Each one spends his childhood playing upon the golden sands of an
unoared sea, over which in the after years he must find his way to
shipwreck or safe harbor.
How little does childhood in its helplessness know of life! Pleased
with simple things, it greets the world with gladness, and shouts for
very joy when finding a tinted shell or bit of seaweed. With spades of
tin it undertakes to dig a hole “clear through the earth,” and smiles
in contemplation of a vision of the Chinese sky. With chains of sand it
undertakes to bind the rushing waters of the tide which granite cliff
and flinty rock cannot subdue. The child undertakes great things while
he himself is not strong enough to withstand the smallest wave, but,
leaving his unfinished task, runs homeward at the coming of the tide.
The waves roar with laughter and the spray sparkles with merriment as
they destroy the feeble efforts of his puny hands. Childhood knows
little of the unoared sea of life whose marvelous power of wave and
tide threatens to destroy all the childish and manly efforts of his
life.
The desires of the sea may be fulfilled. With youthful enthusiasm and
unguarded courage he may make fatal venture and be lost. There are
many such of wholesome soul and worthy purpose whose most cherished
hopes and plans came to shipwreck and disaster. The seas of life are
strewn with wreckage. Yet one must not be pessimistic and forget that
the raging sea is not omnipotent. With all its wild dashing waves and
boisterous winds it is not as strong as that little lad may become. The
weakest child may yet be able to dig a pit large and deep enough to
bury all the swollen waves; and build a cable of sand strong enough to
bind securely the rising and the falling tides. Some day, over the calm
and quiet waters of a perfectly conquered sea, this tiny lad may pass
into the harbor of safety and success.
Man was not made for the sea, but the sea was made for man. Man was
created with the gift of complete dominion over all the world in which
he finds himself. Standing like a discoverer upon the shores of his
own unoared sea of life, it is his to conquer, for each individual
faces a sea newly created, whose waves have never been cut by the prow
of any boat. No two people sail the same sea. Each person faces a
life as original as it is unknown, but one that is singularly suited
to himself. Age may be enriched with much dearly bought and valuable
experiences, and be most helpful in counseling youth, but age can never
fully understand the child, or youth, who stands upon the sun-kissed
sands of the unoared sea of his own individual life. The beauty and
pathos of life is that each one must solve the problem for himself.
This does not mean that the training and counseling of youth
should be neglected. The ennobling influences of a godly home with
Christian parents; the steady, guiding hand of school and college;
the inspiration of good books and imperial thinking, as well as
the soul-strengthening forces of the church, are all of most vital
importance. They should never be omitted from any life. These are
things to which each child has an unquestioned right. All the forces
for good, of earth and sea and sky, must be centered upon the ambitious
but ofttimes thoughtless youth, that he may recognize and faithfully
employ the agencies created for his service and success.
The best that education can do is to help the individual to help
himself. Education is not a compass by which to steer his craft; it is
not the rudder that determines the course; neither is it the propelling
power that drives it through the waves against an adverse wind. God
has made especial provision for these equipments. The chart is the
inspired Word; the compass, a divinely guided conscience; the rudder, a
will surrendered fully to the will of God; while the power that propels
lies in the skillful using of two plain oars that God has placed within
his easy reach. Education is the intellectual training that enables him
to use these agencies in the most efficient manner.
Many centuries of experience and experiment have produced no
labor-saving machinery for reaching the harbor of success. If one would
make successful voyage, he must be willing to grasp the oars with his
own hands, bend his back to heavy strain, employing all his mental,
physical, and spiritual power to the task of making good. It is not a
joy ride or a pleasure trip. There is a joy unspeakable in the task,
but it comes not from without but from the consciousness within that
one is winning in a moral strife. This consciousness will be found
to be the chiefest of life’s joys. None shall excel it this side the
welcome we shall receive when safely anchored in the presence of our
God, and even then this consciousness will be the inspiration of the
heavenly song. Life must be considered not so much a pleasure as a
struggle, but a worthy struggle, that sends the blood tingling through
the veins, and builds the tissues of a noble character.
After the training in life’s fundamentals the choosing of the oars is
the most important thing. The craft in which one sails is character,
built to weather any storm on any wind-swept sea. The haven is God’s
homeland of the soul. The oars are varied, and the success or failure
of the voyage, the safety or shipwreck of character, a victorious
landing or sinking beneath the waves of obscurity, depend entirely upon
the choosing of these oars by means of which his life energies are to
be directed.
To this end all the educational influences of home and school and
college must be directed. Youth must be taught the value of an
intelligent choice of the instruments through which his powers shall
flow. He must not be led by fancy or prejudice or by the words of
dishonest men who have oars to sell. He must not choose by the color
of the paint or beauty of their decorations. He must not listen to the
honeyed words of an evil one whose sole purpose is his destruction.
Leaving the sands of childhood and starting voyage upon the unoared sea
of life is a moment in which all earth and heaven are concerned, and
therefore the choice of oar must not be left to chance or fortune. He
must know that all the proffered oars are not alike, and that false
teachers profit from the wreckage of the boats they set adrift. He must
know that a broken oar means a drifting boat, and that no drifting boat
can ride a storm-tossed sea. All the difference between heaven and hell
is in that moment of decision when he picks up his chosen oars and
begins to use them as his own.
There are two oars that never fail when once grasped by a hand that
is firm and true. The first oar is called Virtue. With this oar of
moral excellency, of pure heart and clean hands, with this oar of real
integrity of character and purity of soul, man’s energies are never
wasted as he makes battle against opposing powers. The real sinfulness
of impurity is its resultant waste of strength. Behold the wan faces,
sunken eyes, wasted energies, emaciated forms, staggering steps of
weakness, and the uncertainty and indecision of character, and one sees
the consequences of abusing the laws of purity. But virtue means more
than purity of body, it means absolute cleanliness of heart and mind
and purpose.
The second oar is Righteousness. Unrighteousness is the abuse and waste
of power. The New Testament word for sin is “missing the mark,” energy
that is wasted by not being carefully and accurately directed. To be
upright in life, free from wrong and injustice, to yield to everyone
his just dues, is to have a means for directing strength and vital
energy that never fails to bring the desired result.
Two oars--“Virtue,” rightness with God; “Righteousness,” rightness with
man--two oars that have never been known to break no matter how much a
great soul bends them in his battle with the waves. Two oars that have
never yet failed to bring the ship to harbor.
This, then, is the opportunity of the church, not to manufacture oars,
but to aid youth and maiden to choose the ones that God hath made. They
are not new inventions, but as old as God and rugged as the Hand that
made them. Firmly grasped and resolutely employed, the harbor is made
in safety, although the voyage be upon a hitherto unoared sea.