IT appears to be the appointed lot of many of our young people that, when their early education is finished, they have to contemplate the prospect of leaving the parental roof and going out into the world to make their first serious start in life. The greater number proceed to pursue a trade or occupation in order to earn an immediate livelihood; a very few, to prosecute their more advanced studies with a view to entering upon one or other of the learned professions. Home-leaving is a special experience of our Highland youth. There is little or no field for their energies among the quiet remote glens and townships of the land of their birth, and not a few are compelled by sheer necessity to go abroad in order to secure a respectable subsistence. Thus they flock to the larger towns of their native Scotland, to the great metropolis of England and other centres of industry there, and still further, to the United States and far distant Colonies.
Now, it cannot be denied that this time of home-leaving is a very critical one in the history of young men and women, and that their future for weal or woe may largely depend on how they will act at this important stage in their career. It is certainly a season of intense anxiety for affectionate parents, and if these parents fear God, they will be much in prayer at “the throne of grace,” seeking grace and guidance for themselves and for their children who are about to launch upon the ocean of a largely unknown future. The times in which we live are becoming increasingly perilous to the souls of the young, and it would therefore become fathers and mothers, while desiring an honourable temporal career for their offspring, to be all the more diligent in seeking first and foremost for them an interest in “the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” They ought to be deeply concerned as to what associations their young friends should form in their new spheres of activity, and ought to warn them against the many traps and snares that the devil is bound to lay for their feet in their new and unaccustomed surroundings.
It is not our intention, however, in this article to address parents, but rather sons and daughters who are starting life, or who have already started it, at a distance from their native hearths, in our large cities at home, or in the Colonies abroad. Many such saw a good outward example in the home of their childhood; some of them are the children of truly pious parents. A few, we hope, are endeavouring, by the grace of God, to walk in the footsteps of the flock of Christ, whom they have seen and known. We trust we shall say something more or less appropriate to the case of these various classes.
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Our first counsel is: Do not forget the religious privileges of your childhood. There is a great tendency on the part of unconverted youth to forget these; the remembrance of them is apt to arouse the sleeping conscience; and it is the work of Satan and the carnal mind to keep the conscience at ease in order to secure, effectually, the final destruction of the sinner. We would therefore exhort our youthful readers to endeavour to retain a lively recollection of their early privileges—the family worship observed day by day in the home, the regular attendance of Church from Sabbath to Sabbath, the worthy example and admonitions of parents and friends, the texts of Scripture and verses of Psalms learnt from time to time, the simple Scriptural worship, without modern sensational mixtures, observed in the sanctuary, and the solemn and happy Communion seasons when many of God’s people gathered from far and near to celebrate the dying love of Christ, and to have humble and holy fellowship with one another in the various exercises of God’s worship. The very recollection of these things amid the swirl and bustle of a large city, or even amid the solitudes of a distant prairie, may, by the divine blessing, awaken the soul to concern about the things of God and eternity. To deliberately forget them is to court a destruction that is eternal.
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Our second word of counsel is: Do not be satisfied with any kind of public worship which the modern Church may offer you, but seek out, if possible, some place where the Gospel of Christ is faithfully declared according to the Scriptures, and where the worship is simple and Scriptural. Some young people make no conscience of this; they greedily run to places where they know there is almost nothing but what gratifies the carnal mind. Fine music is all they desire; and if they get that, they are satisfied, though they hear no gospel or saving truth from the pulpit. It is difficult, indeed, to know what to recommend in many parts of the country where Ritualism and Rationalism prevail in the Churches. It were better to sit at home and read the Bible and good books than to be saturated with such poisonous elements. In England, for example, young people from home are apt to think that the Presbyterian Church will afford a safe house of refuge, but this is a mistake. The Presbyterians there have descended a long way on the down grade, and there is much more of “the truth” to be
found among the Baptists (especially the Strict Particular), the Calvinistic Congregationalists, and the Evangelical Episcopalians. While we do not commit ourselves to any of these bodies, we believe there are some excellent men among them, who faithfully instruct their hearers in fundamental truths. We have, however, special pleasure at the present moment in recognising a little movement in London among young friends from this side of the border for services conducted after the ancient Presbyterian form, which we believe to be a faithful reproduction of New Testament worship, and we trust that many will rally to the standard, and that the Lord will grant an abundant blessing.
