'Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in
the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the
sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will
bring thee into judgment.... 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. xi. 9; xii. 1.
This strange, and in some places perplexing Book of Ecclesiastes, is
intended to be the picture of a man fighting his way through
perplexities and half-truths to a clear conviction in which he can
rest. What he says in his process of coming to that conviction is not
always to be taken as true. Much that is spoken in the earlier portion
of the Book is spoken in order to be confuted, and its insufficiency,
its exaggerations, its onesidedness, and its half-truths, to be
manifest in the light of the ultimate conclusion to which he comes.
Through all these perplexities he goes on 'sounding his dim and
perilous way,' with pitfalls on this side of him and bogs on that,
till he comes out at last upon the open way, with firm ground under
foot and a clear sky overhead. These phrases which I have taken are
the opening sentences and the final conclusion on which he rests. How
then are they meant to be understood? Is that saying, 'Rejoice, O
young man! in the days of thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in
the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart and in the
sight of thine eyes,' to be taken as a bit of fierce irony? Is this a
man taking the maxims of the foolish world about him and seeming to
approve of them in order that he may face round at the end with a
quick turn and a cynical face and hand them back their maxims along
with that which will shatter them to pieces--as if he said, 'Oh, yes!
go on, talk your fill about making the best of this world, and
rejoicing and doing as you like, dancing on the edge of a precipice,
and fiddling, like Nero, whilst a worse fire than that of Rome is
burning'? Well, I do not think that is the meaning of it. Though there
is irony to be found in the Bible, I do not think that fierce irony
like that which might do for the like of Dean Swift, is the intention
of the Preacher. So I take these words to be said in good faith, as a
frank recognition of the fact that, after all we have been hearing
about vanity and vexation of spirit, life is worth living for, and
that God means young people to be glad and to make the best of the
fleeting years that will never come back with the same buoyancy and
elasticity all their lives long. And then I take it that the words
added are not meant to destroy or neutralise the concession of the
first sentence, but only to purify and ennoble a gladness which,
without them, would be apt to be stained by many a corruption, and to
make permanent a joy which, without them, would be sure to die down
into the miserable, peevish, and feeble old age of which the grim
picture follows, and to be quenched at last in death. So there are
three words that I take out of this text of mine, and that I want to
bring before my young friends as exhortations which it is wise to
follow. These are Rejoice, Reflect, Remember. Rejoice--the fitting
gladness of youth; reflect--the solemn thought that will guard the
gladness from stain; remember--the religion which will make these
things ever last.
First of all 'Rejoice.' Do as you like, for that is the English
translation of the words, 'Walk in the ways of thine heart and in the
sight of thine eyes.' Buoyantly and cheerfully follow the inclinations
and the desires which are stamped upon your nature and belong to your
time of life. All young things are joyful, from the lamb in the
pastures upwards, and are meant to be so. The mere bounding sense of
physical strength which leads so many of you young men astray is a
good thing and a blessed thing--a blessing to be thankful for and to
cherish. Your smooth cheeks, so unlike those of old age, are only an
emblem of the comparative freedom from care which belongs to your
happy condition. Your memories are not yet like some--a book written
within and without with the records of mourning and disappointment and
crosses. There are in all probability long years stretching before
you, instead of a narrow strip of barren sand, before you come to the
great salt sea that is going to swallow you up, as is the case with
some of us. Christianity looks with complacency on your gladness, and
does not mean to clip the wing of one white-winged pleasure, or to
breathe one glimmer of blackness on your atmosphere. You are meant to
be glad, but it is gladness in a far higher sense that I want to
secure for you, or rather to make you secure for yourselves. God
delights in the prosperity and light-hearted buoyancy of His children,
especially of His young children. Ah! but I know there are young lives
over which poverty or ill-health or sorrows of one kind or another
have cast a gloom as incongruous to your time of life as snow in the
garden in the spring, that pinches the crocuses and weighs down young
green beech-leaves, would be. And if I am speaking to any young man or
young woman at this time who by reason of painful outward
circumstances has had but a chilling spring and youth, I would say to
them, 'don't lose heart'; a cloudy morning often breaks into a perfect
day. It is good for a man to have to 'bear the yoke in his youth,' and
if you miss joy, you may get grace and strength and patience, which
will be a blessing to you all your days. For all that, the ordinary
course of things is that the young should be glad, and that the young
life should be as the rippling brook in the sunshine. I want to leave
upon your minds this impression, that it is all right and all in the
order of God's providence, who means every one of you to rejoice in
the days of your youth. The text says further, 'Walk in the ways of
thine heart.' That sounds very like the unwholesome teaching, 'Follow
nature; do as you like; let passions and tastes and inclinations be
your guides.'
