If it were ever my fortune in speaking to young men to become eloquent, with the only real eloquence there is, the plain speaking of a living truth, this I would say:—
Your first duty in life is toward your after-self. So live that your after-self—the man you ought to be—may in his time be possible and actual. Far away in the twenties, the thirties, of the Twentieth Century he is awaiting his turn. His body, his brain, his soul are in your boyish hands. He cannot help himself. What will you leave for him? Will it be a brain unspoiled by lust or dissipation, a mind trained to think and act, a nervous system true as a dial in its response to the truth about you? Will you, boy of the Twentieth Century, let him come as a man among men in his time, or will you throw away his inheritance before he has had the chance to touch it? Will you turn over to him a brain distorted, a mind diseased, a will untrained to action, a spinal cord grown through and through with the devil grass of that vile harvest we call wild oats? Will you let him come, taking your place, gaining through your experiences, hallowed through your joys, building on them his own, or will you fling his hope away, decreeing wanton-like that the man you might have been shall never be?
This is your problem in life, the problem of more importance to you than any or all others. How will you solve it? Will you meet it as a man or as a fool? When you answer this, we shall know what use the Twentieth Century can make of you.
"Death is a thing cleaner than Vice," Owen Wister tells us, and in the long run it is more profitable.
Charles R. Brown tells us of the old physician showing the physical effects of vice in the Museum of Pathology. "Almighty God writes a very plain hand." This is what he said. In every failure as in every success in the Twentieth Century, this plain hand can be plainly traced. "By their long memories the gods are known." This is an older form of the very same great lesson, the "goodness and severity of God."
Those who control the spiritual thought of the Twentieth Century will be religious men. They will not be religious in the fashion of monks, ascetics, mystic dreamers, or emotional enthusiasts. They will not be active in debating societies, discussing the intricacies of creeds. Neither will they be sticklers as to details in religious millinery. They will be simple, earnest, God-fearing, because they have known the God that makes for righteousness. Their religion of the Twentieth Century will be its working theory of life. It will be expressed in simple terms or it may not be expressed at all, but it will be deep graven in the heart. In wise and helpful life it will find ample justification. It will deal with the world as it is in the service of "the God of things as they are." It will find this world not "a vale of tears," a sink of iniquity, but a working paradise in which the rewards of right doing are instant and constant. It will find indeed that "His service is perfect freedom," for all things large or small within the reach of human effort are done in His way and in His way only.
Whittier tells us of the story of the day in Connecticut in 1780, when the horror of great darkness came over the land, and all men feared the dreaded Day of Judgment had come at last.
The Legislature of Connecticut, "dim as ghosts" in the old State House, wished to adjourn to put themselves in condition for the great assizes. Meanwhile, Abraham Davenport, representative from Stamford rose to say:—
"This may well be
The Day of Judgment for which the world awaits;
But be it so or not, I only know
My present duty and my Lord's command
To occupy till He come.
So at the Post where He hath set me in His Providence,
I choose for one to meet Him face to face.
Let God do His work. We will see to ours."
Then he took up a discussion of an act relating to the fisheries of alewife and shad, speaking to men who felt them obliged to stand by their duty, though never expecting to see shad, or alewife, or even Connecticut again.