1 Samuel 16

1 Samuel 16:7

THE HEART S THE MAN1 Samuel 16:7THIS is an age in which special, if not undue, prominence is being given to the physical sciences. Theologies are now reckoned as a most important branch in education. The things in the heavens above, the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth, are described and discussed under a common termination—Astrology, Geology, Ichthyology, etc. etc. But there is an ology more important, and yet more difficult to understand and reduce to scientific expression than all these. Pardon the big term, but I mean Anthropology, or the science of man, his body, mind and soul considered. That we do not oftener employ this term is probably due to the fact that it involves more of philosophy than of science, and the times upon which we have fallen are not philosophical, The patient, thorough and sympathetic student of men is a scientist we too rarely come upon.

There are not a few people in the world who proudly boast themselves to be close observers upon their fellow’s actions, shrewd diviners of thought, motive and life. But the vast majority of these are grossly ignorant of the most important features of human nature, and are as unjust in their judgment of men as they are superficial in their study.

It is one thing to watch the crowds passing on the streets, to visit them in their workshops, to look upon them in their banqueting halls, to go with them to their places of amusement, or of religious service, that you may learn their fundamental notions, their essential habits, and their actual life. It is quite another thing to show a morbid curiosity in the peculiarities, weaknesses, faults and vices of our fellows. Socrates did the first, whilst many of our boasted philosophers today are only guilty of the second. The old Greek, standing on the street corner in Athens, studied the language, manners, dress and actions of passers-by, as the expression of some inward principle. But how often now we hear one say of some large, yet motley gathering, “It is a fine opportunity to study human nature,” when the lightness of his remark indicates the scope of his proposed interest. The evident intention is to amuse himself with the variety in bonnets; to find in dress patterns the occasion of contempt or laughter; to discover in short pantaloons, long-tailed coats, and many colored neckties, the opportunity of wit, or cause of self-vanity.

Many a man after hurling his last joke at a receding procession, or having exhausted his humor upon a dispersing crowd, has gone about more serious business, thinking himself to have been studying human nature. In very truth he has only exposed his own shallowness by confounding petty personalities in manners and dress with that more subtle, yet noble something which determines the man.

If the false notions of our fellows (which too many of us entertain) are ever corrected, it will be when we adopt God’s method of judgment: “For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).When we remember the circumstances under which our text was uttered, there appears in it certain obvious and valuable lessons. I wish to mention a few of those which we need most to learn.THE DRESS DOES NOT DECIDE THE MANI make this my first proposition for the double reason that dress is an external which often invites our first attention, and to which many give an undue prominence. It is not my wish to defend, or in any way to apologize for the slouch. I have but little patience, indeed, with that manner of dress which totally disregards cleanliness and neatness. It is not an unusual thing to meet people whose presence always remind one of the old saying, “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” And we are never better persuaded of that truth than at the sight of them. It is a question, indeed, whether the man who has not enough of self-respect to avoid a repulsive habit has any right to expect friendly recognition from people of some refinement.But if we make not the mistake of seeming over-nice in this matter, we must keep in mind that no standard of dress is absolute.

Within certain lines every man must be allowed to choose his own. You have no right to expect me to order from your choice of cloth at the tailor shop, and I have no business to determine what you shall bring from the millinery store.

A failure to recognize this fact will often lead men to uncharitable judgment of one another. The poor man passing his richer neighbor on the street, looks at his dress and despises him as a dude. That splendid gentleman, in his responsive glance, bespeaks his contempt for the ragamuffin. At the bank yonder, two men come so close together that their fingertips touch in handling a check. The banker turns from the transaction to wonder why it is that farmers look so seedy. The farmer goes back to his plow to think contemptuously of the pampered clerk, who wears his Sunday suit all the week, having no need to touch the mud, handle the tar, and gather the smell from the field.

A similar want of kindly judgment occurs at the wholesale house. The merchantman has come to order drygoods, the miller to get an order for his flour.

