Chapter 6

The practical working of this theory is the best answer to its opponents. We have this answer among us to-day, and I am thankful from my inmost heart that the Young Men’s Christian Association is to-day, what it was not two years ago, among the great religious forces of our city. Those who have opposed its later proceedings have some stubborn facts to get round. These facts demonstrate this: that since the Young Men’s Christian Association inaugurated the policy of _attracting_ youth to its head-quarters, its _distinctively religious force has increased ten-fold_. As one evidence of this, the city missionary says, “since we entered upon our present plan, a larger number of young men than ever before have been brought to sympathize with me and my work, are ready to sit up with the sick, to visit the needy, to labor for the spiritual good of their fellows. Our rooms have resulted in increasing the effective force of spiritual co-laborers with me, more than _ten-fold_.” Last month, the daily prayer meeting from twelve to one, was attended by an average of twenty-two daily, mostly young persons, and generally conducted by young men converted under the agency of the association. Some of you remember the old noonday prayer meeting, and to such I need say nothing as to the contrast. The call for this noonday meeting was signed by about fifty young men. The call itself was drawn and circulated by a young man who, six months ago, came to our city penniless, was made to feel at home in our rooms, was furnished with employment by the agencies of the association, came to the weekly prayer meeting, was converted, and is now counted among our most earnest Christian workers. Young men are being converted through this agency. I give you one instance out of a number. A young man visited the rooms on Thursday night, and was invited with others down to the young men’s prayer meeting. He went, and was deeply interested, and immediately after the meeting returned to the parlor, and was seen earnestly studying a Bible at one of the reading tables. At the hour of closing, some of the Christian young men accompanied him home, and urged upon him the subject of personal religion. They followed him up for two or three days, until he gave his heart to God; and he has since been an active co-laborer with the young men in the work of the association.

One more incident. A young man came to one of the members of this church sometime since, saying, “I came to the city two years ago. I was a member of a church at home; but here, no man seemed to care for my soul. I have neglected my duty, have sought for no church home; but I was attracted to your rooms. I went to the association prayer meeting. My heart was stirred, and I became ashamed of my neglect and inconsistency; and now I want to know when your next communion season is, that I may give my letter to your pastor.”

I could give you others, but these speak volumes for the value of this policy; and, from the bottom of my heart this morning, I say God bless the Young Men’s Christian Association, and pledge them my poor efforts and influence, and prayers to help forward the work so nobly begun.

I know not where to stop. My heart is so full that it seems as if I could spend the day on this theme. But I must stop, and, in conclusion I say, first to the church, accept frankly the responsibility which God throws on you in the persons of these young men. You are the appointed agency, the proper agency, and the only agency to save and restrain and protect them. You cannot shirk it, especially as city churches. Into these centres of trade and education God pours the young men, and he asks you and me this morning if we are ready for them; if, while business and education are multiplying their facilities, the gospel of Christ, represented by the churches, is multiplying its facilities to make the city the _best place_ for the education of young men in virtue. He asks these churches if there is nothing significant, no message to her in the concentration of the mass of our young men and the mass of Christian culture, organized power, and wealth, at one point? Have these things no relation to each other? Yes, brethren, they have. There is no evading it. 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. Fathers and mothers, the yearnings of whose hearts you read full easily in your love for your own sons, whose happiness, whose very lives are bound up in the honor and prosperity of these sons and brothers, call to us from their distant homes in quiet villages, and on the open farm lands, call to us with agonizing earnestness—deal gently for our sakes with the young man. Our community, our country, calls to us. Oh, when I look upon society and see what characters ride rampant there, when I look at government and see the awful corruption festering there, when I see how men in power, from the chief magistrate of the nation down to the humblest postmaster, will sell their souls for party, and betray their country to its enemies through lust of power, or something else, God knows what; when I see drunkenness holding high carnival in the nation’s capitol, reeling in the seat of the President, and retailing its maudlin declamation before a sickened country from Washington to Chicago, I can only turn to God and the future. 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. The young men themselves appeal to us. This mass of intelligence, clear wit, energy, tact, education; these noble brows on which God has set the seal of power; these frank, manly, generous natures, these enthusiastic impulses, all speak to us, saying, deal gently with us, and teach us by the power of Christian love how to use our power; they speak to us, and warn us against letting so much power and energy and culture be turned against us, or left to hang as a drag on our wheels. And Christ speaks to the church, Christ who loves these young men, Christ who died for these young men; Christ who from his seat of glory at the Father’s right hand, yearns over these young men, Christ is calling to his church to-day, to you, to me, to all the pastors and congregations of this city, “_take care of them, take care of them, deal gently for MY sake with the young men_.”

