The Progressive Manner and Successive Steps by Which Many Young Men Are Led Astray

If it is a melancholy fact, which the history of innumerable families can verify, that many young men, who leave home in every respect mor&J and respectable, become vicious, and end their course in profligacy and ruin, an inquiry presents itself concerning the steps which lead to this dieadful reverse of character and circumstances. It rarely, if ever, happens, that the heart throws off at once all the restraints of virtue, and plunges suddenly into the depths of vice. It is not by one vast stride that the moral youth passes from sober habits at home to those of an opposite nature abroad, but generally by slow and successive steps. The judgment and conscience would recoil from a temptation which proposed to him to become profligate at once; and if he ever be an adept in vice, he must be led on by insensible degrees, and by little and little make advances in the way of sinners, and the counsels of the ungodly. This is what is meant by the deceitfulness of sin.

What individual who ever attained to enormity of wickedness, foresaw, or conjectured the end of his career? When the messenger of Heaven disclosed to Hazael the Syrian, the darkness of his future character, he indignantly exclaimed, “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this?” It was a burst of honest indignation. At that time he was incapable of the atrocities which it was foretold he should one day commit, and his whole nature rose in an expression of sincere abhorrence. He knew not the deceitfulness of his heart, nor the corrupting influence of ambition and power. He was led on by a gradual progress in his guilty career, till the events of his history surpassed in criminality the picture drawn by the prophet. Who that ever ended his days at the gallows, or in the felon’s exile, would at one period of his life have thought it possible that he should ever be so hardened as to commit such crimes? Habit renders all things easy, even the most atrocious crimes; and habits of vice, like other habits, begin with acts, many of them little ones. The most alarming view of sin therefore, and that which should excite the greatest dread, caution, and vigilance, is its progressive nature.

I have somewhere read of one who lived in the early ages of the Christian era, who, on being asked by a friend to accompany him to the amphitheatre, to witness the gladiatorial combats with wild beasts, expressed his abhorrence of the sport, and refused to witness a scene condemned alike by humanity and Christianity. Overcome at length, by the continued and pressing solicitation of his friend, whom he did not wis”h to disoblige, he consented to go; but determined that he would close his eyes as soon as he had taken his seat, and keep them closed during the whole time he was in the amphitheatre. At some particular display of strength and skill by one of the combatants, a loud shout of applause was raised by the spectators, when the Christian almost involuntarily opened his eyes being once open, he found it difficult to close them again; he became interested in the fate of the gladiator, who was then engaged with a lion. He returned home professing to dislike, as his principles required him to do, these cruel games; but his imagination ever and anon reverted to the scenes he had unintentionally witnessed. He was again solicited by his friend to see the sport. He found less difficulty now than before in consenting. He went, sat with his eyes open, and enjoyed the spectacle; again and again he took his seat with the pagan crowd; till at length he became a constant attendant at the amphitheatre, abandoned his Christian profession, relapsed into idolatry, and left a fatal proof of the deceitfulness of sin.*

Thousands of facts to the same purport might be collected, if it were necessary, tending to illustrate the insidious manner in which the transgressor is led on, in his gradual descent into the gulf of ruin. Let us gather up the substance of the preceding chapters, and trace the wanderer

* See my book, entitled, The Christian Father’s Present to his Children.

through his sinful course. Perhaps before he left his father’s house he was not only strictly moral, tut was the subject of religious impressions; convinced of sin, and an inquirer after salvation. He heard sermons with interest, kept holy the sabbath, and made conscience of secret prayer and reading the Scriptures. His conduct had awakened the hopes of his parents, and raised the expectations of his minister; but he was not decided; there had been no actual surrender of his heart to God, through faith, repentance, and the new birth. In this state of mind, he left home. Instead of taking alarm, as he should have done, at the dangers to which he was now about to be exposed, he went thoughtlessly to his new situation, and encountered its perils without due preparation. In his place he found little to encourage, perhaps something, or even much, to damp and discourage serious reflection. The preacher whose ministrations he attended was less impressive and exciting than the one he had left. The master whom he served, took little care of his spiritual welfare. Amidst these circumstances, his religious impressions were soon lost, and his concern speedily subsided. Still he could not at once give up the forms of devotion, and for awhile kept up the practice of private prayer, but having no separate room, he soon became ashamed to be seen falling upon his knees in the presence of gay or thoughtless companions, who slept in the same apartment, and who perhaps sneered at the practice. This is a temptation to which many are exposed, and it is one of the most successful in inducing young persons to give up the habit of prayer. He could not, however, quite relinquish a practice to which he had been accustomed from childhood, and occasionally he stole away to his room, and spent a few moments in devotion. This too in time was given up, and prayer wholly discontinued. A great restraint was now removed, and a barrier thrown down.* The fear of God,

