Make a mark with a straw on the clay and it abides; hammer on the brick with iron and it only breaks. Youth is a brief season. It is the season for forming habit, for receiving impression, for building up character. 'The sluggard will not plough by reason of the cold, therefore shall he beg in harvest and have nothing.' Your present time is seed time. God forbid that I should say that it is impossible, but I do say that it is hard, for 'a man to be born again when he is old.'
If you do become Christ's servant later in life, your whole condition will be different from what it would have been if you had begun when young to trust and love Him. Think of the difficulty of rooting out habits and memories. Think of the horrid familiarity with evil. Think of the painful contrition for wasted years, which must be theirs who are hired at the eleventh hour, after standing all the day idle.
Contrast the experience of him who can say, 'I Thy servant fear God from my youth,' who has been led by God's mercy from childhood in the narrow way, who by early faith in Christ has been kept in the slippery ways of youth.
Of the one we can but say, 'Is not this a brand plucked from the burning?' The other is 'innocent of much transgression.'
I have small hope of changing middle-aged and old men. To you I turn, you young men and women, you children, and to each of you I say, 'Wilt thou not from this time say, My Father, Thou art the guide of my youth?'
III. Life will certainly deepen your early impressions.
The old Barzillai dying looks back to his early days.
So I point the lesson: 'Keep thy heart with all diligence,' and let your early thoughts be bright and pure ones.
Remember that you will never find any love like a father's and mother's. Don't do what will load your memories in after days with sharp reproaches.
IV. Life will bring you nearer and nearer to the grave.