Christian young men, you have heard the call, and in some sort are obeying it. In proportion as you have not feared to use the range of gospel agencies, in proportion as your love has been kindled for the souls of these youths, and your hands and tongues have been devoted to this end, God has blessed you. Go on as you have begun. Go on, not defiantly, but firmly, boldly, prudently. Dare to be singular, if it will compass your end. Take the word of God as your highest authority. Use no means that is not sanctioned by it. Use none of doubtful expediency, but enlarge the range of your agencies. Wrest from the devil attractions which belong to you rather than to him. Leaven them. Separate them from the debasing associations with which sin has identified them, and in the name of Christ your Master, set up your banners, rally your forces and join the churches in their work of salvation.

And you, unconverted young men, one word to you. 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. Come to Jesus. Come this very morning. Come and learn of him. He will deal very gently with you. His yoke is easy, his burden is light. The life he gives you is full of the highest impulses and of the purest enjoyments—a living spring of water—and the eternal rewards he promises are such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived.

THOUGHTS FOR THE CLERGY ON THE AMUSEMENT QUESTION.

As pastors, we can no longer evade this question. Our people are hearing, reading, and being influenced by discussions of the subject in various quarters. Obviously, we must not let our congregations form their conclusions on so important a matter, independently of their chosen spiritual guides. The word of each pastor will carry with it, in most cases, a weight which can attach to no other’s word. Let us see to it that we separate ourselves, as much as possible, from prejudice in our examination of this question. Let us face the facts fairly, and inquire what provision is furnished by the gospel to meet them. We have nothing to do with any other consideration. Whether the gospel principles and methods applicable to this case appear to us safe or unsafe, we have no right to advocate any other. We have no right to be silent.

What are the facts?

1. _The youth, as a class, are vitally important to the church and to the state._ Our work as Christian teachers reaches beyond our own generation. We owe to the future the proper training of the men and women who are to mould its destinies. The present youth are the future leaders of church and state. How they shall lead them, depends very much upon us. These truths are self-evident.

2. _They are exposed to peculiar dangers calling for special effort on their behalf._

Special efforts are being made to ruin them. The self-interest of vice is interested in this work; for to youth its appliances look chiefly for support. As one has happily expressed it, “Age has few passions to which profligacy can appeal; and the proselytism of decrepitude and years are enlistments of little value.” The withdrawal of young men from the rolls of the intemperate and licentious, would leave two-thirds of the drinking saloons and brothels bankrupt. The passions to which these appliances appeal are such as are most active and dangerous in youth. They offer the freedom and license which youth loves. They throw off the shackles which youth hates. Our cities and villages swarm with traps set expressly for them. Thousands are freely expended to invest the bar room and the gambling hall with the cozy attractions of the parlor. The harlot’s palace opens wide its doors. The public ball room displays its fascinations. Dissipation draws round itself the attractions of wealth and taste and fashion, and in its splendid club rooms secures for itself the pleasures which expediency forbids it to seek more publicly. Vice literally flaunts its banners in the face of the public. But a few days since I saw from my window a banner carried through the streets, blazoned with the name and attractions of one of the vilest fashionable groggeries in the city, and preceded by the music of a drum and fife. The snug retreat, known only to the initiated few, where licentiousness and drunkenness are secluded, and thousands lost and won, was never more popular than now. Practiced decoys lie in wait for the daughters of our families, and the whirl of general society in which so many of them, at a tender age, are madly revolving night after night, is no poor preparation for the fatal success of these wiles. Young girls, who come from quiet country homes to seek employment, cast adrift on these surging tides of life without a friend or an adviser, readily fall victims to the wiles of young seducers whose social position ensures their security. In a certain city, I was informed not long since, of one keeper of a fashionable brothel who had removed her trade, because it was too largely usurped by victims of this class to render it any longer profitable. Young men, too, are coming to the cities in crowds, to engage in business or study. They must have society and recreation; and the votaries of vice are sparing neither pains nor expense to give them abundance of both, fraught with ruin to soul and body.

