And so make life and death and that vast forever,
One grand sweet song.”[song.”]
Think not that there are no high-toned and godly young men in these great cities. Here are many of heroic mould, born and bred in the din of the town. They have kept their hands as stainless, their speech as pure, their hearts as gentle, as any reared in the quiet hamlets of the country. They are men of mettle, grounded in good principles, established and fixed, not fluctuating and unreliable.
A wise writer says when a young man has learned that he can be depended on, he is already of some account in the world. These young men have learned that. They have many pleasures and choice delights, but they reject the gamblers’ villainous bribes and flee his contaminating society, well aware, by the testimony of many unimpeachable witnesses, that his primrose path, which seemed so pleasant to the eye, ends in a labyrinth of remorse, whence the reprobate can no more return to fellowship with men.
There is in some parts of the West a periodical disease called the ague. It passes through phases of chills, sweats, nausea, discoloration and fever. When the fever seems to be grilling the sufferer, he sometimes has a slight delirium and vividly imagines that he is two persons—two separate and distinct personalities of the Jekyll and Hyde type—one is a kindly, courteous, clean man, ready to help anyone, quick to befriend and forward all who need his aid. The other is a cringing, envious, scowling loafer. The sick man sees these two sitting, one on each side of the bed, and each of them is he. A strange delusion, is it not? Yet, not so visionary as you might suppose. It is strictly scriptural and squares with experience.
The evil nature and the good are present in every man. His breast is the arena of a gladitorial[gladitorial] combat between these two. St. Paul says, “I keep my body under.” That is, he held his carnal nature down under the feet of his spiritual nature.[nature.]
In this fight the devil squires the evil, low-browed, lustful half of you. It is possible with help from on high, to beat these allies. St. John says, “I write unto you, young men, because you are strong, and have overcome the wicked one.”[one.”]
What young men did then they can do to-day—master Satan and control the lower part of their natures, letting the higher and better part predominate, thus securely laying hold on eternal life.
The so-called pleasure of a life of sin is but a cup of cordial offered a condemned man on the way to execution; a feast of Damocles with the naked sword, thread-hung above the head; a dipping the hand in Belshazzar’s dainty dish, while the Divine finger writes the soul’s woe upon the wall.
In all this article I have been like one who anchors buoys above sunken rocks in the channel where many have gone down. I have been hanging red lamps above the slime pits of the city’s streets.