They look at each other and part to soliloquize. The one wonders what womanish trade the man can follow that leaves him looking as though just out of the newest bandbox. The other mutters the pity that some men had not been born pigs, so that their disposition to wallow could have enjoyed the mud rather than the meal. And there are preachers, doubtless, whose judgment of their fellow ministers is equally shallow and carping. The pastor who can walk well paved streets in shining shoes, and enter the pulpit in spotless cloth, has his tastes too easily offended, and his ideas of a clergyman’s dress too readily outraged, when he shows a contempt for some faithful agent of the church, who from the drudging work brings to that same pulpit a suit worn from traveling on the train, and spotted from plowing over country roads through storm and wind, to do faithful service unto the living God. We need to learn well the lesson that dress does not decide the man.To insist that our standard in this matter shall be the standard for all the world, despising at once differences in birth, breeding, education, wealth and aesthetic tastes, is about as reasonable as if I discarded every man who has not my physical proportions.

What unadulterated egotism I would be chargeable with if I strutted the highway of life, declaring every man less than six feet two inches tall a miserable pigmy, and every one above that, an awkward giant. If it be a fact that Matthew Hale dressed so shabbily when a law student, that by mistake he came near being made a slave to the King, that is no excuse for him who would justify sloth; but it does serve to illustrate the claim that “dress does not decide the man.” Because Philopoemen, one of the most noble Greeks, looked so shabby that being mistaken for a servant, one ordered him to splitting wood, does not argue that all great men are careless in their habits; but it does prove that the greatest men may pay less attention to that than the smallest dudes have done.

A minister is reported to have written from Saratoga to a friend in these words, “The belle of the season here wears a dress valued at the amount of my salary for two years, a set of diamonds equal in value to the cost of a comfortable mission church, with infant room attached, gas fixtures and cabinet organ included.” I should not like to seem uncharitable toward such a woman, because to do so would disprove the point upon which we are here insisting. And yet, who of us would have been in the least surprised had that minister added, “When a good sermon is preached on the ‘Need of Missions’ or ‘The Condition of the Poor’, this woman weeps with the rest. But when a collection is taken, she goes to the bottom of her well-filled port-manteau and brings up the measure of her soul—a ten cent piece.” To our mind, the modest nurse, dressed in calico, living virtuously, earning two dollars a week for rolling the baby wagon along the street, is worth more to this world and has a better chance for the next than the proud mother who lazily follows in rustling silk, keeping up the fashion by carrying a poodle dog. If we are to follow the inspiration of our text, that the Lord looketh not on the outward appearance, but on the heart, there will be some radical changes made about the time we move from this world into the next. The society of heaven, I am persuaded, will be cast in a very different mold from that which the earth has employed. Some will be disappointed, I have no doubt, when the Lord making up His jewels, discards them—silks, diamonds, and all.It is hard for the pampered child of earth to believe that, heart or no heart, he can ever fail of favoritism beyond the skies.

The world has flattered his ornaments, flung back its richest doors to his entrance, and given him entertainment so royal that he has known little necessity of heart graces. His ideas of heaven are too often only those of an earth transferred and elevated; his conception of eternal life, an ordinary day indefinitely prolonged, and his standard of intrinsic worth a question of social caste.

Such people’s expectations for the future often remind us of the little girl’s saying: “Ma, if I should die and go to heaven, would I wear my moire-antique dress?” “No, my love, we can scarcely suppose we shall wear the attire of this world in the next.” “Then, tell me, ma, how the angels would know I belonged to the best society?” We should like to be comforting to all who are troubled with such questions, but when we look into this text and think upon its essential truth, we are in grave doubt whether the angels will ever make the acquaintance of some of earth’s most elegant beaus and brightest belles. For the dress does not decide the man. “The Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man tooketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart”. God sees more in David than Eliab. That boy was dressed in a plain shepherd’s coat. It had not the beauty of his brother’s military suit; it must have been coarse and torn; it must have been faded with the alternate touch of mid-night dew and mid-day sun; it must have been spotted with the blood of slain lions, and soiled with that drawn from the bear. But the dress does not decide the man.

God was looking for that more noble something, and found it in the ruddy child of the pasture. Beneath the plainest cloth, heaven discovers her King. “Arise, anoint him: for this is he”Another thing which we need to know is suggested by this text when we remember its scriptural connection.

IS NO SURE INDEX OF This text is bounded on both sides by illustrations of this truth. By Divine direction the Prophet Samuel was in Bethlehem to anoint the King. That office in Israel was not vacant as yet, but God intended that Saul should not long continue. Notwithstanding his apparent fitness for the office, the administration had been an ignominious failure. His physique had promised the very opposite results. A magnificent man in personal appearance! The inspired penman has given us a graphic sketch of his splendid form. As we behold him standing among the people, higher than any of them from his shoulders and upward, it seems that he was born for royalty.

