“Young Christians oft please their vain rapids
With wonders they hope to perform;
But soon they come limping behind,
Their courage all foiled in a storm.”
MY dear friend, I feel a desire to preach to you a short sermon; and you will see that I have chosen a long text. You will, I believe, be able to find the text, even if I do not quote the chapter and verse. It is a text which was often quoted to me when I was thirty years younger than I now am; and as it is occasionally even now repeated in my hearing to those who are just beginning life, it seems good to me to make a few remarks on it.
You will not fail to observe that the text omits a very important fact; it fails to mention what older Christians please themselves with. But I will not deal too severely with this omission, as my mind dwells more upon what the text does say than upon what it does not say.
The fact is, my dear friend, that no person can be old before he is young. We were all once little helpless babes, and had to remain so for a considerable time. As Christians, we were “born again,” and had to pass through the stages of spiritual infancy and youth before arriving at the maturity of gracious manhood. Will you permit me to make this clear by an illustration? The farmer sows his wheat; and in due time there will be the tender green blades. Will he take his plow and plow up these blades because they have not golden ears upon them? The gardener cultivates his borders with wisdom and skill; but does he clip his roses and carnations about in May because they are not covered with blooms? The shepherd expects the lambs in January; but does he beat them because they are not aged sheep?
No, my dear friend. My mother used to say to me “There may be a good deal of blossom that never comes to fruit; but there can be no fruit without blossom.” She therefore never took her broom into her garden for the purpose of beating all the blossoms off the trees. And for my part, I fail to see the wisdom of imitating such a course towards our dear young friends. It appears to me that brooms could be more usefully employed, even by some older people, in sweeping the kitchen. Let even broom handles be put to their own proper use.
I think that youth is the time for blossom and beauty. How I love to see those dear young men and women, and the children too, in God’s house, listening to His Gospel, and to hear their sweet voices in our grand songs of praise! If children sing around the throne of God in heaven, I for one will not forbid them to sing here below. It is their proper singing-time, the spring of their spiritual youth. How can we have birds without eggs, leaves without buds, or a harvest without growth? You may depend upon it that God’s order is best. The figs are green before they are brown; and the grapes are sour before they are sweet. I must confess that some grapes seem never to get sweet. A little breezy sunshine would do them an immense deal of good, and help them to ripen.
The time of youth is the time of zeal. Suppose a young Christian shows more zeal than knowledge, in my own judgment he had better err on this side than on the other. The young man who never makes a mistake never makes anything else. And even if he errs through his newborn zeal, would it not be better to try to guide it into its true channel than to seek to quench it? Which would be more like the Spirit of Christ, think you?
I think it would be a very useful exercise for an older Christian to at times go back in memory to his spiritual youth, and thus become a little child again. It is better to praise all the good we can than to condemn all the bad we can. It is better to encourage a young writer, if these are signs of what is good in his early attempts, than to use the magnifying glass on his defects.
I read this morning that our blessed Master increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and with man. I have had eight children, and in a drawer I still keep their school copybooks. There are the first attempts of each of them to make pothooks; and then the successive stages leading up to beautiful penmanship. They often smile at those imperfect efforts of infancy, and I smile with them; and I cannot as a father think that my heavenly Father is angry with me about the poor pothooks of my gracious infancy. They meant His praise then, though they were imperfectly shaped; and they mean His praise now, even in this letter to you.
You will then see, my dear friend, that I should like to observe a little more kindness shown in some quarters towards the young people. Let them be young while they are young; and let God alone to do His own work in ripening them. Let us not forget that we were once young, and that it has taken years of discipline and toil to teach us even the little we now know. It may be true that there is much zeal without knowledge; but I am sadly afraid that there is also much knowledge without zeal. Believe me, my dear friend, faithfully yours, April 7th, 1905.
JONATHAN JONES.