Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-02-23
A SERMON FOR BOYS.

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A SERMON FOR BOYS.
Indoor and Outdoor Work and Recrea-
tion-The Boys Who Prove the Winners
in the Contests of Manhood-A Doctors
Views.
One morning, some years ago,
walked with DR.. Phillips Brooks from
the playground of St. Paul's school to
the chapel, where heard him preach,
to the boys, great sermon, seventeen
minutes long.
The text was: Render to Caesar the
things that are Caesars" The man
who is not at times boy is not much
of man. AS for my preacher friend
he has always lowered on the verge of
boyhood, and his sermon showed how
friendly to boys his large inclusive
ness enabled him to be. He said that
al relations in life are like tax-gather-
ers, and should have their dues. A
boy, he said, has duties to God, to his
country, to his school, to himself.
The thought of a boys duties to him.
self brought back to memory the text
which is strong enough to be the seed
of many sermons of many kinds.
The duties now referred to are not
such as the preacher meant, or not al
together these. am speaking now as
a doctor, to boys old enough to think,
and shall leave to others to say how
much boys should study; nor shall l,
least of all men, advise them against
hard, mental work in youth, because 1
think that regular, steady use of the
brain makes all the mental labor of
manhood more easy.
But this conviction is not inconsist-
ent with hearty appreciation of a
scrimmage at football, nor with that
sturdy feeling of the boys, that the
games which are without risks are poor
things. For they are deficient in the
qualities which make boyhood games
useful for training youth in courage,
self-control, discipline, calmness and
general suppression of emotion, and
that it is this training which gives
value to cricket, baseball and football.
In spite of games, gymnasiums and
the increased knowledge which
the men of this generation
have of the laws of health, one
still sees many sick young folks. Some
of the ills to be observed are incidents
of life, some are it's accidents, and
come down from the sins or follies of
grandparents; but, many are due to
causes which sadden us to think about,
and cause one to long for more city
Fairgrounds, and to wish to make
Woodlands for summer month of
some of these little fellows deprived of
the rights of childhood.
In the richer classes of life, where
the chances for health are better, they
are lessened too often, because boys are
stupid and do not enjoy fifty the noble
citizenship of boyhood, or because par
ents are inert, or lack insight. 1t is
mostly among this class. the easy class,
that we see the weakly boys, tallow-
colored and sluggish, who struggle
along and are more and more damaged
because they do not like sports or dread
to compete with their fearless COM
rades. Every school-boy knows all the
varieties of this kind; the weakling
who reads and reads, good books or
poor, but does nothing else; the fellow
who studies, and finds no time for
play; the merely accumulative boy who
collects, but has no joy in the search.
Last week asked pasty-faced lad
what game he liked best He said:
collecting postage stamps" Then
he volunteered the remark that his
brother had a splendid collection of
eggs, but that these were all bought
from other boys. He had never found
an egg for himself
The boy who collected postage
stamps had dyspepsia, and it was said
that he liked to play croquet. These
are the business boys. If live until
that fellow is fifty years, which is inn
probable, he will come to me with n
large liver, having cleverly become
rich, and, in getting money, forgotten
its uses.
The out-of-door boys do not greatly
enrich the doctor, and escape many of
the ills which beset the lazy. 1t is odd
how rare are certain disorders among
boys in the country, where fellows
must be out-of-doors so much. Every
spring have good crop of young pa
tients, fabby lads, with mushy mus
Giles, who twitch and squirm and drop
things and wink at you wildly and are
getting st. Vitus' dance. 1t is apt to
be an indoor boy who falls prey to
this saint, and the country lad seldom
gets into his clutches.
There is another kind of boy who
should live out-of-doors. He is the
timid. emotional, merely nervous boy,
apt to be labeled "girl-boy." Fine
temperaments fall to these lads often,
and none are more easily misunder-
stood. The fellow will not fight; all
risks appal him. If in the water, he
likes to feel bottom. He has good
chance of going to pieces early; but if
he lives he comes to something. and
only needed kindly help to have given
him in youth the sturdiness he misses
so much in later life.
l will recall two such fellows. We
used to try to make them fight one an