_My Dear Daughter:_--I have endeavored in my previous letters to give
you a kind of outline series of directions and instructions in matters
that pertain to the ordinary every day duties of life. I have spoken of
the motives that should influence your actions, and have tried to show
you that all truly lovely and beautiful conduct must have a basis in the
moral sentiment. I have reserved till this last letter what I have to
say to you on the most important subject of all: the infinitely
momentous subject of religious culture and duty.
In the first place I must explain that there is a great difference
between the methods and circumstances of religious instruction now and
those which surrounded the youth of the maturer generation. When people
of the age of your parents were young, the habits of family life were
such that religious observances held a place of first importance. All
household affairs were arranged with reference to morning and evening
worship, which consisted of singing, reading the Bible, and prayer. No
matter how much work was to be done, the family must rise in time to
allow for the performance of this service. Children heard so much about
God, and heaven, and the life beyond death, that often a morbid and
unnatural frame of mind was induced. Parents and instructors often
forgot to make allowance for the fact that youth naturally and rightly
loves and enjoys this life, and rightly and naturally dreads death. So
much was said about the other world that it seemed almost a sin to think
about or plan much for this. God and heaven were imagined as close
above in the sky? the judgment day was ever held threateningly before
us; and pictures of a literal lake of fire and brimstone, into which
wicked people would be cast, were painted for the imagination of
children, till, as the experience of hundreds testifies, even the most
conscientious of them feared to close their eyes in sleep at night lest
they should awake in that terrible place of torment.
From this doubtless too severe and harsh religious regime, a reaction
has taken place which has thrown the customs of family life and the
religious education of the young people of to-day far into the opposite
extreme. The hurry and railroad rush of modern social and commercial
life have shortened or even cut off entirely the hours for family
worship. In the modern effort to emphasize the fact that God is love,
the other fact that sin deserves and receives punishment has been
thrown too far into the background, or is ignored altogether. Regular
reading of the Bible has become as rare as it formerly was universal.
Irreverence and skepticism in regard to its truths and teachings
permeate a large portion of society, and the general influence of the
social life of young people is opposed to the cultivation or expression
of the religious spirit or aspiration. All this involves the loss of a
most valuable mental and spiritual discipline, and earnest parents of
to-day are at a loss how to supply it.
I will press upon your attention only one argument for the culture of a
religious spirit, and that is the argument of experience. What is the
universal testimony of those whose lives are really governed by the fear
and love of a divine Creator? It is that in the consciousness of a
desire to obey God and live in harmony with His laws they find their
highest happiness.
To everyone who lives beyond the earliest period of childhood, comes at
some time or other sorrow, disappointment, sickness, loss, bereavement.
The great fact of death looms up at the end of every pathway, however
bright and happy. The universal testimony of the human race, from the
earliest records of human experience to the present time, is that only
faith and hope in a beneficent God ruling over all events can sustain
and comfort the human heart through all the changes and vicissitudes of
life, and reconcile to the thought of death.
Early youth is naturally happy, gay, care-free, and indifferent to
sorrows and fears of which it knows nothing. But there comes a time to
every sensible and earnest young heart when it realizes the
transitoriness of all earthly things, and longs for something on which
the heart can take hold and rest. I do not believe any young person
fails of this experience sooner or later. It is a hunger of the heart
which nothing but the love of God can fill, and if, when it is first
felt, the heart only humbly and earnestly turns to God with high and
firm resolve to seek a knowledge of Him and His laws, to bring all
actions and plans of life into harmony with His revealed will, the
foundation of an enduring happiness is laid for this life, and doubtless
for the life to come.
But this desire and effort after a knowledge of God and obedience to His
will do not come without a struggle. We are strange and mysterious
creatures, having within us a nature that is most susceptible to
temptations, to do evil. Every one of us is conscious of a struggle
constantly going on in our hearts and lives between evil and good. The
temptations to selfishness, greed, unkindness, untruthfulness,
irreverence, indolence, are constant and severe until we have by long
conflict and repeated victory habituated our hearts to choosing the
right. Yet every victory over self and temptation helps us toward that
spiritual attainment which will in time enable us to say, with the sweet
psalmist of Israel: "The Lord is the portion of my soul; the Lord is the
strength of my heart; the Lord is my light and my salvation."