The Prophet has only expressed our intended speech when he cries, “See ye him whom the Lord hath chosen, that there is none like him among all the people”. The crowd only voices our intended response when all the people shout, “God save the King”! But why is it that Samuel is already looking out for Saul’s successor? In what possible way has that king proven a disappointment, or succeeded to failure? Has some dread disease fastened upon his noble form, and begun its work of disabling him for office? No, not that! Have the enemies of Israel then combined their forces, routed the armies and carried away the King? No, not that!

Then has Jehovah decided to save His people from the worship of a man by giving to them a King of less noble mien? No, not that! The trouble is, Saul himself has proven a positive contradiction of all he promised. That noble brow portending so much of wisdom, concealed instead a mind of madness; that heaving bosom lodged a stone instead of a heart of flesh; that grand form was wedded to a pigmied soul; that palatial body, a temple built for the gods, had opened its doors to the dominance of devils. The lesson is plain. Appearances are a thing apart from the man. Physique is no sure index of character.It is exceedingly difficult to persuade men of this truth. Even Samuel, with a perfect knowledge of Saul’s career, is still disposed to accept appearances as infallible guides.

At the first sight of the noble looking Eliab, the old man is ready to repeat his former mistake and anoint him. How the text in one breath discovers and rebukes the mind of the Prophet. “Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart”. How many of us are yet blundering in the Prophet’s tracks? Society invites into her choicest circles the women of decided beauty, and the men of handsome face upon terms so easy as to disregard essential worth. Commercial rings are disturbed and outwitted again and again by bland manners and seductive smiles. The Church of Christ even, has found it too hard to shut the door against personal appearances.

So our lesson goes on gathering fresh illustrations of its truthfulness from circles social, commercial, religious. Difficult as it is for us to see it, God seems determined to teach it well.I do not understand this text to teach that appearances count for absolutely nothing.

There are times when the outer and inner man are complementary. The eyes often tell the tale of honesty or roguishness. The features whisper of intelligence, or blankly speak its lack. The very step is to the sensible observer an indication of character, and tells of laggardness, or declares courage and energy. Everything about a man—his dress, his manners, his form, his stature, his gait—should be studied, if he is to be understood. But after we have done that much, we must look deeper, or in our judgment be liable to miss the mark a mile. A few years since we heard a lecture from one of the most noted phrenologists of the land. After he had finished, he asked the audience to select a man and send him to the platform, that he might examine his head and decide his powers.

A certain name was called, and the man responding submitted to the examination. This subject was a splendid looking fellow. His head seemed almost a model, his form was erect and well proportioned; his stature was grand, without being gigantic. The learned doctor examined the bumps, and then said about what I should, had I known no more than he of the case in hand: “Ladies and gentlemen, this man has many talents; he might succeed largely in business; I find certain indications of power should he drive one of the learned professions. In short, he is admirably suited to push life itself, turn his abilities in what direction he may.” The truth of the matter was, that outside of the single talent for song, the man’s abilities were far below mediocre.Somebody tells the story that Coleridge once dined at the table with a magnificently appearing stranger; his venerable head was ponderous; his bright eyes seemed scintillating with the fires of genius, and the expression of the face suggested large capacity, laboriously suppressed. Coleridge was wild to hear the man speak; he expected his wit to flash and his words to weigh, and his arguments to convince, and his speech to flame in eloquence.

At last, lifting his face, he opened his mouth and Coleridge caught eagerly at the words, only to fall back with the shock of disappointment. The first sentence showed the man to be a drone, if not indeed a fool.

I suppose none of us who have read Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” will soon forget his half humorous portraits of the “Old Custom-House Officers.” In physique not a few of them were as perfect specimens as the best bred shorthorn, while in mental and spiritual perception they were equally allied to that good stock. Essential manliness, then, is not a question of physical structure or contour. The Apostle Paul would have appeared pitiable, almost contemptible, in the presence of the handsome, yet wayward, Absalom, their physique considered. But only reckon their manhood, and the Apostle to the Gentiles so far out-giants him, that Absalom looks like, and is, a mere dwarf. People who knew Robert Hall, the matchless orator, may have said of him, as some early Christians did of the great Apostle, “His bodily presence is weak!” But oh, what utterances, and what a man! Elizabeth Barrett Browning, that princess of verse, was the weakest, most frail of human creatures, constantly seeking an atmosphere which she could breathe, and live; yet what a soul she must have had to feel and write what she did!I would not teach men to underestimate facial beauty.