Well, that needs to be set round with a good many guards to prevent it
becoming a doctrine of devils. But for all that, I wish you to notice
that that has a great and a religious side to it. You have come into
possession of this mystical life of yours, a possession which requires
that you must choose what kind of life you will follow. Every one has
this awful prerogative of being able to walk in the way of their
heart. You have to answer for the kind of way that is, and the kind of
heart out of which it has come. But I want to go to more important
things, and so with a clear understanding that the joy of youth is all
right and legitimate, that you are intended to be glad, and to feel
the physical and intellectual spring and buoyancy of early days, let
us go on to the next thing. 'Rejoice,' says my text, and it adds,
'Reflect.' It is one of the blessings of your time of life, my young
friends, that you do not do much of that. It is one of your happy
immunities that you are not yet in the habit of looking at life as a
whole, and considering actions and consequences. Keep that spontaneity
as long as you can; it is a good thing to keep. But for all that, do
not forget this awful thing, that it may turn to exaggeration and
excess, and that it needs, like all other good things, to be guarded
and rightly used. And so, 'Rejoice,' and 'walk in the sight of thine
eyes'; _but_--'know that for all these things God will bring thee
to judgment.' Well, now, is that thought to come in (I was going to
say, like a mourning-coach driven through a wedding procession) to
kill the joys we have been seeming to receive from the former words?
Are we taking back all that we have been giving, and giving out
instead something that will make them all cower and be quiet, like the
singing birds that stop their singing and hide in the leaves when they
see the kite in the sky? No, there is no need for anything of the
sort. 'For all these things God will bring thee to judgment': that is
not the thought that kills, but that purifies and ennobles. Regard
being had to the opinions expressed at various points in the earlier
portion of this Book, we may be allowed to think of this testimony as
having reference to the perpetual judgment that is going on in this
world always over every man's life. A great German thinker has it, in
reference to the history of nations, that the history of the world is
the judgment of the world, and although that is not true if it is a
denial of a physical day of judgment, it is true in a very profound
and solemn sense with regard to the daily life of every man, that
whether there be a judgment-seat beyond the grave or not, and whether
this Preacher knew anything about that or no, there is going on
through the whole of a man's life, and evolving itself, this solemn
conviction, that we are to pass away from this present life. All our
days are knit together as one whole. Yesterday is the parent of today,
and today is the parent of all the tomorrows. The meaning and the
deepest consequence of man's life is that no feeling, no thought that
flits across the mirror of his life and heart dies utterly, leaving
nothing behind it. But rather the metaphor of the Apostle is the true
one, 'That which thou sowest, that shalt thou also reap.' All your
life a seed-time, all your life a harvest-time too, for the seed which
I sow today is the seed which I have reaped from all my former
sowings, and so cause and consequence go rolling on in life in
extricable entanglement, issuing out in this, that whatever a man does
lives on in him, and that each moment inherits the whole consequence
of his former life. And now, you young men and women, you boys and
girls, mind! this seed-time is the one that will be most powerful in
your lives, and there is a judgment you do not need to die to meet. If
you are idle at school, you will never learn Latin when you go to
business. If you are frivolous in your youth, if you stain your souls
and soil your lives by outward coarse sin here in Manchester in your
young days, there will be a taint about you all your lives. You cannot
get rid of that brave law that 'Whatever a man sows, that, thirtyfold,
sixtyfold, an hundredfold, that shall he also reap'--the same kind,
but infinitely multiplied in quantity. Let me therefore name some of
the ways in which your joys or pleasures, as lads, as boys and girls,
as growing young men and women, will bring you to judgment. Health,
that is one; position, that is two; reputation, that is three;
character, that is four. Did you ever see them build one of those
houses they make in some parts of the country, with concrete instead
of stones? Take a spadeful of the mud, and put it into a frame on the
wall. When it is dry, take away the frame and the supports, and it
hardens into rock. You take your single deeds--the mud sometimes,
young men!--pop them on the wall, and think no more about it. Ay, but
they stop there and harden there, and lo! a character--a house for
your soul to live in--health, position, memory, capacity, and all
that. If you have not done certain things which you ought to have
done, you will never be able to do them, and there are the materials
for a judgment. That is going on every moment, and especially is it
going on in the region of your pleasures. If they are unworthy, you
are unworthy; if they are gross, and coarse, and low, and animal, they
are dragging you down; if they are frivolous and foolish, they are
making you a poor butterfly of a creature that is worth nothing and
will be of no good to anybody; if they are pure, and chaste, and
lofty, and virginal and white, they will make your souls good and
gracious and tender with the tenderness and beauty of God.
But that is not all. I am not going to travel beyond the limits of
this present life with any words of mine, but as I read this final
conclusion in this Book of Ecclesiastes, I think I can perceive that
the doubts and the scepticisms about a future life, and the difference
between a man and a beast which are spoken of in the earlier chapters,
have all been overcome, and the clear conviction of the writer is
expressed in these twofold great sayings: 'The spirit shall return
unto God who gave it, and the words with which He stamps all His
message upon our hearts, the final words of His book'; 'God shall
bring every work into judgment with every secret thing.' And I come to
you and say, 'I suppose you believe in a state of retribution beyond?'
