The social life of boys and girls should be recognized and provided for
as a department of the school in which they shall become educated in
those things which make for social righteousness and purity later on. As
boys treat each other, they will, as a rule, treat each other as men. As
boys and girls behave toward each other, so will they as a rule behave
as men and women. Courtesy is necessary to the highest degree of success
in any enterprise. The boy who is habitually courteous toward other boys
will be successful in winning his way as a man among men with any
important message with which he may be commissioned; and if he is so
instructed that he is gentle, considerate, and true to his mother,
sisters, and girl associates, he will be a safe friend as a man, a
representative of Christ to his own wife and children, and help to make
that home which must stand as a witness for God in the last days.
The children in whose interests I am writing must be in a peculiar sense
messengers of light to the world. They will be on the field of action in
the very last scenes of the earth’s history, when souls must be
_snatched_ by a power of which we have little comprehension—the power to
_win quickly_; the power to reveal the truth as in a flash of light, so
that it will be recognized at sight by the bewildered, desperate soul
that has awakened at the last moment to its peril and privilege, and
with scant space for repentance and cleansing, cries out for help; and
the Holy Spirit must find somewhere those whom he can train and use for
the service which in those days must be done to reach _every_ creature,
high as well as low, with the gospel.
The truth is worthy of the best possible investment. Its messengers
should be free from every offensive habit, custom, and manner—thoroughly
equipped in all that is most graceful, most scholarly, as genuine
Christian scholarship goes; most refined, most chaste, and agreeable in
both public and private intercourse. They should be the most suitably,
and that means the most simply and tastefully, dressed.
The theory of the world considers as “good form” that each individual
should dress according to the _class_ which he represents; and the
Christian who conscientiously and consistently dresses as his name
“Christian” would indicate that he should dress, will be respected by
even the frivolous “butterfly of fashion,” and will stand a good chance
of a hearing by that same “butterfly,” even in the most solemn message,
provided it is accompanied with the simple, easy courtesy of good
breeding, such as can not be suddenly assumed “for effect,” but which is
the result of life-long training. There are honest souls among so-called
“social butterflies,” and some workers must be trained to go out into
the _highways_ where they flit away their hopeless lives, as well as
into the byways and hedges, where social wrecks are huddled in darkness
and desolation.
The men and women who must do this work are now boys and girls in our
homes or schools, and very much which shall determine the scope of their
influence depends upon what the Spirit of God shall find available in
them for use. A truly well-trained, courteous man or woman can be used
_anywhere_, among _any_ people; while the uncouth and untrained must be
kept in a limited sphere. The truly cultured man or woman whose every
gift and grace has been sanctified and consecrated, will be more sure to
know what to do in the homes of the wretched and the haunts of vice for
the alleviation of distress and the saving of a soul than those who have
never thought it worth while to cultivate winsome qualities.
God has so arranged human life and relations that even the most
aristocratic and exclusive must take note of, and plan for doing, the
same every-day things that are alike common to all; and the only
question of deportment which can ever come between the uncouth and the
refined, concerns the methods of doing these same most common things.
The mother in the humblest home, with the most meager opportunities, if
she has a high enough appreciation of the mission to which her child is
called as a representative of the precious “faith of Jesus,” can, in
him, place at the disposal of the Holy Spirit such graces of gentleness,
such a beauty of holiness, such winsome kindliness, such tact and
address, as shall open the way for anything which he has to bring. But
to do this she must begin with the child in his relation to the other
children of his own age with whom he stands on an equal footing. To
treat with deference and politeness only those who because of age or
position are recognized as his superiors, would train the child to
sychophancy.
The man who can _lead_ other men, except by some appeal to selfish or
brutal passion, is very hard to find. A “_man’s way_” has passed into
proverb, and stands for heedlessness as regards his treatment of his
equals. His natural sense of pity will make him kind to the helpless,
provided he can afford it; he will be respectful to the respectable
because his own respectability requires it; and his general interest
will lead him to _court_ those who are in a position to bestow favors;
but to be all that a consecrated Christian companion might be to those
who are on the same plane with himself, or who are so outlawed by public
sentiment that no accuser but conscience would arise against him for any
wrong done to them, is the point of failure in the association of men
with men and women, and is the result of an almost universal idea that
“boys don’t need to be so very polite to each other,” nor “so very
particular” as to just how they talk when alone among themselves, and
that the silly girl or “fallen” among women is legitimate prey for any
man.
It is by “_behavior_” that men and women are protected from, or exposed
to, especial and peculiar temptations, as well as made more or less
effective in truth-teaching and soul-winning.
It may seem ridiculous to make the use of a handkerchief the subject of
grave consideration, but it is a terrible fact that this little scrap of
linen has become more dangerous than dynamite to the thoughtless girl in
her teens who, for lack of proper teaching, picks up the little tricks
of street flirtation, which have so defiled it that it has become almost
indecent to handle it outside the seclusion of one’s own room.
Let a bright-faced girl take her handkerchief in hand on the street of
even a small country village, and she will immediately become the center
of attraction to every lewd fellow who haunts public places, until he
has found out what she intends to do with it; and the code of signals
for which it is employed is of such a character that the most innocent
may be charged with a lewd invitation by what might seem to be its
necessary use.
The same is true concerning the sound made by clearing the throat and
nasal passages, and coughing. These are all used as signals of vice; and
many a giddy, but innocent girl has found herself in situations of great
humiliation and danger, simply because she had not been forearmed with a
little knowledge as to proper conduct in these matters.
Good form requires that the handkerchief be carried in the pocket out of
sight; _never_ brought out in public excepting in a case of necessity,
and then used as unobtrusively as possible. The importance of this
matter is sufficient to warrant repetition even to line upon line and
precept upon precept.
Those who will be able to do the best service in the closing work of the
world’s history, to win the richest trophies for our coming King, will
be those who, together with the “commandments of God and the faith of
Jesus,” and the fulness of the Holy Spirit, will know and observe in
deportment that which the world recognizes as good form.