Truly, “it is a joy forever.” No man can be indifferent to the preeminence of a kingly form. But this is my point: Better be ugly enough to frighten the children from the streets, small enough to be known as “The Dwarf,” crooked enough to excite the pity of every passer-by, and yet be a man, essentially a man, be a woman, thoroughly a woman, than to be possessed of all beauty and grace in form, whilst lacking in soul and mind.

For although “man looketh on the outward appearance”, the Lord, who seeth best, looketh deeper, “looketh on the heart”, and therefrom are the issues of life.Thinking upon the text, yet another lesson is suggested. DOES NOT POWERSThat Samuel should expect to find in the eldest son the greatest competency for the royal office was natural. If Eliab had been less attractive in person, did he not enjoy a preeminence in age, in experience, and in official station? The oldest boy in a Jewish home was the heir-actual, whilst the younger ones were only heirs-apparent. Besides, it is highly probable that Eliab had shown some military power, and had gained some honors already from war. We are apt to judge men’s ability by the station which we find them holding.

Oftentimes such judgment comes near the truth, and yet the method is not absolutely reliable. How many we know whose talents fit them for exalted positions that hold lovingly to lower ones for conscience sake.

Only a little while ago, I held long converse with one whose present life is a case in point. For years he has clung to a work which returns to him a scanty support, and more than once has refused the higher call. In the course of an afternoon talk he said something like this, “I love my work here, and I am willing to make all reasonable sacrifice rather than leave the post. I have felt that my work was of God’s appointment, and as such I delight in it. The position, ‘tis true, imposes some hardships. My meagre salary will not allow me to purchase such books as my soul fairly pants after.

The opportunities of travel, with all its advantages, I can seldom enjoy. My domestic life is somewhat straightened by comparative poverty”. “But do you know,” he added, “those are not the hardest things to bear; they are incidental to an office which I honor, and they sit lightly upon me.

This, however, I count a hardship indeed—the uncharitable judgment of one’s fellows who often measure one’s ability by the length of one’s salary.” Such a measurement is as false in the case of many others as it was in that of my friend. It is a mistake sure to be made unless we go deeper than the cloth in our study of men. A small soul cannot understand the spirit of that young man who sacrifices himself daily rather than cripple a business firm which he has learned to love, by leaving it for a higher salary. A narrow mind will not readily believe that a brilliant teacher is stinting himself to save a college from the injury incident to leaving it for halls of greater honor and better pay. The lesser spirits of a congregation are sure to think their pastor stands on the last rung which he could reach in the pulpit ladder. Our own bushel is the measure for all the world, and if we have pushed into it the last dollar within our reach, and the last honor to which we could stretch, we are apt to imagine that every other man’s measure holds the same.

If there is one thing which the world needs today, and will need tomorrow, it is men; men of larger soul; men of broader mind; men of loftier spirit, men who can give charitable judgment to others, because they have dealt charitably with themselves.Those who heard a lecture which Col. Geo.

W. Bain delivered at Chautauqua many years ago, could not forget an illustration that the gifted speaker used. It was the tale of a young man who once labored in a certain rolling mill. He appeared from the first to be very poor, eating his cold dinner daily from his basket, and sleeping at night on some straw in a little shop. But why he should live so, when his wages were good, was a mystery. He was never known to buy a cigar, or to touch a glass of whisky, and the mill boys decided that he was a miser. On a bright day in autumn the foreman proposed a holiday and a splendid boat ride down the river. He explained that they need only lose two days and be at an expense of two dollars and a half each.

Instantly all responded save the cold dinner and straw bed man. He explained his indisposition to go, on the ground that he had neither the money nor time to spare. The shout of “Miser!” “Miser!” broke forth from a hundred lips. Lifting his head he said: “Gentlemen, will you hear me but a moment, then mock me if you will? I have been an orphan from a child; I have neither friends nor kindred, save a darling sister. Long ago people tried to put her in an asylum, but I begged to keep her instead. At fourteen years she was attacked with sore eyes and was going blind. I heard of a doctor in London who could cure her, and two years ago I sent her there.

