responsibility for the maintenance of a happy married state must be equally divided between the two parties to the contract; and while there are doubtless many exceptions, I incline to think that as a rule the man comes seriously short oftener than the woman. And when he does, it is likely to be because of lack of this knowledge of the real place of woman in the world, and the nature of the relation which the Creator intended the one sex to sustain to the other.
There is no doubt in my own mind that the tendency to think lightly of woman is the first step, and a long one at that, toward downright immorality. However strong the young man's passions, and however alluring the temptations, he can not, while he holds in his heart a sense of respect and reverence for the sex, and of loyalty to the one woman who is sometime to be his wife, tho for the time being he may not even know her—I say he can not, while upheld by these strong supports, make any woman the mere means for the gratification of his unbridled passions. The two things are mutually exclusive. They can not exist together. The young man in every case first learns in his heart to despise not merely a woman, but womanhood itself, before he can taste the forbidden pleasures of a dissipated life; for in so doing his actions affect not only the woman with whom he is immediately associating, but the other one, now unknown to him mayhap, whom he is one day to lead to the altar. He can not lose his own manly purity without rendering himself incapable in some measure of a deep, pure life attachment; and he can not take unlawful liberties with one woman, however low she may have fallen, without by so doing insulting the whole sex.
It is perhaps unnecessary to say more about the vicious life—its momentary pleasures, and its long, long years of bitter remorse. The Bible, that grand old book of the ages, has given a description of it in words that go straight to the mark. I know of nothing anywhere else that in respect of a vivid, truthful setting forth of vice and its results, equals the account in the seventh chapter of Proverbs of the "strange woman," and the "young man void of understanding," who under cover of darkness "went the way to her house." The "woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtle of heart" is unfortunately still with us, and temptation in some form or other "lieth in wait at every corner." And the young man who yields—how feelingly and how truthfully his case is set forth: "He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life." How impressive, too, are the closing words of admonition: "Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death."
People have thoughtlessly blamed the Bible for its plain speaking concerning sexual matters; but it is all with a purpose—that sins of this nature, which are so fatal to the health alike of soul and body, should appear exceeding sinful,—that young men especially should take warning in time and escape the grievous snares that lie thick about their feet. There is nothing in the Bible that renders vice in the least degree attractive. Everywhere it and its dreadful consequences are painted in their own true colors; but this is more than can be said of some modern novels. It is well to remember that because the conventions of the age are against coarseness in conversation, and indeed against the use of plain English in speaking of sex matters, this in itself is no evidence of unusual virtue. Impurity thrives as well under cover as in the open, and there are in the literature of to-day passages which, tho free from coarseness, depict vice in such a manner as to make it decidedly attractive. Such books, it need hardly be said, are far more harmful even than books that contain objectionable instances of coarseness but are true to the facts and do not throw a false glamour over that which is at bottom wholly bad. The Bible, however, rightly read, is wholly free from anything like coarseness, but it speaks freely and plainly about certain vital matters which modern society prefers to keep in the dark.
I could write much more on this subject, but I forbear. Keep high ideals before you in everything, my dear friend; but in all your relations with women, keep very high ideals, not only for their sake, but for your own. As a discerning young man you should mark out for your guidance in all these matters about which I have been writing, just as strict rules as you would impose upon your own sister. Nothing less than13this is safe, nothing less is honorable. And while you are thus exceedingly circumspect in your outward actions and in your words, be careful also to think rightly concerning women — yes, and generously. Do not allow yourself in the very morning of life to be chilled and blasted by cynicism. I would have you wise, but not worldly-wise. This is all for to-night, but another time I may have something more to say to you about these matters.
Affectionately,
L. P.
A Noble Purpose
By Henry Ward Beecher
A man's purpose of life should be like a river, which was born of a thousand little rills in the mountains; and when, at last, it has reached its manhood in the plain, tho, if you watch it, you shall see little eddies that seem as if they had changed their minds, and were going back again to the mountains, yet all its mighty current flows, changeless, to the sea. If you build a dam across it, in a few hours it will go over it with a voice of victory. If tides check it at its mouth, it is only that, when they ebb, it can sweep on again to the ocean. So goes the Amazon or the Orinoco across a continent,—never losing its way, or changing its direction, for the thousand streams that fall into it on the right hand and on the left, but only using them to increase its force, and bearing them onward in its resistless channel.—Beecher.
