Young Men
WM. GUEST, F. G. S.,
REV. J. D. WELLS, D. D.
American Tract Society
New York
TO
GEORGE WILLIAMS, ESQ.
TREASURER OF THE LONDON ASSOCIATION,
AND
To the various Members of theYoung Men’s Christian Associationsin the United Kingdom andAmerica:
To you I beg to offer the four followingaddresses—they may be helpful in your servicefor young men. Thousands there arewho watch your Associations with deep andgrateful interest. By some persons, it maybe, your aims are misunderstood. I havenever learned that you condemned other literaryand recreative associations; but youhave felt that there was room for one distinctively[4]Christian. You do not frown onjoy and pastime; you do not disparageliterary education; but you have not beenashamed to avow that your object is to saveyoung men from irreligion, and to promoteamong yourselves spiritual and Christianculture. To not a few it therefore appearsthat not only are your associations amongthe very noblest, but that they preëminentlymeet the demand of these times. Reading-roomsand opportunities for social enjoymentare doubtless most desirable, but it is truepiety that is the safety and mainspring ofprosperity to a community.
To the best and most distinguished menof this era it seems that the stability andprogress of the great Christian nations dependupon the maintenance of Christianityin its integrity, and as honestly derived fromthe supernatural teaching of the New TestamentScriptures. We have, however, come[5]upon an age of the gravest perils. What hasbeen the spring-head and occasioner of theseperils? This: Men have become estrangedfrom intercourse with God, and from thethoughts of the holy and spiritual world.No longer living in believing relation tothe Father of their spirits, they have lostthe light whereby all things become luminousand harmonized. Three errors now laystraight in their path; and to one or otherof these, according to temperament, theyhave been drawn: materialistic worldliness,that inclines man’s whole attentions to theinterests, pleasures, and gains of the worldof sense; scientific atheism, whereby a smallminority, happily, of scientific expoundersattempt to bow God out of his universe, andto resolve all creation into spontaneous lifeand self-development; intellectual rationalism,that makes man his own savior, deniessin and atonement, moral weakness and Divine[6]grace. It would appear as if Satan’slast and deadliest assault upon the hopes andprogress of the race was to be the denial ofthe self-existent God. Assuredly, let thecontrol of this belief go, and this vital consciousnessbe lost, and the wide floodgatesof iniquity and of lawlessness will be opened,and nothing can save millions from relapsinginto barbarism. Even Mr. Buckle has taughtthat a materialistic philosophy led the wayto the horrors of the French Revolution. Atsuch a t