She is well now, gentlemen, and ready to start home as soon as I can spare the money to bring her and pay the last hundred on the doctor’s bill. For this I have slept on the shavings and eaten my cold dinners! For this I have submitted to your hard names and scorn! For this I would even die! Now, mob me, if you will.” The foreman first broke the silence to say, “Here is two dollars for you to help bring her home,” and a hundred men followed his example as fast as fingers could give and receive. In a few weeks that brother pressed to his great loving heart the sister of his love. Be careful how you judge men’s powers by their positions. The lowliest office may be infinitely exalted when it is held for the sake of love.

Look deeper, and learn whether men have hearts or not, for after all, according to God, the heart’s the man. We need men who are possessed of hearts! Not hearts of stone, that poverty and wretchedness cannot appeal to; not hearts of indifference that are little concerned whether the world goes to the devil or not; not hearts of selfishness that seek only the good of personal ends; but hearts of flesh pulsing in purest sympathy for every afflicted one; hearts of affection that would sacrifice self to assist another; hearts akin to that speared on Calvary, that throb to love, and break to save. Jesus was plainly dressed; Jesus was not most attractive in form; Jesus held the humblest station among men! Yet Jesus was God’s own Son, because in His bosom beat the great heart of God. Oh, weary soul, press your heart to His, and be revived!

Oh, despairing sinner, come stand by Calvary and let a drop from that speared side make you clean! Oh, humble servant, learn the sweetest of sacrifices from Him!

Then shall your dress become the garment of holiness; your face shine with the beauty of Heaven, and your humblest station be exalted to the honor of Kings and Priests unto God. “For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart”.

1 Samuel 16:11-12

DAVID—THE IDEAL SON AND Talk to Young Men1 Samuel 16:11-12DAVID! He was peerless as a king; but his youth was none the less a promise of his coming greatness. He easily illustrated the adage, “The child is father to the man”.So far as I am able, in a short talk, I want to set before you my reasons for reckoning David a son and brother of superior character, and for urging upon young men the imitation of some of his virtues.HE WAS THE SON OF THE HOUSEAs for his sisters, we have nothing said concerning them. Let us hope, if such he had, that they were sweet and unselfish girls. But the six brothers were at hand, and apparently at leisure, or on dress parade when Samuel came seeking Israel’s king.David was in the field busy with the flock. Good place for a boy to be!

If I had my preference, boys would be brought up on farms and spend their youth in difficult, drudging tasks for the sake of moral and spiritual muscle, just as certainly as for the sake of good physical development. The world is over-stocked with boys who, like Eliab, want to be on dress parade, who count themselves quite above humble work, however honorable.

If there is any office of distinction or honor, they are aspirants for that office, but if there is a load to lift, an errand to run, a hard task to accomplish, they make themselves scarce, or look at you with contempt if you suggest such service.Sons of that sort are a shame to parents. Brothers of that kind are a chagrin to better brothers and a constant trial to sisters. Society itself is sinned against by such young men. They go to fill the ranks of the unemployed, to overstock charity asylums, or else become paupers on the hands of parents, or objects of a successful brother’s benevolence, or tramps and even criminals to pester and pilfer the public.I know of nothing that so incapacitates a youth to fill the office of son and brother as indolence; and there are some boys whose laziness is the largest thing about them. An Irish nobleman is reported to have been riding a country road in Ireland when he saw a fat boy dozing by the way. “Which of these roads leads to Macroom, my lad”, asked the nobleman. “That way”, replied the boy, lazily moving the toe of his boot in the direction of the place. Astonished at this act, the lord dismounted, and walking up to the boy, he said, “If you can show me a lazier act than that I’ll give you half a crown”.

The boy eyed him a moment, then turning on his side he said, “Put it in my pocket, Sir”. He has his counterparts, and such boys are a shame to the parents who gave them birth; and a never ending annoyance to Society.

The Scriptures say, “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men” (Proverbs 22:29).When James A. Garfield was a lad he left off the hard day’s work on the farm to spend his evenings in learning well his lessons, in the light of a pine knot fire. His body was often wearied with the day’s work and sleep was tempting; but he plodded on. That studious boy was the prophecy of the martyred president.John B. Gough sagely said, “The young man who succeeds in this world must make his own opportunities. He who waits for some seventh wave to toss him on the dry land will find that seventh wave a long time in coming.

