Marvin R. Vincent

“ In a few bold strokes he delineates to the astonished skeptics some salient points of natural and revealed religion, and then leaves the truth to germinate and crowd out the evil in its own way and time.
There is indeed a sublimity in this invincible faith in the power of truth exhibited by the Son of Man. In the calmness with which he moves amid the moral ruin that encompasses him, without that anxious haste, and longing for immediate results, which characterize so many modern reformers. The world would have expected a direct and tremendous onslaught upon evil. ”

“ Is it safe or honorable for the church to be impotent to carry out her own dogmas? Is it safe for her to be under the charge of inconsistency from the world because her statute books and the practice of her members are at open variance? Is it safe for the views of an influential Christian teacher to be known only generally and vaguely, that his church and the world may draw undue license therefrom? ”

“ It is of no use to preach to ardent, active youth, that Christianity is a religion of joy, unless they see some joy brought out of it besides mere smiles and a class of recreations which to them as a class are insipid. To them Christian cheerfulness appeals as being less cheerful than any other kind; as a sort of mild, repressed gayety, from which their quick sensibilities and stirring blood revolts. They feel that in the church they must be cheerful only in the way the church directs. Those ministers, they reason, can be very cheerful, and even laugh uproariously over a discussion on decrees ”

“ Without this, who can say that any restraint will be effectual; that any memories will be sacred enough, any admonitions forcible enough, any associations attractive enough, any moral purpose strong enough to keep one pure? Alas, the shore of life is strewn so thickly with wrecks of youthful hope and promise, the annals of crime embrace so many youth of noble aims and high attainments, reared under the holiest influences of home and sanctuary, that we may well ask—who is safe? ”

“ If any man shall, after carefully reading these four discourses, say [pg 140] that they give his worldly heart full license to indulge its will, I tell him to his face, he is either a fool or a hypocrite. Not proudly, I trust, but in humble reliance upon him for whose sake every line has been penned, I bow my shoulders to every morsel of responsibility which the utterance of these truths involves. No youth will go to perdition on their authority. If he shall infer the right to abuse from a plea for moderate Christian use, his perdition be on his own head. ”

“ Infuse the gospel spirit into everything. Strictly enforce the rules which Christian prudence lays down for the use of means and attractions not distinctively religious. Let the word Christian be in the largest letters on your sign. Remember your great object, the duty thrown upon you by the nature of the case, thrown upon you by similarity of age, by congeniality of taste and pursuits, thrown upon you by the church, thrown upon you by Christ; the church's head, is the salvation, not the entertainment of the young men. ”

“ Will it not be well to try another policy? I want for our youth a Christianity that shall not relax one iota of its obligation to God or to man. That shall not bate one jot from an entire consecration of heart and life to God; that shall walk closely with God, and feel as deeply as human weakness can feel, the necessity of watchfulness and of divine care to keep it from temptation. I challenge any man to draw undue license from the principles I have asserted. But I want more joy brought out of the world by Christians. ”

“ For your own souls' sake, for the sake of your best interests, for the sake of the parents who love and hope in you, for the sake of your country, for Christ's sake, deal gently with yourselves. Remember, the only true manhood is Christian manhood. No restraints which the church can throw round you will ensure your safety against temptation; no strength of resolution on your part will keep you pure, if you be not the children of Christ. ”

“ Christians, real Christians, will always be distinct from the world, and the distinction will be very clearly defined. But Christians should not make it their object to be distinct from the world. They should aim to be Christians, and let the distinction follow in its natural order and degree. Singularity, in itself, is no virtue. It is just as likely to be a vice. A man is not necessarily better because he is unlike the rest of the world. Difference from the world, therefore, is not an end of Christian discipline, but a result and concomitant of it. ”

“ The idea of development, which is perhaps the fundamental one of Christianity, has been to a very great extent swallowed up in the idea of safety. It is not an uncommon error to regard Christianity almost exclusively in a defensive aspect; the Christian merely as a safe man, protected by Divine safe-guards from temptation, rescued by Divine mercy from the terrors of death and judgment. Correspondingly with this mistake, the tendency has grown to strengthen the defenses of character, rather than to foster its growth. To keep it from temptation, rather than to teach it to overcome temptation. ”

“ It has been so absorbed in ferreting out and declaiming against the evil, as to have forgotten measurably that a corresponding duty lay upon it to develop the good. Overlooking, or at least slighting the great philosophical truth, that amusement is as necessary to man as bread, and fixing its gaze upon the fact that it is capable of perversion, it has most signally failed in the regulation of popular amusements, and in teaching how to use, without abusing them. ”

“ The water will settle by and by, and the whole people be refreshed. If there is truth in these more liberal views of amusement, it is in vain for religious newspapers to shirk the discussion of the question. It is in vain for influential ministers to beg young men's Christian conventions not to raise it. It is in vain for the pulpit to preserve a discreet silence. ”

“ Is she ready to cut off remorselessly the man or the woman, the [pg 132] youth or the maid who dances, however properly and modestly? Is she ready to expel or suspend every minister who shall roll a ten-pin ball, or while away an hour with chess or backgammon? Is she ready to lay violent hands upon every member who fingers a card or handles a cue, or strikes a croquet ball? If so, I tremble for the results of the experiment. She will pause before she undertakes this course. Or will she openly confess to undue stringency in the past, and write a new motto upon her banners—“More abundant life?” ”

“ Gather such a band of youth together, and preach to them that they ought to be satisfied with the beauties of nature, or with books, or the like, and you simply drive them the faster from religious influences, and cut every tie between you. Here is one young man who loves books. Let the church give him books. Let him know that he receives this high and pure pleasure from the hand of Christianity. Here is another that loves pictures. Let Christian art adorn the walls, and Christian liberality pay the price. ”

