“Here is a very great fault, my young friends, with you. I do not blame you that you are jovial. You ought to be jovial. I do not blame you that you love pleasure. Pleasure is right if it be rational. It may be a moral excellence. I do not blame you that you are chatty and gay, and that you spend your time with great delight in youth. Youth is a time for enjoyment.
I sympathize with all these things. But I do blame you that you live for these. I blame you that they are all you think about. If they were for the intervals; if they were, so to speak, the cushions that you put between the hard bones of duty; if they were relaxations, no one more than I, would praise you. But I am ashamed to see young men and maidens who spend their whole life in foolish, idle, endless chatter or in endless running after mere pleasure, or in courses that have not one single particle of upbuilding in them.”
I sympathize with all these things. But I do blame you that you live for these. I blame you that they are all you think about. If they were for the intervals; if they were, so to speak, the cushions that you put between the hard bones of duty; if they were relaxations, no one more than I, would praise you. But I am ashamed to see young men and maidens who spend their whole life in foolish, idle, endless chatter or in endless running after mere pleasure, or in courses that have not one single particle of upbuilding in them.”
H.W. Beecher - photo by Pavel Kaplun
2 comments:
Amen! I'm sure you're well aware that I've recognized this tendency in my own children and have fought and prayed and preached until I'm blue in the face to combat it. And of course tried to model the correct attitudes and behaviors. It's hard to teach these concepts in this culture that is so "me" oriented. But what do we do? We can't isolate them from every other influence than our own, and wouldn't want to even if we could. I think if I read this post to them, it would go in one ear and out the other. (They aren't very receptive to criticism.) But I so badly want to find a way to communicate the truth in this post to them in a way that they would listen to and receive. Maybe I'll try to think of a parable to illustrate these truths...?
Thanks for the excellent posts, Fred! :)
You might browse through Aesop's fables, he covers many things and they are fun to read. But knowing you, you will think up an imaginative parable; share it if you do!
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