Youth can commit no greater folly than to sit by the roadside expecting some one to come along and invite it to ride with him to wealth and influence.” It matters little what other traits a young man may have, if he is indolent his parents cannot be proud of him, and his brothers and sisters will be constantly embarrassed at the mention of his name. We meet young men every now and then who are leading lives of little worth and each presents as his patent excuse, “Well, I haven’t been favored as others and consequently my failure.” Would that such were sensible enough to give attention to what Dr.

Bethune said, referring to his own success, “People say it is genius; but I tell you it is hard sweat. That is the only secret, sweat!”DAVID AS A SON AND BROTHER ADDED TO , We read in the Bible of Noah’s intemperance, of Lot’s drunkenness, but not of David’s. He kept himself sober. Intemperance is Satan’s most powerful agency for defeating the superior character.The bitterest tears that start from the eyes of godly mothers, affectionate fathers, noble brothers and loving sisters are often excited by the demon of drink. They weep their hearts out when they see that devil dragging the son and brother down.Years ago a bright young Canadian alighted from a pullman sleeper in Chicago. He had come from his good Toronto home.

He brought as his stock in trade education, righteous ambition, and considerable cash. Two short years in Chicago and H —M— lay dead in a dive on South Clark Street.

One of the saddest men that ever came to that city while I was pastor there, was T—M— who came to get the remains of that boy; to learn when he arrived, that the twin demons of drink and lust had so soon effected his temporal degradation and his eternal death. What was his mother’s anguish, only God, the angels, and the devil understand. Whether she lives, I do not know; but if she does, I can imagine her sitting in a darkened room after the twilight has passed, with an unspeakable sorrow in her heart; that, if it ever expressed itself at all, would use these words: “It was not on the field of battle, It was not with the ship at sea,But a fate far worse than either, That stole him away from me.‘Twas death in the ruby wine-cup, That reason and sense did drown,He drank the alluring poison And thus my boy went down.“Down from the heights of manhood, To the depths of disgrace and sin;Down to a worthless being, From the hope that might have been.For the brand of the beast besotted He bartered his manhood’s crown.Through the gate of sinful pleasures My poor, weak boy went down.”But the sorrow incident to strong drink and related sins, effects not only the sonship, but fraternity as well. I suppose that the father and mother feel a drinking boy’s degradation and disgrace most deeply, but surely the brothers and sisters, especially sisters, have a sorrow second only to that which the parents know. The average young man does not appreciate his own sister; nor does he imagine the strength of her love. They scrap with one another and sometimes the brother thinks, as I used to do when a boy, “Well, I’ll be glad if any man ever marries her and gets her out of my way”.Sometime ago the “Chicago Herald” told a story of a little citizen of that city in illustration of this thought. A boy of six years had long been the pet of the household and had come to suppose that beside him there was none else, when a baby sister arrived. He saw that the situation was changed and that she was getting most of the attention.

To add to his chagrin, mother made him wait upon the little one and care for her, and that was a burden. The unhappy boy wondered how he could bring it to an end.

One day his father put out a sign which read, “Ashes to give away. Inquire within”. Fred took note of it; and also of the fact that a man in passing, stopped and read the sign, called for the ashes and carried them away. He summoned his kindergarten education to his assistance and printed, as best he could on a placard, these words which amazed his father when he came home to dinner, “A sister to give away. Inquire of Fred”.And yet, the very sister you would like to give away loves you to madness, and would make any sacrifice in the world for your sake if ever there arose a sufficient occasion. I have received some letters from sisters that I wish you young men could read.

While I was in Chicago two sisters in Pennsylvania wrote to me many times about a brother who, in that great city, was rapidly going to the bad. Those letters were baptized in their tears and brought to that vagabond boy many messages of love and what spare change they could possibly lay aside, in proof of the same.

He was utterly unworthy of such sacrifice, but those sisters made it, inspired by that Divine Spirit which seeks to save.You may be married some day to the other fellow’s sister and think her very sweet; but there is a good likelihood that you leave in your own home one who loves you equally well and whose sacrifice in your behalf ought to seal your affection for her forever.DAVID’S COURAGE ENTERED INTO HIS The lion and the bear that came to take kids from his flock found him a fierce foe. Goliath never defied Israel after the day he dared scoff at this lad. Saul, the insane tyrant, only escaped his hands because David’s heart had mercy. His foes were many. His courage never faltered nor failed. The battles of this day are different, and yet they try the mettle of young men just as much.

