The emulous and aspiring youth of a Free People will always find much of their private, and most of their public welfare, indissolubly connected with the institutions and laws of their country. In these, therefore, their interest is both public and personal;—it pertains to the citizen as well as to the man. All great moral questions, though touching them but lightly at first, will come closer and closer home, as long as they live;—growing into greater importance for their posthumous memory than for their living fame, and affecting the fortunes of their posterity even more than their own.
Though all Young Men are substantially alike in their desire of well being, yet, in regard to the guiding principles by which the objects of hope are pursued, in order to obtain happiness, three marked distinctions, or classes, exist among them.
1. There are those who adopt with implicit and unquestioning faith the views of their parents, or of the circle, or caste, into which they were thrown by the accident of birth. They never venture to explore or wander outside of the ideas and opinions among which they were born and bred. For them, an hereditary boundary encloses thought, belief, hope. Whether the opinions amid which they live are insular in their narrowness, or continental in their breadth; whether they belong to the earth, came up from the dark regions below, or descended from the realms of purity above, they are taken into the receptive soul, as unfledged birds take whatever food is offered them, from friend or foe, with closed eye and opened mouth. Even if practically right, therefore, they are never rationally right, for they have never discerned between good and ill; and all their convictions, whether true or untrue, rest upon the foundation of bigotry alone.
2. The second class look eagerly beyond family or caste. They anxiously inquire what views, what dogmas, are in the ascendant among men,—what party predominates or outvotes, what avowals or professions will most readily open avenues to wealth, propitiate power, win patronage, insure advancement. Finding where the preponderance of forces lies, they attach themselves to the stronger. No matter whether the tide ebbs or flows, they drift with the current. If popular views change, they change, “like a wave driven with the wind and tossed;” like a chameleon, changing its color with every contact.
Some of this class, more sagacious, though not less false to principle, than the rest, ascend an eminence, whence they can survey the direction of forces, mark the future point and period of their union, and then they strike at once for the spot whither those forces are converging They, not less than their fellows, warp eternal principles to suit the vice of the hour, only it is an hour somewhat future, instead of the present one.
3. But there is a third class of Young Men who are true to the sacred instincts of virtue, and devoutly reverent of duty. They seek, not for the time-hallowed, but for the truth-hallowed. They have learnt that, in the divine classification, there are but two great objects in the universe,—God and Mankind. These are the only existences recognized in those two supreme laws, which, by divine prerogative, hold all other laws in their embrace. Hence the two resulting and all-comprehending duties,—love to God and love to Man. The convictions and sentiments which belong to the Brotherhood of the one, stand upon the same basis of authority as those which belong to the Fatherhood of the other. Hence all other entities and possibilities,—opulence, power, fame, genius, things present, or things to come,—are, and forever must be, secondary and subordinate to these primary and everlasting laws. No names so lofty, no multitude so large, that they can abolish these truths, or abstract one jot or tittle from their binding force, in this life, or in any life. They are coëternal with their Author; unchangeable as He, and moral life and moral death wait upon their award.
When the Young Man of this class looks within himself, he finds the constitution of his own moral nature to be such, that annihilation with truth is better than the most favored existence with error. And when he looks without himself, he sees there is a God enthroned above, mightier than every “god of this world,” and that there is a divine law higher than any laws of fallible men. Hence he knows that Right and Truth will assuredly triumph, and that all who oppose them will be scattered as the whirlwind scatters the chaff. The patriarchs sold Joseph into Egypt; yet God was with him, and raised him to honor, and at last put the lives of his treacherous brethren into his hands.
Whatever may be the peculiar madness of the hour, in whatever direction the gauds of wealth may beckon, or the prizes of ambition call, let the Young Man remember, that only can be honorable which is just, that only can be safe which is right. Hence, though the perfumed breezes of flattery may entice him on one side, and a storm of maledictions beat fiercely against him on the other, let him consecrate himself to Justice and Truth, and be inspired with the faith that, though the earth should quake or the heavens fall, an omniscient eye will over-watch, and an omniscient arm will protect him.
Among the wiles of the sorceress that beguile the young to their ruin there is no more seductive, yet fallacious temptation, than the value which seems to belong to the passing hour, and to the pleasures it may bring. How infinitely small a part of existence is the present day, or year! How insignificant its point compared with the ages to come! What are its huzzas, its ostentation, and its pride, when placed in the balance against the eternity of rewards that crown allegiance to duty? O, how insane and fatuous to barter the undecaying honors of the future for the transitory joys of the present! In the future, lies the wealth of every man; the present is only an opportunity to make its title secure. The temporizer must snatch from hour to hour at some new expedient, which, if he fails to seize, he sinks to perdition. The virtuous man binds himself to a principle, and soars securely through all worlds.