* As an illustration of the hardening effect of leaving off prayer, where the habit had been previously maintained, I may give the confession of one who had known it by sad and awful experience. “It will be recollected,” says the writer of l The Happy Transformation,*” that when I left my paternal roof, I possessed some feelings of veneration for the great Author of my being, and had been trained up to fear his holy name. These feelings I carried with me to London, strengthened by the advice of my father, and the pious example of my brother. I did not possess any proper knowledge of the relation in which I stood to God as a sinner, and my need of redeeming grace. All my religion consisted in a fear of drawing down God’s displeasure, and an idea that it was my duty to pray to him morning and night. This I attended to for some time. At first I used to kneel unnoticed behind the bed; but by degrees I neglected this from shame and idleness, and used to mutter over my prayers in bed. Sometimes I dropped to sleep in the midst of them, and at other times never attempted to say them at all; and this course I contineven that small portion of it he seemed to possess, was leaving his heart. He now lives with out prayer, and stands exposed to the ten thousand snares and temptations of the world, without a single defence. Yet he fills up his place in the house of God; for he cannot throw off a certain kind of reverence for the sabbath, and a still lingering attachment to the sanctuary. In the same house in which he lives there is one, or there are several, who have no taste for sacred things, but who are worldly and sensual. He hears their scoffs at piety, which at first shock him, and he rebukes them, or expostulates with them; for he is not

ued some years, according as my conscience was more or less alarmed. But this I can testify, that as soon as I neglected prayer, my fear of God began to decline, and my reverence for his name and house decreased. I have always considered this as the first step to ruin; and happy shall I be if any, who may be disposed to act the same part, should consider, arid take the alarm, before they restrain prayer on their knees before God. Well has a pious writer remarked with reference to prayer, ‘If neglected once, another and another excuse will arise for neglecting it again and again; a chain with one link broken no longer binds, and a habit of duty once broken, may cease to be a habit.’ Such I have found it, and such doubtless have many others. True, my prayers were not of much value as a spiritual offering; but they constantly kept up an awe of God upon my mind, and were a restraint upon me in committing flagrant sins.”

yet reconciled to profanity: he goes further, by pointing out the impropriety of their conduct in other things, and warning them of the consequences. By degrees, however, he becomes more tolerant of their sins, and less offecided by their dissipation. They rally him, ridicule him, and flatter him by turns, and on some fine sabbath evening persuade him to accompany them in a ramble into the country. After a little hesitation, he consents, enjoys himself and is merry, though not altogether without the smiting of conscience. In a sabbath or two the Sunday party is again formed, and the authority of God again resisted and despised. Once a day is now thought quite enough for public worship, and the morning being given to God, the evening may be given to pleasure, especially by one who is all the week shut up in a close town, and who has no opportunity except on a Sunday, to see the country, or breathe fresh air. The same argument, once admitted to be valid, is soon applied to the morning service, and the whole sabbath is at length given to recreation.

Conscience, however, has not suffered him to go thus far without frequent stings and warnings. A letter from home occasionally disturbs him. His father has been informed of his altered conduct, and, in grief of heart, expostulates, entreats, and warns. First he is sorrowful, then he is angry, then inwardly uneasy; but the jest of a sinful companion scatters every better thought, and he is determined to go on. He is now the constant associate of evil doers, who have gained an ascendency over him, and are leading him further and further astray. To calm the apprehensions of his parents, and to silence the remonstrances from home, he writes a penitential letter, and gives promises of amendment. Lying and hypocrisy are now added to his other sine, and are dreadful auxiliaries to benumb the conscience and harden the heart. A celebrated actor comes to the town, or is to appear at one of the theatres, and he is solicited to go to the performance; he is now prepared for this, and readily assents. Every thing fascinates him. His senses, imagination, heart, taste, are all carried away captive. His soul is in a state of mental intoxication. He acquires a passion for the stage, and as often as his means and opportunity will allow, he is at the theatre. Intelligence again reaches home, and again his shocked and heart-stricken parents write, and entreat him to alter his conduct, or return to them: but he can now treat a father’s advice with contempt, and a mother’s tears with cruel indifference. The theatre, as we have already shown, is the resort of those unhappy women, of whom the wise man says, “their house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.” He is caught in the snare, and ruined. He is horror struck when reflection comes, and in an agony of expiring virtue exclaims, “What have I done?” Conscience is not quite dead, nor shame quite extinguished. To still the remonstrances of the troublesome monitor within, he revisits the scene where so many are assembled like himself, to drown their sorrows, or to blunt remorse. The death of a friend or relative occurs, which renders it necessary that he should attend a funeral, perhaps hear a funeral sermon. The Book of God, and his faithful servant, now proclaim the sinfulness of sin and the sinner’s everlasting doom. He trembles, but repents not. Revelation now haunts him like a spectre, and disturbs him in his course. If he persist in sinning, he must get rid of this troublesome interference. Is the Bible true? Some one of his companions is a sceptic, and now labours for his conversion to infidelity. Byron’s poetry prepares the way for Hume’s subtleties, Paine’s ribaldry, or Owen’s absurdities. Christianity is now called a fable; man’s accountability a mere dogma of cunning priests; and hell only the picture of a gloomy superstition, to hold the mind of man in bondage. He throws off the yoke of religion; exults in his liberty; yields his members servants to uncleanness, adds iniquity unto iniquity, and runs to every excess of riot. But whence come the funds to support his lusts? His father cannot supply them, nor his wages; but secret pilfering can, and does. If he can escape detection, what has he to fear? “Man is the creature of circumstances,” and his circumstances compel him to rob his master: and as to a hereafter, it is all a dream. Gambling is now added to his other crimes. Shame is lost, nay he glories in his shame and commences the trade of ruining others, — corrupting the principles of one sex, and the morals of the other. With a character composed of every darkest shade of human depravity, let his closing scene be narrated in the next chapter, which, by a melancholy fact, confirms the representation here given. Not that I mean to assert that all who go astray in youth reach this climax; but many do, and all are in danger of it.