The boy who is not brave enough to strike down the beasts of sensuality that beset him; to hurl deadly stones against the Philistine giants of immorality that tempt him; to out-weigh the tyrants of commerce, the money-mad masters of trade who seek to slay his character and advance themselves on the ruin of his conscience, is doomed.J. O.

Peck says, “In the city of New York I was acquainted with a young man whose employer asked him to engage in some crooked business that would be to the advantage of the house. The young man answered, ‘I cannot do that. I will resign my place first.’ The employer retained him. A few weeks later he promoted him. A few months afterwards he made him the manager of a branch house. Then he started in business for himself. His Christian character was so well known that well-to-do men loaned him money without security, and at the age of twenty-seven he was the owner of a large establishment in New York City with branches in Boston and Philadelphia.”Courage is still the price of character. The devil makes easy prey of the fearful; but from the brave he flees. “You are starting, my boy, on life’s journey Along the grand highway of life.You will meet with a thousand temptations Each city with evil is rife.This world is a stage of excitement. There’s danger wherever you go,But if you are tempted in weakness, Have courage, my boy, to say, ‘No’.“In courage alone lies your safety, When you the long journey begin.Your trust in a Heavenly Father Will keep you unspotted from sin.Temptations will go on increasing As streams from a rivulet flow,But if you’d be true to your manhood, Have courage, my boy, to say ‘No’.”That is the author’s song to his son; that is the mother’s parting hymn; and the dear brother and sister say the same.It is a great thing to so live as to bring joy to the mother who bore you, honest pride to the paternal heart, and blessing to the brother and sister left behind. The late Dr. Leighton Williams, of New York, said, “I rode one day with my honored father in one of the streets of London, Great Ormond Street. As we passed along, he noticed the name of the street and said to me, ‘This street was named for the great Duke of Ormond. That Duke had a son, a very talented and noble fellow, who died before his father. As the great man bent over the coffin he was heard to say, ‘I would rather be the father of that dead boy than of any living son in England*.” Said Williams, “I felt a lump in my throat.

I wondered if I was worthy of my father’s love.”It is a great thing to have a beautiful gracious mother; a great thing to have a great father; but it is a greater thing to be a superior son; a great thing to have honored brothers and virtuous sisters, but for you, the first thing is to be honorable and virtuous yourself. It takes courage to beget such a character.

I have sometimes thought that if one were not a Christian, and did not even believe in God, that there ought to be sufficient stimulus in the home relation to inspire him to nobility. For father’s sake; for the sake of mother; for brother’s sake, for the sake of sister, I will do the right.LOVE WAS A LARGE ELEMENT IN DAVID’S LIFEEliab could be envious, but not this shepherd lad. Saul could show himself a villain seeking the young man’s life, but David loved him still. To Jonathan his heart went out with unstinted affection. For his wife and children there was no limit to his love. When Bathsheba’s son was sick the tenderness of this man’s heart showed itself.

When Absalom turned patricide, David only felt for him an overflowing affection.I have no doubt that his father and mother rejoiced in his fondness. It is easy to believe that the lad left the loving home, braved the dangers of the fields and woods, submitted to the exposures of a shepherd’s life, and faced the wild beasts from the forest for the sake of satisfying a father’s wish.

There is excellent occasion for generous behavior on the part of the average boy. To do something for him whose you are, who sacrificed for your boyhood, and who laid much on the altar of your youth, and who loves you none the less as you grow old, even father; to do something for her who has excelled even the father in all of this, that is every son’s solemn duty, and ought to be recognized as a sacred privilege. It won’t be long ere that dear man who lives for you is alive no more, and that modest woman will be a buried mother. Any disloyalty, any want of love, would then become a bitter memory.Rev. John Todd tells that when he was a boy his sick father asked him to go to the drugstore for some medicine. That lad started but fell in with some bad boys and went off to play instead.

After a while he remembered himself, hastened to his home intending to tell his father that the druggist was out of that kind of medicine, but the physician met him at the door and said, “It is too late, your father is dying now.” John Todd never forgave himself for that day’s selfishness and disobedience. That is a happy home where love reigns; and he is a superior son whose every heart-beat has in it tender memories for the mother and a spirit of obedience and loyalty to the father, fraternity for the brother by blood, and sincere affection toward the sisters every one.A brother beloved!

