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4 ’ Sil ■ in raHL* i || Our Young Men. “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.’’—Prov. 1: 10. HE greatest lesson any young man can learn is to resist Satan. It is much harder to resist him in youth than when one is older, simply because of inex perience. The devil is a wily, treacher ous being and it takes experience to know how to deal with him. Os course, if one constantly yields to him in youth, it becomes harder to re- T sist in mature life. Habit always fixes itself in the course of time. It is sad to see the great army of young men marching to ruin. Ofttimes they are in the march before they know it. They have been beguiled. The devil has set his trap for them; his bait has been of such a nature as to appeal to them, and they are caught unawares. The real problem for the young man of today is, how may I resist s he devil? A Young Man’s Home. First, I wish to say that much depends upon his home life. Henry Ward Beecher once said in ad dressing an audience of mothers, “Show me a boy, and I will show you his mother.” What a truth he uttered! lam sure mothers do not realize the force of it. Nothing tells quicker than the training of a boy. “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it,” is literally true. Some people say, “I know a certain boy who was trained well, and he went to the bad.” That may be true so far as you knew about his training, but back of every wrecked life there is a flaw some where in the training. There is nothing that stamps itself upon a boy’s memory more than the influence of his home. I remember a young man who made a profession of religion in our church one Sunday evening. He was a fine looking young fellow. He showed good blood and good training. In talking with me after his profession he said, “I have strayed away from my mother’s training. I have gone the way of the bad, but tonight my thoughts have gone back to the old home a thousand miles distance, and I have made up my mind that I cannot go longer in sin.” This is the way it ever is. The mother who would save her boy from ruin has got to save him when he is young by throwing around him such influence as will grip him in the days that are to come, and hold him to that which is good. A boy’s borne should be a magnet. “Gadabout someness” is the biggest evil that a boy has to fight. It will ultimately destroy the best that is in any boy. I know what I am talking about, for I have seen it operate. The problem of keeping the boy off the street is largely solved by the mother. lam not sur prised that some of our young men like to stay on the streets. They like to stay anywhere in prefer ence to home. Home to them is not made attrac tive. Their room looks like a cyclone had struck it. It is ofttimes not swept in days.s Bits of paper torn up and thrown all over the floor. Not a single pic- Le n G . Broughton ture, except some old ones that are not fit for a dog house. Such a place is where many of our boys have to do their thinking and reading. The boy’s room ought to be the parlor, so far as its attractiveness is concerned. If there is not enough money to have a parlor and respectable boy’s room, then have no parlor, and by all means take care of the boy. Sisters are often to blame for the ruin of their brothers. I have known them to get mad with their brothers for not going to church with them, or the like, when at the same time they fooled around the house and let their brothers’ room remain unkept. Think of a girl downstairs playing away at the piano, while the boy sleeps upstairs in the dirt. But there are other things to be done to make a boy love home. Besides giving him a good, comfort able room, he has got to have a sympathetic, peace ful atmosphere. There is not so much difference in boys, after all, as there is in mothers. A petted, peevish, whining mother will produce an irritable, contentious child. A mother should not impress the bov with the fact that she is ever on the lookout for V flaws about him. She had better shut her eyes some times and not see them. To be forever nagging at a boy about this and that is enough to make him dread to go home. Perhaps he does need jerking up here and there, but it should not be a perpetual thing. Store up the points of complaint, and at the proper time talk them over. Do not be forever drib bling them out lest they get so common no attention will be paid to them. A boy should not be handled so as to make him dread to go home. Home should be the one place he loves most. The Boy and His Daddy. Again, a real sure enough daddy is needed to save a boy from ruin. Mother has to do considerably more with the temperament than father, but cer tainly father has to do more with the life than mother. A boy must have respect for his father. He will need his father’s counsel, and it will be of no value to him unless back of the counsel is a life that he can respect and honor. How important this is! No father can treat it lightly. It should en gage his best thought and most careful