Most usually the heart first turns toward God with deep earnestness
through sorrow. There are many griefs and burdens of life which cannot
be alleviated or lightened in any way except by spiritual comfort and
help. And this spiritual comfort and help are among the deepest
realities of life. There is a strength, a happiness, a peace and a
support in sorrow which the world can neither give nor take away. How
priceless a blessing to possess! The saddest, darkest, most suffering
life can be irradiated and uplifted and enriched by this spiritual
blessing. The most fortunately circumstanced life may be made poor by
its absence. Dean Stanley tells us of a sister who for perhaps forty
years was a constant sufferer from spinal disease, and during that
period almost constantly confined to her couch. Yet her countenance was
irradiated with cheerfulness, and she seemed to inspire everyone who
came near her with comfort, and with ardor and enthusiasm for goodness.
Such examples are not rare. Every community knows some person or persons
sustained in deep affliction, though long continued trial and sorrow and
loss, by this unseen spiritual power. On the other hand, experience and
observation show us constantly recurring examples of discontent,
peevishness, unhappiness, on the part of those who appear to be
specially favored in the possession of the comforts and riches of this
life. Lord Chesterfield said that, having seen and experienced all the
pomps and pleasures of life, he was disgusted with and hated them all,
and only desired, like a weary traveler, to be allowed "to sleep in the
carriage" until the end came. But Paul the apostle, contemplating the
close of his eventful life of sorrow and suffering, said: "I have fought
the good fight? I have finished the course? I have kept the faith:
henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness."
So it seems only a reasonable appeal to every young heart, as soon as it
is mature enough to understand and make choice among the realities and
verities of life, to choose this better part; to keep the heart
receptive to and expectant of this divine comfort and help; to seek to
know and obey the will of this God of all consolation. But this choice
is a purely individual matter. No one can make another person good any
more than he can make him happy. All that anyone, all that the wisest
and best teachers and parents can do, is to present the arguments for
and urge the choice of the better part.
But if it is chosen, or if there is a desire to be enabled to choose it,
what a help and stimulus comes from the reading and study of the Bible,
especially of the Psalms and the New Testament! Therein are recorded
every phase of the spiritual experiences of humanity in its aspiration
after a knowledge of God. Therein are recorded the words and precepts of
"the Great Teacher sent from God," who said that he and the Father were
one, and that he was sent of God to seek and save the lost. Here are the
records of the compassionate expressions that fell from his lips as he
proclaimed his message as the Son of God. Whatever other opinion men may
have of Christ, all must confess that in his words to and about sinning
and sorrowing and suffering men and women, he displayed a love and
sympathy such as earth had never known before, and such as it has known
since, in kind, only in the devoted followers of Christ. To have the
memory stored with these expressions or teachings, or with the prayers
and aspirations of the psalms and the prophecies, is to have a fountain
of comfort and consolation for the heart, that passes all understanding.
But this fact of human experience you must accept on the testimony of
those who have experienced it, until you have experienced it for
yourself.
And thus, my daughter, while I wish for you the possession of all the
graces and adornments of person and character that pertain to and are
possible for the life that now is, how infinitely more do I desire for
you that you may know God and the comforts and consolations of His word
and spirit. To know that you had sought and found for yourself this
knowledge, that you knew and sought the help of the divine spirit in
resisting temptation to do wrong, that in disappointment your heart
would turn to God for comfort, that in sorrow you would seek consolation
in communion with God, would be to feel that your future happiness was
absolutely assured. In this seeking after God, all things would be
yours. And even though you had made but a small and weak beginning to
follow on and know the Lord, I should rejoice in the assurance that the
good work, having been begun, would be completed unto the end. And so I
close these letters with the same summing up of all advice, all
instruction, which more than four thousand years ago a prophet of God
gave to his reflections upon the vicissitudes of human life: "Let us
hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his
commandments, for this is the whole duty of man."