Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1860-01-23
Beecher ON Critical Periods In PeO-
ple's Lives.
Extract from sermon reported in Saturdays n. Y
Iudependent-l


Everybody can probably remembersccnes
and courses in his early life which threat
cned has utter destruction, and tho remem-
brance of which causes him to wonder
why lie was not destroyed. There are
many who, when rejecting upon these
things, are constrained to say, 81 never
could undwstand why was not crushed"
They wc,fd have been, had not the way in
which they were going been obstructed by
the grace of God.
i Sometimes men fall in with influences
/ that tend to make them deceitfUl, thieVish,
and lay the foundation for II life of inta-
my. The work goes on like decay i'll an
apple, till tho very core of life seems to be
threatened.
/ We do not know what our children arc
about They generally know least who
think they know most. You rccollcct
how wise you were, and how ignorant
your parents were, when You were
child! Your children have now the same
ideas that you had then in this respect.
You do not know what boys or girls are
thinking of; you do not know what things
are working upon their imagination; you
do not know what habits they arc forming;
YOU do not know what dispositions arc de-
vcloping themselves in them. Parents
whose children are not in confidential i'll
tGECOuISG NIlu luCIIl3 IttNG Nv NHAiSSE"'St%
of the influences operating on the minds
of those children, which, if not removed
or counteracted in some way, will accom-
plsh their ruin.
Can you not call to mind lurking ini-
quities which preycd upon you in your
youth, and which, had not some unexpect-
ed event brought them to light, would
have destroyed you before the end of an
other six months? l can. ] rccollect three
or four instances in which it seems to me
that if certain occurrences had not taken
place Just as they did, ] should have been
ovcrthrown. If had not been taken ont
of Boston at one time, as ! was, do not
see what would have prevented me from
going to destruction. | look back upon
passionate moments, upon moments Of
willfulness, which would have led me to
serious disaster, had not events, in the
providence of God, TRANSFERRED to check me
in my course, and change my career.
How often are men, when they look back
upon their lives, and see how narrowly
they escaped evil, more alarmed than they
were at the time. The beginnings of de-
ccit, the beginnings of lying, the begin
nings of dishonesty, the beginnings of
gambling, the beginnings of intemper"ncSs,
the beginnings of lusts-hOw are these Of
tcntimcs met and checked, not because the
parents eye sees them, but by some out
ward providence.
You were snatched out of one college
and taken to another. Or, there came
Death into your family; and then it seemed
rs if every hope of prosperity was de-
stroycd; and yet, this event merely caused
breaking up of your ordinary circum-
stances. And think that if you review
your history, you will see that many and
many circumstances in your life which
were broken up in some way similar to
this, were critical circumstances, and
would have proved fatal to your character
if they had been allowed to go undis-
turbcd,