Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness. John Mather Austin
It is painful to walk in the way of wickedness—it is painful to break away from it, when once there. It is painful to continue on—it is painful to turn back. This is in consequence of the nature of sin. It is a path all evil, all pain, all darkness—everything connected with it is fruitful of wretchedness. Those who stray therein, find themselves beset with perils and troubles on all sides. Avoid it, as you love happiness!
"Ne'er till to-morrow's light delay
What may as well be done to-day;
Ne'er do to-day, what on the morrow
Will wring your heart with sighs and sorrow."
A young man may, in early life, fall into vicious habits, and afterwards turn from them. Some have done so. But they declare that the struggles they were compelled to make—the conflicts and trials, the buffeting of evil passions, and the mental agony they endured, in breaking away, were terrible beyond description. Where one, who has fallen into bad habits in youth, has afterwards abandoned them, there are a score who have continued their victims, until ruin, and a premature death, closed their career. How much safer, how much easier and pleasanter, how much more promising and hopeful, to commence life with good habits well established, with high principles, sound maxims, enlightened rules of conduct, deeply fixed in the soul. This is a plain, pleasant, prosperous path—readily found, and easily followed. In no other can you secure true enjoyment.
"We cannot live too slowly to be good
And happy, nor too much by line and square.
But youth is burning to forestall its nature,
And will not wait for time to ferry it
Over the stream; but flings itself into
The flood and perishes. *******
The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat
Oneself. **************"
There is nothing more essential to the young than to accustom themselves to mature reflection, and practical observation, in regard to the duties of life, and the sources of human enjoyment. This is a task, however, which but few of the youthful are inclined to undertake. The most of them are averse to giving up their thoughts to sober meditation on the consequences which accrue from different courses of conduct, or to practical observation on the lessons taught by the experience of others. The Present!—the Present!—its amusements, its gayeties, its fashions, absorbs nearly all their thoughts. They have little relish to look towards the future, except to anticipate the continuance of the novelty and joyousness of the spring-time of life. The poet utters a most salutary admonition in his beautiful lines:
"The beam of the morning, the bud of the Spring,
The promise of beauty and brightness may bring;
But clouds gather darkness, and touched by the frost,
The pride of the plant, and the morning are lost.
Thus the bright and the beautiful ever decay—
Life's morn and life's flowers, oh, they quick pass away!"
I would not cast one unnecessary shadow on the pathway of the young; but they should be often reminded, that the season of youth, with its romance and light-heartedness, soon, too soon, departs! Spring, with its budding beauties, and fragrant blossoms, does not continue all the year. It is speedily followed by the fervid summer, the mature and sober autumn, and the dreary snows of winter. In order to have thriving and promising fields in summer, rich and abundant harvests in autumn, and bountiful supplies for comfort and repose in winter, "good seed" must be sowed in the spring. So, also, if you would have the summer of life fruitful of prosperity—its autumn yield a rich and bountiful harvest, and the winter of old age made comfortable and peaceful—the good seed of pure habits, and sound moral and religious principles, must be carefully sowed in the rich soil of the heart, in the budding spring-time of youth.
Due observation and reflection will enable the young to sow the right kind of seed at the right time. There is much in this. Those who sow late will be likely to have their harvest blighted by chilling rains and nipping frosts. The earlier the seed is cast into the ground, the greater the certainty that it will produce an abundant crop. Reflection and discrimination are all-essential to the youthful. Those who think deeply will act wisely. They will detect and avoid the dangers which beset their pathway, and into which the thoughtless so easily fall. They will readily penetrate the specious appearance, the harmless aspect, the deceptive veil, which vice and immorality can so readily assume. They will understand the old maxim, that "all is not gold that glitters." This is a simple truth, and yet how few of the young practise upon it. See this young man. How easily he gives way to temptation—how readily he is led astray. Why does he thus turn aside from virtue's path? Why thus trample upon the affectionate counsel and admonition of wise parents and kind friends? Ah! he sees a glittering bauble in the way of sin, and imagines it is the shining of the gold of true and solid happiness. Eagerly he presses on to secure the prize. He plunges into the wickedness to which, it tempts him—he seizes the dazzling treasure, and finds—what? Pure gold?—true delight?—unalloyed happiness? Alas, foolish youth! No! That which he took for the glitter of gold, proves to be worthless ashes in his hand. And the high pleasure he was anticipating, results in naught but disappointment, disgrace, wretchedness.
"Teach me the flattering paths to shun,
In which the thoughtless many run;
Who for a shade the substance miss,
And grasp their ruin in their bliss."
A well-established habit of practical observation, enables the youthful to guard against the mistakes of conduct, into which others have fallen, and to make the shortcomings of their fellow-beings, salutary admonitions for their own instruction. When thoughtful, observing young persons, see an individual do a mean, unmanly action, they will reflect much upon it. They will notice how contemptible it makes him appear—how it degrades him in the estimation of the honorable and high-minded—how it belittles him in the view of society at large—and how unworthy it makes him appear even in his own eyes. These observations, if faithfully made, will guard them against like acts themselves.
When they behold one arraigned at the bar of public justice, to answer to the offended laws of his country, they will make it a salutary lesson of instruction. They will realize the deceptive and ruinous nature of wrong-doing—how, while promising them the very elixir of happiness, it pours naught but bitterness and poison into the cup of life, entailing degradation and wretchedness upon its victims. They will become satisfied of the solemn truth of the words of the Most High, that "though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished."
When they see neighbors, who might promote each other's enjoyments, by living peaceably together, fall out in regard to some trivial misunderstanding, and engage in angry disputes, and a bitter warfare, disturbing the harmony of the neighborhood, and destroying their own happiness—the young who exercise practical observation, will be instructed, to avoid similar troubles in their own affairs. They will realize the folly and blindness of such a course, and the necessity of exercising a forbearing and forgiving spirit, and the wisdom of submitting to injuries, if need be, rather than to become involved in angry recriminations and hostilities.
Thus by a constant habit of observation and reflection, the youthful can turn the failings of others to their own account. As the industrious bee extracts honey from the most nauseous substances, so can the thoughtful and observing draw instruction not only from the example of the wise, but from the folly of the wicked!
In preparations for future usefulness and success, the young should establish certain fixed principles of moral conduct, by which they will be steadfastly governed in all their intercourse with the world. Without some well-defined landmarks, by which they can be guided in emergencies, when everything depends on the course of conduct to be pursued, they will be in imminent peril. Temptations are strewed along the pathway of the young, and assail them at every turn. If they could clearly contemplate the effects of giving way to temptation—were all the unhappy consequences to stand out visibly before them—they would never be induced to turn aside into sin. Could the young man as he is tempted to quaff the fashionable glass of