1. THE BEGINNING.--There is a charm in opening manhood which has
commended itself to the imagination in every age. The undefined hopes
and promises of the future--the dawning strength of intellect--the
vigorous flow of passion--the very exchange of home ties and protected
joys for free and manly pleasures, give to this period an interest and
excitement unfelt, perhaps, at any other.
2. THE GROWTH OF INDEPENDENCE.--Hitherto life has been to boys, as to
girls, a dependent existence--a sucker from the parent growth--a home
discipline of authority and guidance and communicated impulse. But
henceforth it is a transplanted growth of its own--a new and free
power of activity in which the mainspring is no longer authority or
law from without, but principle or opinion within. The shoot which
has been nourished under the shelter of the parent stem, and bent
according to its inclination, is transferred to the open world, where
of its own impulse and character it must take root, and grow into
strength, or sink into weakness and vice.
3. HOME TIES.--The thought of home must excite a pang even in the
first moments of freedom. Its glad shelter--its kindly guidance--its
very restraints, how dear and tender must they seem in parting! How
brightly must they shine in the retrospect as the youth turns from
them to the hardened and unfamiliar face of the world! With what a
sweet sadly-cheering pathos they must linger in the memory! And then
what chance and hazard is there in his newly-gotten freedom! What
instincts of warning in its very novelty and dim inexperience! What
possibilities of failure as well as of success in the unknown future
as it stretches before him!
4. VICE OR VIRTUE.--Certainly there is a grave importance as well as
a pleasant charm in the beginning of life. There is awe as well as
excitement in it when rightly viewed. The possibilities that lie in
it of noble or ignoble work--of happy self-sacrifice or ruinous
self-indulgence--the capacities in the right use of which it may rise
to heights of beautiful virtue, in the abuse of which it may sink to
the depths of debasing vice--make the crisis one of fear as well as of
hope, of sadness as well as of joy.
5. SUCCESS OR FAILURE.--It is wistful as well as pleasing to think of
the young passing year by year into the world, and engaging with its
duties, its interests, and temptations. Of the throng that struggle
at the gates of entrance, how many may reach their anticipated goal?
Carry the mind forward a few years, and some have climbed the hills
of difficulty and gained the eminence on which they wished to
stand--some, although they may not have done this, have kept their
truth unhurt, their integrity unspoiled; but others have turned back,
or have perished by the way, or fallen in weakness of will, no more to
rise again; victims or their own sin.
6. WARNING.--As we place ourselves with the young at the opening gates
of life, and think of the end from the beginning, it is a deep concern
more than anything else that fills us. Words of earnest argument and
warning counsel rather than of congratulation rise to our lips.
7. MISTAKES ARE OFTEN FATAL.--Begin well and the habit of doing well
will become quite as easy as the habit of doing badly. "Well begun
is half ended," says the proverb: "and a good beginning is half
the battle." Many promising young men have irretrievably injured
themselves by a first false step at the commencement of life; while
others of much less promising talents, have succeeded simply by
beginning well, and going onward. The good, practical beginning is
to a certain extent, a pledge, a promise, and an assurance of the
ultimate prosperous issue. There is many a poor creature, now crawling
through life, miserable himself and the cause of sorrow to others,
who might have lifted up his head and prospered, if, instead of merely
satisfying himself with resolutions of well-doing, he had actually
gone to work and made a good, practical beginning.
8. BEGIN AT THE RIGHT PLACE.--Too many are, however, impatient of
results. They are not satisfied to begin where their fathers did,
but where they left off. They think to enjoy the fruits of industry
without working for them. They cannot wait for the results of labor
and application, but forestall them by too early indulgence.
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