Without going outside of our special sphere as pastors, viewing this subject solely with reference to the youth of our congregations, as, in common with others subjected to these and other temptations, _what ought to be our influence in arresting and counteracting these evils_?

It ought to be second to none but parental influence. If the name pastor mean anything, our position as the chosen religious teachers of congregations ought to give us free access to every household in our flocks, and the strongest influence over the youth whose moral training we directly or indirectly shape. We ought to be not only _respected_ and _reverenced_, but so loved as to be the familiar advisers and confidants of the youth of our charges. Our word ought, next to the parents’, to have weight in turning them from improper courses and associations, and in keeping them from such. Moreover, our influence ought not to be merely restrictive and admonitory. We should be sufficiently in sympathy with them, familiar enough with the demands of their age and with the best means of satisfying them, to be able to offer positive suggestions respecting their employments, recreations, society, reading, and the like. If we sustain proper relations to the youth of our charges, they will be as likely to refer such questions to us, as matters of theology or practical morality.

Now, the question of the amusements of our youth is as good a test question in this matter as we need ask. _What, then, is the influence of the clergy at large in regulating the diversions of the youth?_

I appeal to the experience of the mass of ministers, not with the few _special friends_ and admirers, which most of them have among the young people of their congregations, but with the _mass of the youth_. I appeal to those judicious, farseeing Christians, who are wont to observe carefully the tendencies of society, _if this influence is not a comparative nullity_. In a question which, perhaps, as much as any other, concerns the welfare of our youth, which has the most vital relations to the attractions of home, which will enter, whether we may think it right or not, into the considerations which influence the choice or rejection of a religious life; at a point which the ministers of vice are fortifying most strongly, wresting the best diversions to themselves, striving to make them peculiarly their own, and to invest them permanently with associations which shall exclude them from Christian homes; here, I say, the Christian church, the appointed regulator and instructor in the ethics of amusement, is, to a great extent, _at open issue with her own intelligent youth, and practically powerless to execute her own decrees_.

It is well for us as ministers, to look this fact squarely in the face, and to call things by their right names. How many pastors are in the confidence of their youth with respect to the amusements of the latter? Is not the fact rather that there is a tacit antagonism recognized between the youth and the clergy on this subject, an antagonism growing, too, every year less tacit and more avowed? Can it be denied that a very large proportion of our youth regard their ministers as the foes to recreation, and would sooner think of consulting them on any subject than on this? Is it not the fact that while presbyteries and conferences and conventions pass long and stringent resolutions on the subject of dancing and on the use of cards and billiards, multitudes of Christian families practice dancing; scores of them may be found playing whist at their own firesides, and scores more with their billiard rooms fitted up in their own houses? It will not answer to say that those who practice these things are backslidden in heart and worldly minded, and that, if they were truly Christ’s children, they would neither practice nor desire them. This is begging the whole question at issue, and moreover is flatly contradicted by facts. Many of those who engage in these recreations are among the most devoted, enlightened, faithful members and even ministers of our churches. Is it not the fact, again, that the pastors of these individuals would be very much at a loss to administer discipline in such cases? Do they not know that any attempt at authoritative interference would be regarded as trenching upon individual rights of conscience, and would send scores of active and faithful members to other communions? The truth is, and there is no shirking it, that, in the cities especially, in the largest and most powerful churches, the clergy are practically brought to a stand in this matter. They do not and cannot control it. A vast mass of enlightened Christian sentiment is against their attempts to enforce the traditional church doctrines on this subject. Their people pay little or no heed to the official utterances of church assemblies. Many of them treat them with ridicule. There is no denying these facts. Hundreds of pastors are painfully impressed with them. The church’s position in this matter is most humiliating.

