Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/319

306 never walks afterwards upright and free, but goes bowed as a slave all his life. The thoughtful old man looks on the lads in a college, on the boys and girls in a great school, and bethinking himself of his own internal life, and the straggles within him—desire drawing one way, and conscience pointing another—a little tear springs into his manly and experienced eye, half hope and half fear. I knew a woman once, rather a cold and worldly one, but strong-minded and experienced well, and tender-hearted still, who never heard the little boys pattering about their cradle, but she sighed inwardly at the thought of the rough ways those little feet must tread before they rested in calm, victorious, and virtuous manhood.

Now, if a youth or maiden be trained up to know there is an infinitely perfect God, who made man of the best possible material, in the best possible way, for the best possible purpose—a God who plans all for the good of each, and placed in us that spark of his spirit which we call conscience;—if they were trained up to trust this infinite God—to feel love and reverence for him, and a most sacred desire to keep every command he writes in their consciousness; if they were thoroughly taught that the true service of Him is to listen to that still small voice of conscience and obey its sure and gentle word—Why, what a safeguard this would be! If they were taught that the laws of God, with beneficent function, worked as irresistibly as gravitation, that no deed, no thought, no automatic instinct, ever escapes their righteous jurisdiction—then what a motive would the young people have to live a clean pure life, free from the immoral violence and heats of passion, which destroy the welfare of so many men!

There is a paradise of joy whereto all youths and maidens have a birthright of entrance. Through the automatic instincts, nature calls, "Come up hither, young man, young maid! Come up hither, and be blessed!" But there is only one gate which opens and lets in, and that is the gate of duty ; thereto through the wilderness of life there is only one guide, and that is conscience—the true Emmanuel, or God-with-us.

I see how strong are these various appetites, what excesses they lead to, what ruin they often end in. Look at the drunkard, the glutton, the debauchee—men who