considera tion. To maintain the proper kind of respect he has got himself to be a man of integrity and honor. When he says a thing he must mean it. He has got also to demand and maintain obedience and respect from the boy. To be slack at this point means inevitable ruin. Many fathers today, because of the rush of busi ness, are turning over to the mother the discipline and correction of their boys. It is contrary to God’s plan. She has her sphere, but she cannot take a father’s place. In all matters pertaining to life and conduct father’s stern government is to be recog nized, and woe be unto him if he dares to shirk it. The father ought to lead the way for the boy to follow. It is a shame to see a boy sent off to Sun day-school while father lies around the house uncon cerned and indifferent. Such lessons do not tell for good in days to come. If the father would be proud of his boy when he is a man, he has got to take the most sacred interest in him while he is approaching manhood. How unconsciously the boy imitates his fath er. It is seen in almost every step that he takes. The story of the child who was found frozen to death in the deep snow, following in the footsteps of his father, is one that in one way or another is seen repeating itself every day in our midst. There goes father. He is unconscious of what is taking place behind him, but alas, alas, when it is often too late, he looks behind and finds that the boy so dear to him is following in his footsteps to ruin! The Golden Age for August 23, 1906. Time and Money. The inestimable value of time is another thing that a young man must take into account. The curse of to-day is throwing away time. Our young men throw away more time than they imagine. The average young man is in great need of educa tion. He may have book learning, but he needs a knowledge of affairs. He can get it if he will. He may not have the opportunity to go to college, but he has plenty of time to acquire knowledge if he will only utilize it properly. Every young man ought to set apart some of his time for reading and study. When he gets to be a man of affairs he will find it almost impossible to do it. This will keep the devil out of his life. The busy young man who is careful about his time furnishes very little op portunity for the devil to do his work. With the present facilities for obtaining learning, with night schools to help, there is absolutely no ex cuse for the ignorance that we find among the young men of today. The waste of money is another thing that should engage serious thought. One of the greatest sins of the present day is extravagance. A gentleman in our city of wide influence and great knowledge, and a man who knows young men, said to me recent ly, “I believe that seventy-five per cent of the young men of today live beyond their income.” What can we expect of the future business men of the country when such is true of our young men? I think girls are responsible largely for it. They encourage the waste of money. They are perfectly content to let a young man of small wages spend more money on them than he can afford. Girls know about what the average man gets for his labor, and they have no right to encourage extravagance. Think of a young man spending two or three dol lars a week for flowers and the like to adorn his best girl. Perhaps some of them do need a bit of fixing up, but woe to the young man who starts out in that business. Young men ought to set apart some of their earn ings. It is a good rule to follow, never to spend all of one’s income. Learn to Say “No.” Again, a young man who wants to resist the devil must learn to say, “no.” I believe this is the very best lesson for life. It is mighty hard sometimes, but it pays. It was hard for Daniel that day when he sat at the table and refused to drink wine. It looked for a time that he forfeited every prospect that he had of favor with the king. But not so, the king, though a wicked man, was bound to recognize the character in a young man who could say, “no.” It was hard for him to refuse to worship idols. Certainly it looked hard when they thrust him into the den of lions. But God was watching the man who had keyed his life to resist wrong doing. It was hard for Joseph in bondage to resist the witchery of the wife of Potiphar. It looked for a time that he had shut the only door by which he might escape, but not so. What the average man of the world would call a shut door was one of the things that gave him a world-wide opportunity. It was hard for Job, when his body was covered with sores and his wife turned her back on him, to remain firm and refuse to turn his back upon God. But it was the only thing under the sun that brought victory. So the young man of today whose life is to count has got to practice saying “no.” I once met a distinguished citizen of Great Brit ain. We were together some time and he gave me a bit of his history. He said: “I was reared a poor boy. I went to the city when a young man. I got a good position and made friends of some of the socalled best people.