“ The finger of Providence points unswervingly to these city churches as the great sources of Christian influence upon young men. Let us not fail to hear these voices. The ten thousand appliances of vice, confronting the church with brazen defiance, or with devilish ingenuity and secresy sapping the foundations of manly honor and integrity, call to us, deal gently with the young man. ”

“ While then, I would not discourage an effort at reform made in good faith by society, yet without any distinctively religious character, while I believe that many such efforts have done good in their sphere, I say distinctly, that their sphere is not large enough. Their influence does not reach deep enough. They help reform or restrain certain developments of the life; but they do not inaugurate any positive moral development. ”

“ How many recognize them as beings with social instincts as well as with sharp wits; immortal souls as well as clear heads; susceptibilities to temptation as well as to self-interest; young men who are to fill a place in these democratic communities, to cast their votes, exert their influence, be each the centre of a greater or smaller circle, be fathers to train up children and perpetuate their own moral character and sentiments whatever they be? How many consider the influence which their position of employer gives them over the moral destiny of these youth ”

“ How many concern themselves as to where their clerks go after business hours, what associations they form, whether they have a place of worship or not? How many of you business men, here to-day, are in the habit of asking the young men in your employ to accompany you to church, or to Bible class, or to prayer-meeting?
Take the community at large. Its influence, if exerted in this direction, must be chiefly confined to furnishing some counter attraction, moral, but not necessarily religious, to the attractions of the haunts of sin. ”

“ But then, let it be clearly understood that these things are to be under the control of religion. That the salvation of the young men is the great end toward which these are only means. The moment our Young Men's Christian Associations, to which we must chiefly look to carry out this plan, let their rooms become mere lounging places; the moment the prayer meeting is dropped; the moment the young men cease to be on the watch for opportunities to speak the word of religious counsel, that moment they are no longer the allies of the church; they will have become no better than clubs. ”

“ The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. Men do not care to counterfeit a coin of inferior value; and the world is very clear-sighted to discern the best and richest sources of worldly pleasure, and utterly unscrupulous in appropriating them entirely to itself. The amusements which are most abused, are commonly those which, from their intrinsic value, call most loudly upon virtue to rescue them from their abuses.
The above method of reasoning, in short, will not stand the test of plain common sense. ”

“ The Christian's aim is distinctly stated here to be the proving of the will of God—that which is good, acceptable and perfect. Yet nonconformity to the world will develop itself as a necessary incident of Christian living. Being transformed by the renewing of the mind, the outward life will necessarily be transformed also, and will cease to be conformed to the world. The soul which desires that which is good, acceptable, perfect, can no longer find affinity with that which is bad, imperfect, and displeasing to God. ”

“ We must employ other attractions. We must make our houses beat the public houses. We must sanctify new forces for this end. Pictures and cabinets, carpets and draperies, music and games are not the devil's any more than they are ours. Young men will have some retreat beside their comfortless boarding-houses; some society besides their landlord's family, and it is a match between the devil and the church which of us shall furnish these. Depend upon it, if the church do not give them amusement, regulated on a liberal Christian basis, the devil will give them abundance that is unregulated. ”

“ Our only hope is in the work of the Christian church through all its agencies, social, ecclesiastical and educational, moulding out of the glorious material so abundantly at its disposal, a band of men who shall convert the seats of power into seats of righteousness, and make government and purity synonymous terms. ”

“ Physiology, common sense, experience, philosophy, are all at one on this point. Man needs something besides change of employment. He needs something pursued with a view solely to enjoyment. Those who deny this are ignorant of the simplest fundamental laws of mind and matter. Men who assert publicly that they need no amusements, and “want to die in the harness,” will have the opportunity of dying in the harness some years earlier than would be demanded in the ordinary course of nature. Nature will not suffer even zealous Christian men to violate this law with impunity. ”

“ Some of you can find sufficient enjoyment in the beauties of nature, not only because God has opened your eyes to see him in all things, but because study and knowledge have prepared your mind to discern and appreciate the wonders of creation. I don't think you particularly loved to sing psalms before Christ touched your heart. And the practical point we have got to meet, and meet as Christians and with Christian methods is, that there is a large class that cannot be appealed to by the beauties of nature and the charms of literature, and the glory of the starry heavens. ”

“ It will tell you that when any description of pleasure trenches on the limits of modesty, it is an abuse; that the public embracing of young men and women in the vile dances of the day, is an offense against decency, an abomination against which manly nobleness and maidenly delicacy ought to cry out with all their power. It will tell you that when pleasure of any kind interferes with your covenant obligations to the church, and keeps you from the ordinances of God's house, it is an abuse; a conformity to the world, against which God warns you in this text. ”

“ He provides food of all kinds prepared to please the most fastidious palate. A small sum will secure a quiet and cosy retreat where the youth and his friends may pass an evening. But he furnishes the bar with its tempting array of liquors. He gathers there his array of well dressed and gentlemanly confederates who are always ready to challenge to drink, and to sneer at the principle which refuses. He has his licentious pictures to stimulate the passions, and abundant facilities for their gratification. ”

“ We believe that the only effectual method of reforming a drunkard, or of keeping a man from becoming one, is to make him a Christian. That will reform in all respects. But we cannot bring the community to agree on this platform. Here then is one where all can unite, namely, in organizing some force to overbalance the attractions of the dram shop. It need not be distinctively religious, only free from vicious associations. The saloon keeper understands perfectly that not one young man in ten comes to his haunt originally to drink or in which to gamble. ”