Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17.djvu/92

84 feet do slip now and then, who is the worse for it? He will never write it home, and there is nobody in the city who will discover it; provided he is prompt at his business, no one will meddle with his leisure hours. And if full-grown men are found to need the restraining influences of wife and child and neighbor, and to plunge into brutality whenever they form a community by themselves, what can prevent boys, when cast adrift, from drifting into sin? Genius is supreme, but genius is the heritage of but few; while passion and appetite, love of society and amusement, need of watchfulness and susceptibility to temptation, belong to all. "I don't like wine," said a young man,—"I hate the taste of it; but what am I to do? A lot of fellows carousing isn't the best thing in the world; but I can't stay moping in my room alone all the time. There's my violin. Well, I took it out once or twice, but it was no go. When I could go into the parlor after supper, and mother round, and Bess to sing, it was worth while; but there is no fun in fiddling to yourself by wholesale. Besides, I suppose it bores the rest to have a fellow sawing away." And this was a fine, handsome, healthy young man, all ready to be made a warm friend, a patriotic citizen, a pure and happy man, and just as ready to become a reckless, dissipated, sorrow-bringing failure. And, alas! where were the hands that should have helped him? Alas! alas! what are the hands that will not be backward to lay hold on him?

If any holiday is to be made useful, if young men are to be saved from ruin, saved to their mothers and sisters and wives, saved to themselves, to their country, and to God, Christian people must bestir themselves. Young Men's Christian Associations may be ever so efficient, but they cannot do everything. The work that is to be done cannot be wrought by associations alone, nor by young men, nor by any men. It needs fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and firesides. The only way to keep boys from the haunts of vice is to open to them the haunts of virtue. Give them access to loving families, to happy homes. Nothing can supply this want. No attendance at any church is to be for a moment compared to attendance at the sacred shrine of an affectionate family. But when, a little while ago, a young man, who had been for years a clerk in Boston, was asked in how many families he was acquainted, he replied quickly, "Not one." Yet he was a member of an Orthodox Congregational Church, which, I take it, is to be as good as anybody can be in this world, and a regular attendant upon religious services in one of the most influential Orthodox churches in Boston. Sunday after Sunday he occupied his seat, yet neither pastor nor people—not one of all that great congregation—ever took him by the hand and constrained him to sit by their hearthstones, ever welcomed him to the warmth and gladness and gentle endearments of their homes. What is the communion of saints? If that young man had brought a letter of introduction from some distinguished person, would they have thus let him go in and out among them unnoticed and uncared for? But to church-members, surely, a certificate of church-membership ought to be as weighty as a letter of introduction. A Christian church should be so managed that it should be impossible for any attendant upon its services to escape observation; and it should be so trained to its social duties that every person who takes shelter in its sanctuary should at least have the opportunity to find shelter in its homes. I think it would be well, even, that those who are present at a single church service should be courteously noticed and encouraged to repeat the visit. If the church is indeed God's house, let the servants of the Master dispense His hospitalities in such a manner as befits His divine character, remembering that the world judges of Him through them. Let fathers and mothers be on the watch to speak kindly words to such homeless wanderers as may roam within the circle of their influence. If a stranger is introduced