I suppose that most of the young folk I am speaking to now at all
events believe that 'Thou wilt come to be our judge,' as the _Te
Deum_ has it; and that it is this same personal self of mine that
is to stand there who is sitting here? God shall bring _thee_
into judgment. Never mind what is to come of the body, the quivering,
palpitating, personal centre. The very same self that I know myself to
be will be carried there. Now, take that with you and lay it to heart,
and let it have a bearing on your pleasure. It will kill nothing that
deserves to live, it will take no real joy out of a man's life. It
will only strain out the poison that would kill you. You turn that
thought upon your heart, my friends. Is it like a policeman's
bull's-eye turned upon a lot of bad characters hiding under a railway
arch in the corner there? If so, the sooner you get rid of the
pleasures and inclinations that slink away when that beam of light
strikes their ugly faces, the better for yourselves and for your
lives. 'Rejoice in the way of thine heart and, that thy joy may be
pure, know that for all this God will bring thee into judgment.'
And now my last word, 'Remember God,' says my text. The former two
sayings, if taken by themselves, would make a very imperfect guide to
life. Self-indulgence regulated by the thought of retribution is a
very low kind of life after all. There is something better in this
world, and that is work; something higher, and that is duty; something
nobler than self-indulgence, and that is self-sacrifice. And so no
religion worthy the name contents itself by saying to a man, 'Be good
and you will be glad'; but, 'Never mind whether you are glad; be good
at any rate, and such gladness as is good for you will come to you,
and you can want the rest.' 'Remember thy Creator in the days of thy
youth.' Recall God to your thoughts, and keep Him in your mind all the
day long. That is wonderfully unlike your life, is it not? Remember
thy Creator; shift the centre of your life. What I have been saying
might be true of a man, the centre of whose life was himself, and such
a man is next door to a devil, for, I suppose, the definition of devil
is 'self-engrossed still,' and whosoever lives for himself is dead.
Don't let the earth be the centre of your system, but the sun. Do not
live to yourselves, or your pleasures will all be ignoble and
creeping, but live to God. 'Remember.' Well, then, you and I know a
good deal more about God than the writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes
did--both about what He is and how to remember Him. I am not going to
content myself by taking his point of view, but I must take a far
higher and a far better one. If he had been here he would have said
'Remember God.' He would have said, 'Look at God in Jesus Christ, and
trust Him and love Him; go to Him as your Saviour, and take all the
burden of your past sin and lay it upon His merciful shoulders, and
for His dear sake look for forgiveness and cleansing; and then for His
dear sake live to serve and bless Him. Never mind about yourself, and
do not think much about your gladness. Follow in the footsteps of Him
who has shown us that the highest joy is to give oneself utterly away.
Love Jesus Christ and trust Him and serve Him, and that will make all
your gladness permanent.' There is one thing I want to teach you. Look
at that description, or rather read when you go home the description
which follows my text, of that wretched old man who has got no hope in
God and no joy, feeble in body, going down to the grave, and dying out
at last. That is what rejoicing in the days of thy youth, and walking
in the ways of thine own heart, come to when you do not remember God.
There is nothing more miserable on the face of this earth than an
ill-conditioned old man, who is ill-conditioned because he has lost
his early joys and early strength, and has got nothing to make up for
them. How many of your joys, my dear young friends, will last when old
age comes to you? How many of them will survive when your eye is no
longer bright, and your hand no longer strong, and your foot no longer
fleet? How many of them, young woman! when the light is out of your
eye, and the beauty and freshness out of your face and figure, when
you are no longer able for parties, when it is no longer a pastime to
read novels, and when the ballroom is not exactly the place for
you,--how many of your pleasures will survive? Young man! how many of
yours will last when you can no longer go into dissipation, and
stomach and system will no longer stand fast living, nor athletics,
and the like? Oh! let me beseech thee, go to the ant and consider her
ways, who in the summer layeth up for the winter; and do ye likewise
in the days of your youth, store up for yourselves that which knows no
change and laughs at the decay of flesh and sense. A thousand motives
coincide and press on my memory if I had words and time to speak them.
Let me beseech you--especially you young men and women of this
congregation, of some of whom I may venture to speak as a father to
his children, whom I have seen growing up, as it were, from your
mothers' arms, and the rest of you whom I do not know so well--Oh!
carry away with you this beseeching entreaty of mine at the end. Love
Jesus Christ and trust to Him as your Saviour; serve Him as your
Captain and your King in the days of your youth. Do not offer Him the
fag end of a life--the last inch of the candle that is burning down
into the socket. Do it now, for the moments are flying, and you may
never have Him offered to you any more. If there is any softening, any
touch of conscience in your heart, yield to the impulse and do not
stifle it. Take Christ for your Saviour, take Him now--'Now is the
accepted time, now is the day of salvation.'