How to be a man

by Harvey Newcomb

Having well and thoroughly studied your Sabbath school lesson, you will then be prepared to engage in the recitation with interest. In the Sabbath school, you will observe the same general directions for propriety of behavior as in public worship. You are to remember that it is the holy Sabbath, and that the Sabbath school is a religious meeting. All lightness of manner is out of place. A serious deportment is necessary, if you would profit by it. Courtesy to your teacher, and to the school, also requires that you should give your attention, and not be conversing or reading during the recitation, or while your teacher is speaking to you. In answering the questions, you should be full and explicit; not merely making the briefest possible reply, but entering into the subject with interest. But be careful that you do not give indulgence to a self-confident, conceited spirit, nor appear as if you thought yourself wiser than your teacher. Such a spirit indulged will have an injurious influence in the formation of your character, and will make you an object of disgust to sensible people.

Some young people, when a little past the period of childhood, begin to feel as if they were too old to attend the Sabbath school, and so gradually absent themselves, and finally leave it altogether. This arises from a mistaken notion as to the design of the Sabbath school. It is not a school for children merely; but a school for all classes of people, to engage in the study of the most wonderful book in the world. I hope you will never think of leaving the Sabbath school, as long as you are able to attend it. If you do, you will suffer a loss which you will regret as long as you live.

If you remain at the house of worship between the Sabbath school and the afternoon service, as many do in the country, you will be exposed to temptations to profane the Sabbath. To prevent this, avoid meeting with your companions, in groups, for conversation. However well-disposed you may be, you can hardly avoid being drawn into conversation unsuitable for the holy Sabbath. If you take a book from the Sabbath school library, this will be a suitable time to read it, if you are careful not to extend the reading into the afternoon service, or suffer your thoughts to be diverted by what you have read. But the practice of reading the Sabbath school books during divine service, which prevails among children, and even with some young men and women, is not only very irreverent, but a gross violation of good breeding. It is slighting the service of God, and treating the minister as though they thought what he has to say to them not worth their attention.

You ought to have a particular time set apart for the study of your Sabbath school lesson. I should prefer that this be taken during the week, so as not to task your mind too severely on the Sabbath with study, inasmuch as it is a day of rest. But, if you cannot do this, I should advise that you study it Sabbath afternoon, and review it the next Sabbath morning.

Some portion of the Sabbath afternoon, or evening, you will employ, under the direction of your parents, in repeating the Catechism, which, I hope none of my readers will consider beneath their attention. “The Shorter Catechism,” next to the Bible, I regard as the best book in existence to lay the foundation of a strong and solid religious character. If you get it thoroughly committed to memory, so as to be able to repeat it verbatim from beginning to end, you will never regret it; but, as long as you live, you will have occasion to rejoice in it. I cannot now give you any adequate idea of the benefit you will derive from it. These catechetical exercises in your father’s house will be associated, in your mind, with the most precious recollections of your early years. As I said with regard to your Sabbath school lessons, and for the same reason, I should advise you, if possible, to study the portion of the Catechism to be recited, during the week. But if you cannot do so, it should be studied on the afternoon or evening of the Sabbath. If, however, you study these lessons in the week time, you will be able to spend the afternoon and evening of the Sabbath, except what is devoted to family worship and repeating the Catechism, in reading serious and devotional books, which will not tax your mind so much. If you are engaged in study all the week, your mind will need rest. Therefore, I would have you prosecute your religious study during the week, and let your mind be taxed less on the Sabbath, reading such books and engaging in such services as are calculated more to affect the heart, than to tax the mind. You ought to spend more time than usual, on God’s holy day, in your closet, in reading the Scriptures and prayer. But, besides the Bible, I would particularly recommend Religious Biographies, and such works as Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” and “Holy War,” D’Aubigne’s “History of the Reformation,” &c. But secular history, or any books or papers of a secular character, should not be read on the holy Sabbath. In general, you may safely read, on Sabbath afternoon, the books that you find in the Sabbath school library; though it will sometimes happen that a book creeps into the library that is not suitable for this sacred day. A portion of the evening of the Sabbath, before retiring to rest, should be spent in reviewing the day, recollecting the sermons, examining how you have kept the day, and seeking in prayer the pardon of what has been amiss, and God’s blessing on all the services in which you have been engaged.

A Sabbath thus spent will be a blessing to you, not only for the six days following, but as long as you live. It will contribute to the formation of religious habits that you will be thankful for to the day of your death. And when you become accustomed to spending your Sabbaths thus, so far from finding them long and tedious days, you will find them the most delightful of the seven, and will only regret that they are TOO SHORT—they come to an end before you have finished all the good designs you have formed.

The fact that God has set apart a day to himself, and commanded us to keep it holy, would naturally lead us to conclude that he would order his Providence so as to favor its observance. We have only need to examine the subject to be convinced that he does so. When his ancient people, the children of Israel, refused to keep his Sabbaths, and trampled his holy day under foot, he emptied them out of the land, and caused them to be carried off into a strange country, and to remain there seventy years. This was threatened in Leviticus xxvi. 34, 35:—“Then shall the land enjoy her Sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her Sabbaths. As long as it lieth desolate, it shall rest; because it did not rest in your Sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.” In 2 Ch. xxxvi. 20, 21, this is referred to as one of the principal reasons why they were carried away to Babylon:—“And them that escaped the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons, until the reign of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah the prophet, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths; for as long as she lay desolate, she kept Sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.”

I can think of no reason why God, in his holy Providence, should not punish Sabbath-breakers now as well as then. I have no doubt that he does. If we could see the design of his Providence, as it is explained in the Bible, no one would doubt it. Sir Matthew Hale, after a long and laborious public life, declared, as the result of his experience, that he found his affairs prosper, during the week, just in proportion to the strictness with which he had observed the Sabbath; and that he had never met with success in any business which was planned on the Sabbath.

I might fill this book with narratives of accidents that have happened to young people, while seeking their pleasure on the Lord’s day. Scarcely a week occurs, in the summer season, but the papers contain accounts of parties of young people drowned while taking Sabbath excursions on the water, or of young men and boys drowned while bathing on the Lord’s day. Many very striking accounts of this kind have been collected and published in tracts. And a great many facts of a more general nature have also been published, in various forms, showing that it is profitable to keep the Sabbath, and unprofitable and dangerous to break it. My object, in this place, is simply to impress on the minds of my readers the very important influence which the proper observance of the Sabbath has in the formation of character. And I wish them to follow the youth through life who has been accustomed to keep the Sabbath, and who continues to keep it; and then follow the course of one who has, in early life, been accustomed to disregard God’s holy day. And one thought, in particular, I desire you to ponder well,—The Sabbath-breaker cannot expect God’s protection. And, if God forsakes you, what will become of you?

A party of young people set out for a sail, on the Sabbath day. One of the young ladies told her brother that she felt very bad to think she was breaking the Sabbath, and she must return home. But he entreated her not to spoil his pleasure, for he should not enjoy it, unless she went with him; and to please him she consented to go. The boat was upset, and she was drowned. The distracted brother now gave vent to his grief in the most bitter lamentation. He had been the means of her death. There he stood, wringing his hands in agony, and exclaiming, “O! what shall I do! How can I see my father’s face!”