1 John 2:13 I write to you, fathers, because you have known him that is from the beginning. I write to you, young men… Dangers attend every comer into this life, by whatever door he enters. All places will have their trials and burdens; but all places are not alike dangerous. The chances of health and worthy manhood are far greater to one born and reared in the country than to one born and reared in a city. If we could choose, we would delay the coming of men to cities from the country till their frames were consolidated, till their habits were formed; but that cannot be. We must seek to make the best of what is. Consider the influx of young men to our cities, and the causes of it. In the first place, there is an imperative demand for vast numbers of young men to carry forward all the processes of society that is so active and so intense in cities. Business of every kind needs them. Where, however, there is a real need there will always be an exaggerated conception in the country, which will induce a rush to the city out of proportion to the real want, making young men too plentiful, and therefore cheap. And it is a bad thing when men are cheap. Few conceive that, by a law of God as fundamental as the law of gravitation and as universal as human society, success in life is the equivalent of industry, knowledge, prudence, and perseverance, and not the result of chance. The exceptions are few and occasional in which it would be found to come from anything in the nature of real luck. Men go out to hunt their fortune; to fire it upon the wing; to take it as it runs through the forest. They mean to find it already made. They do not understand that they must make it themselves if they are to have it. This vision attracts multitudes, as by and by it will mock them. Besides these causes that draw hither so many more than are wanted of young men, there are more legitimate ones. The city has opportunities for some kinds of education that are not elsewhere to be found. It is a living encyclopaedia. It is a world in miniature. It touches human want on every side. I count as the greatest loss that the young can sustain in coming hither the loss of home, as I count as the greatest blessing which the young can enjoy to be that training which a good home affords. There was a time, in primitive periods, when the apprentice belonged to the employer's family, when the merchant took to his own house his few clerks; but the change of business, and the multiplication of men in stores and shops, make this no longer possible, and young men find their places as best they can. Let us look at a few points of danger that develop under such circumstances in cities. First, of course, is the danger that society will lead the young man through kindness into dissipation and wasteful indulgences and pleasures, at the risk of destroying his morals, his health, and his industrious habits, and of soon setting him adrift from good society and sweeping him into that great flock where distress and death shoot all their bolts. The very qualities that most fit a man to be loved and to be useful are the very qualities that make him an easy prey to dissipation. I mean sympathy and yearning for companionship and warm heartedness. I must here specialise one of the dangers which beset the young. I mean the danger of drinking. This is a national vice. Passing from this, I mention some of the illusions that the young must go through. The first of all is that of setting up a wrong ideal and end of life: not manhood and its power; not conscience and purity; not truth and fidelity; not industry and contentment; but simple wealth, as if that carried all things. Now, aim as broadly and highly as you please at fortune, but remember that character is better than property. It is better because it brings with it that which property does not necessarily bring — influence and happiness. Next is the illusion in respect to the relation which exists between means and ends. Men charge the fault of their ill-success in life to society and to the envy and jealousy of rivals; whereas their failure is attributable to the fact that they have stumbled on the illusion that they could gain a prosperity, not by rendering an equivalent work, not by exercising skill, not by putting forth thought, not by adhering to moral fidelities, but by practising dexterities. There is but one other illusion that I shall mention, and that is the illusion that the young are too apt to fall into, of the incompatibility of a moral and religious course in life with worldly prosperity; as if the God that made and arranged the laws of political economy was not the same God that made and arranged the laws of morality and religion. Such are some of the dangers which beset the young that are filling our cities. What are some of the remedies that may be applied? There is not one royal remedy. From every side in human society we must address remedies to these conditions of temptation. There ought, first, to be inculcated a higher sense of the responsibility of those who employ the young, to watch for them and care for them. Then there should be a public sentiment formed — and Churches should assist in forming it — by which the young should more and more be released from the exactions of business, and should have time secured for their improvement. (H. W. Beecher.) Parallel Verses KJV: I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. |
    |