What, then, are the maxims arising out of this representation, which every young man should always bear in mind?

1. That sin is the most deceitful thing in the universe, as manifested by the insidious manner in which it leads on the transgressor in his way; and the excuses with which at every stage of his progress it furnishes him.

2. Those who would not be found walking in the path of sin, should not take the first step in it. Avoid first sins: they always, or nearly so, lead on to others. It is far easier to abstain from the first sin than the second. No temptation of Satan has been more successful than the suggestion, “ONLY THIS ONCE.” That once may be your ruin for ever. Acts may be repeated, and come to habits. No sin comes alone, but stands in close connexion with others which they teach us to commit, and often afford us an opportunity to commit.

3. Carefully avoid little sins, for they usually lead on to greater ones. No sin is abstractly little, but comparatively, some sins are greater than others. It is by inducing you to commit these, that Satan will prepare you for, and lead you on to practices of greater enormity. When under the influence of temptation, though it be to a seemingly trivial fault, always ask the question, “What will this grow to?”

4. Be very watchful against common sins. It is wonderful to think what boldness sinners often derive from this circumstance, and how hard it is to persuade th.em of the danger of what is common, and generally practised. Even good men are sometimes carried away with prevailing and epidemic sins. How frequent is the remark, “If this be sinj I am not singular in the commission of it; there are many other guilty as well as I.” Common sins lead to uncommon ones. If we follow others in what is evil in little things, we are preparing ourselves to follow evil examples in greater matters.

5. Take care not to be misled by names. Look at things as they are, and do not consider them merely by the terms employed to express them. “Wo to them,” said the prophet, “that call evil good, and good evil.” This is often done; vice is called virtue, and virtue vice. Thus excess and intemperance are often called, and unhappily deemed by many, a social disposition and good fellowship. Levity, folly, and even obscenity, are called youthful spirit, boyish cheerfulness, innocent liberty, and good humour. Pride, malice, and revenge, are called honour, spirit, and dignity of mind. Vain pomp, luxury, and extravagance, are styled taste, elegance, and refinement. Under such disguises does sin often conceal itself, and by such means does it entrap the unwary, and conciliate their regard. Do not then be cheated out of virtue by the change of names; lift up the disguise, and realize the nature of things. This deceit also discovers itself by its counterpart in disparaging true piety and goodness by the most opprobrious titles. Tenderness of conscience is called ridiculous precision, narrowness of mind, and superstitious fear; zeal against sin is moroseness, or ill-nature; seriousness of mind is repulsive melancholy; superior sanctity is disgusting hypocrisy. Wow as nothing tends more to discredit goodness than to give it an ill name, and as not a few are led more by names than things, I cannot give you a more important piece of advice, than to admonish you to be upon your guard against this deception, of covering sin with the garb of virtue, and branding virtue with the name of sin.

6. Study well the peculiar temptations of the new situation into which you are introduced, and anticipate, so far as it can be done, by what snare you are likely to be tempted and led astray. Look around, and survey your circumstances, that ascertaining as far as possible by what door temptation will approach, you may be the better prepared to meet it.

Remember, it is of great consequence to your future conduct and character, how you act immediately on arriving at your new situation. The first steps in the path of goodness or of sin, are, I repeat with emphasis, frequently taken very soon after a young man leaves home.

I now entreat your solemn attention to the narrative in the next chapter.