What then is the course of the clergy?

Some of them are more than half persuaded that the more liberal view of their people is correct. They fully sympathize, perhaps, with that view, yet they remain silent. They cannot conscientiously reprove; they refuse to come boldly forward and define their position for fear of awakening prejudice, or for fear their views may be misunderstood or misconstrued. In short they think it is not safe. And yet, all the while, the initiated in the congregation know pretty well the general drift of their minister’s sentiments; that, though he says little, he winks a tacit encouragement to many indulgences which far over-step the bounds of ancient orthodoxy. But is _this_ safe? 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? If he is convinced that the church has been mistaken in this matter, and has in past years committed herself to undue stringency, is it safe to let the error remain untouched, and going on working its pernicious consequences? If the gospel teaches a larger liberty, a broader conception of Christian living and Christian enjoyment than the church has preached, has that minister who conscientiously believes the fact any right to withhold the truth because he deems it unsafe, and to let a falsehood (as he believes) gain currency and power, and forfeit moreover the attraction presented to a sinful world by his more cheering and liberal conception of Christ’s teachings? Not safe! Will not God take care of his truth? Doubtless men will misconstrue it. Doubtless they will wrest the preaching of gospel liberty to the confirmation of worldly license. But the greater the danger of this, the more reason why the truth, the _whole truth_, should be proclaimed loudly, boldly, distinctly, frequently. When the water is first let into a reservoir, it is apt to be very muddy; but that is no reason why the reservoir should remain dry forever. 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. The thing will out. The truth will stay swathed in no cave in the rock. The things that have been spoken in the ear in closets will be proclaimed upon the house tops. The Christian public will the sooner attain correct views on this subject through free discussion. If the thing be not of God, it will sooner come to nought through this process than through any other. But by their love for souls, and by their sworn loyalty to God and truth, let the clergy run the sword of the Spirit through and through this matter, that the world may know the truth and detect the falsehood.

It is confessed by some that they have given the subject no attention. They have accepted the traditions of the church as they found them, have preached and have tried to enforce them, or else have settled down upon the assumption that the matter is of minor importance. I simply ask if this is justifiable in view of the facts; in view of the contradictory position of the church on this subject; in view of the important part which amusements must play in the education of youth; in view of their great and patent abuses; in view of the point urged in these discourses that many of the popular diversions of the day may be wrested from the devil’s hands and turned to good purpose in keeping the young from evil influences and associations?

Some _positively refuse_ to consider the question under any new aspect. It is settled, once and for all. The books are balanced, shut and sealed. The wisdom of a past generation exhausted the question. Its dictum is to be received as gospel. Little needs to be said here. Such declarations demand the utmost stretch of Christian charity. They betray an ignorance which, in a popular teacher, is unpardonable, and a blind acquiescence in the conclusions of the past which is pitiable.

The truth, moreover, is not promoted, _in any direction_, by abusing those of more liberal views on this question. The man who conscientiously believes them wrong, and boldly says so, and does not simply declaim against them but opposes them by fair argument drawn from scripture, is to be honored. I would there were more such. But it will not in the least tend to conciliate favor for the more stringent aspect of the question, for its advocates to cast slurs upon the sincerity and piety of those who differ from them, to announce them as corrupters of youth, enemies of the church, underminers of pure religion, and the like. The day for this has gone by. The best men may differ even on this question, which some think so firmly settled; and the liberal view of this subject is supported by too many shining names in the Christian ministry, by too large a mass of Christian devotion and consistency and learning and intelligence, to entitle such assertions to any notice whatever. The want of Christian charity which leads one public teacher to asperse his brother’s Christian consistency and purity of motive upon such grounds, is at least as reprehensible as the holding of liberal sentiments on dancing or billiards.

Once more. The pulpit, in some places, though alive to the importance of the subject, is holding sternly by its old, stringent views. It is laying down the law authoritatively, decrying as sinful all but a very limited allowance of amusements.