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Let our young people study well what society they shall keep. They are in danger from two classes of persons—from the positively base, who only seek their ill, and from unwise friends who shower mistaken kindness upon them. It may be comparatively easy to keep clear of the former class, but it is not so easy to resist the attentions of the latter. The unwise friends are from the same Highlands as themselves, and were brought up with the same religious privileges; but they have got largely rid of what they consider the out-of-date and antiquated notions of their fathers, and now freely indulge in the concert and the dance and attendant frivolities. They have also got wider in their views of the Sabbath, and regard it very much as a nice holiday with a religious service thrown in to keep up devout appearances. We would warn our young Highland people who have the least tenderness of conscience, and who are afraid of being carried away with the swirl of gay society and the deadening influences of frivolous amusements, to be courteous to these unwise friends, but to keep at a respectable distance from their societies and schemes of pleasure.—“He that walketh with wise men shall be wise, but the companion of fools shall be destroyed.”
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Our next word is: Remember that you have the same God to do with abroad as at home—in England, America, the Colonies, as in Scotland. The heathen nations in ancient Jewish times had their national gods; and while they looked upon the Lord Jehovah as a real God, they only regarded Him as the national God of Israel. And this erroneous view of things still has a place in the human mind. One would be apt to conclude from the policy of many that they thought there was one God for Scotland, another for England, and a third for the Colonies. It is the same God, however, everywhere, to Whom we shall be accountable at death and the judgment seat. His Word is the same, and His Sabbath the same, however men may twist and adapt them to suit their own pleasure. And to whom much has been given, of them much shall be required, no matter what corner of the earth they may wander to. It is an encouraging thought that the God of grace in Jesus Christ may be sought and found in any part of the globe, however far from external privileges, but it is also a very solemnising thought, especially for the careless sinner, that the all-seeing eye
of a holy and just God is as distinctly fixed upon him in the wilds of South America or Australia as when he sat by the hallowed fireside of his quiet home in the Highlands of Scotland.—“Thou, God, seest me.”
- A last word of counsel is: That young men and women should, in all their calculations respecting their future work in life, and the place of their activities, take into account the directions of God’s Word, and the bearings which work and place shall have upon their spiritual interests. The greatest thing in the world is not to make money or secure outward honour and comfort. These may be had at too dear a price—the loss of the immortal soul for eternity. Young people, for example, should not turn their back too lightly on the public means of grace, and the sound of a faithful gospel, for the sake of purely temporal advantages. We do admit that Providence often shuts them up to the step of emigration to a distance, away from much that is valuable in the way of external privilege. But it is at all times a serious matter to forsake the spot in which God first gives you birth and sustenance, and if this is carelessly done, you may live to rue the day, and may procure a curse and not a blessing in your haste for worldly advancement and success.
The exhortation of the inspired Solomon is much needed—“Remember, now, thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them” (Eccles. iii. 1); and Christ, as heavenly Wisdom, through the same pen still gives the gracious assurance and promise, “I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me” (Prov. viii. 17).
Obituary.—Death has been busy again during the last month, and we mourn the loss of at least three quiet, humble Christian persons, personally known to us in the north—Mr. Robert M’Bain, The Croft, Newtonmore; Mr. William Miller, Olrig, Caithness; and Mrs. Andrew, Union Street, Wick. These belonged, we believed, to the meek of the earth, and their removal is a loss not only to their friends but to the cause of truth. Mr. W. Miller was a man of particular discernment in spiritual things, and we cannot forbear quoting a few remarks from a letter of his we received in January. After referring to his prolonged illness, he adds: “But can I say ‘With us He dealt not as we sinned?’ O to get to that spot with Ephraim—Jeremiah, 31st chapter, verse 18. What is in that chapter from beginning to end! But it is the Holy Spirit that can give us eyes to see and hearts to receive it. Philpot, speaking of receiving the truth and the love of the truth, said, ‘Thousands of professors receive the truth in their judgments, and the way of salvation in their creeds, but are neither saved nor sanctified thereby.’”