But not for one instant would I leave you to think that this is love at its best. I believe with Dr. Gregg that “Love enlarges the soul,” and that “the young men who indulge it” are the better for the passion. I believe with him that “there is nothing grander on earth than a young man through whose being the tide of a noble love is surging; who has all the susceptible intensity, the tenderness, the possession of a fine nature; who is just beginning to look on the sweetness and beauty of love, and is overawed with all that is great and good in the world, whose being is a delicate instrument, played upon by all the touches of the immense universe, and which gives back in response the wondrous music of holy ambitions and Godlike resolves; the young man in whose manhood reason is luminous, self-respect is positive, ideal is lofty, and honor and honesty, and virtue and affection are all in all”. He will be a Joseph in the cities of Egypt; he will be a Daniel in the city of Babylon, and by and by he will be a luminous son of God in the City of the skies.But to be this last, yea even to be the first, he must love God. There used to be a little book in the Chautauqua course entitled, “The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation,” which set forth very clearly the thought that men grow into the image of the gods they worship.

Those who love or fear and bow down before idols are imbruted, degraded, disfigured, destroyed. Those who love and serve the Lord come to be more and more like Him, more and more possessed of the beauty of holiness.

Every son must understand that he is superior in proportion as he worships the Son of God. Every brother must understand that he is beautiful in proportion as he bows before our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ; beautiful in the eyes of father and mother, brother and sister; above and beyond that, beautiful in the eyes of angels and of God. Such lofty love enlarges and enriches the life that now is, and is a perfect promise of the life that is to come.God understands that, hence He writes to us, “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them” (Ecclesiastes 12:1). God knows that with young men it is “now” or “never” touching the salvation of their souls. Christian mothers and fathers appreciate that in part, hence their earnest prayers.I would that those of you who are young might understand the same. I have baptized several thousand people in this pool, few old men among them, a very few even had passed their maturity.

If tender youth turns from God, it is the least likely of all things that hardened age will turn back to him. I have baptized a good many sons and a great many brothers; I have baptized only a few husbands and a still smaller number of fathers.

I plead with you tonight, then, in the language of the Prophet of old, “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near” (Isaiah 55:6).A few years since a ship was driven on the beach just out of New York. She was a beautiful vessel and had cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Her owners tried every way possible to get her back into the waters repaired and afloat again. Once they succeeded in moving her to a point where they thought her just ready to go on the waves, when an adverse wind swept her back upon the sand and stones and injured her more deeply still. Then they sold her for a paltry price and the new owners tore her to pieces, taking such parts away as they could employ.It is a good deal so with the immortal craft of human life. The winds of temptation, the tides of evil, are constantly stranding it.

Most of the young men present here tonight, who know not God, are aground morally. You know that, perfectly well.

You know what rocks you are on, whether of intemperance or of lust, or of profanity or of fraud or of all of these. You know whether the winds of infidelity have stranded you. I plead with you tonight, while the prayers of friends go up in your behalf, prayers of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, while the Spirit of God breathes upon you the offers of salvation, to spread the sails of your soul to catch that sacred breath and quit the shores of evil, and go out on the sea of God’s mercy and love.Some of you are almost off the sands tonight; almost on the waves of everlasting love. Let not Satan’s breath drive you back again. If you do, it means deeper injury. If you do, it means eventual destruction, and in Heaven there will be fathers hunting for their sons in vain, mothers walking the celestial streets in search of those who have not come; brothers and sisters conscious that the family circle has been broken, that the impenitence, indifference or infidelity of one has made it impossible to ever have the home complete in Heaven.Some years ago, you remember, the “Billa du Havre” and the “Lochearn” met in mid ocean, crashed into each other with such force that both went down, and a multitude of men and women were drowned in the deep.

The life-saving vessels were quickly lowered and some few escaped to be picked up by other steamers. One of these, a young woman, reaching port, sent back a telegram.

She and her brother had started for Europe together and when the anxious parents received this telegram, it read, “I am saved, alone”. Let us hope that that will not be the history of any in this house tonight; that no father will need to go to Heaven without his children; no mother without her babes; no sister without her brother, to say, “I am saved alone”.