clamors for self-indulgence are powerless to influence. Conscience
must be first enlightened, the will must be brought into subjection. The
love of truth and righteousness must reign in the soul, and a character will
appear which heaven can approve.
We have marked illustrations of the sustaining power of firm, religious
principle. Even the fear of death could not make the fainting David drink
of the water of Bethlehem, to obtain which, valiant men had risked their
lives. The gaping lions’ den could not keep Daniel from his daily prayers,
nor could the fiery furnace induce Shadrach and his companions to fall
down before the idol which Nebuchadnezzar set up. Young men who
have firm principles will eschew pleasure, defy pain, and brave even the
lions’ den and the heated fiery furnace rather than be found untrue to God.
Mark the character of Joseph. Virtue was severely tested, but its triumph
was complete. At every point the noble youth endured the test. The same
lofty, unbending principle appeared at every trial. The Lord was with him,
and His word was law.
Such firmness and untarnished principle shines brightest in contrast
with the feebleness and inefficiency of the youth of this age. With
but few exceptions, they are vacillating, varying with every change of
circumstance and surroundings, one thing today and another tomorrow.
Let the attractions of pleasure or selfish gratification be presented, and
conscience will be sacrificed to gain the coveted indulgence. Can such a
person be trusted? Never! In the absence of
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temptation he may carry himself with such seeming propriety that your
doubts and suspicions appear unjust; but let opportunity be presented, and
he will betray your confidence. He is unsound at heart. Just at the time
when firmness and principle are most required, you will find him giving
way; and if he does not become an Arnold or a Judas, it is because he
lacks a fitting opportunity.
Parents, it should be your first concern to obey the call of duty and
enter, heart and soul, into the work God has given you to do. If you fail
in everything else, be thorough, be efficient, here. If your children come
forth from the home training pure and virtuous, if they fill the least and
lowest place in God’s great plan of good for the world, your life can never
be called a failure and can never be reviewed with remorse.
The idea that we must submit to ways of perverse children is a mistake.
Elisha, at the very commencement of his work, was mocked and derided
by the youth of Bethel. He was a man of great mildness, but the Spirit
of God impelled him to pronounce a curse upon those railers. They had
heard of Elijah’s ascension, and they made this solemn event the subject
of jeers. Elisha evinced that he was not to be trifled with, by old or young,
in his sacred calling. When they told him he had better go up, as Elijah
had done before him, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. The awful
judgment that came upon them was of God. After this, Elisha had no
further trouble in his mission. For fifty years he passed in and out of
the gate of Bethel, and went to and fro from city to city, passing through
crowds of the worst and rudest of idle, dissolute youth, but no one ever
mocked him or made light of his qualifications as the prophet of the Most
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High. This one instance of terrible severity in the commencement of his
career was sufficient to command respect through his whole life. Had
he allowed the mockery to pass unnoticed, he might have been ridiculed,
reviled, and even murdered by the
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rabble, and his mission to instruct and save the nation in its great peril
