Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1897-07-23

progress and that of any who may
be following in your footsteps? If
so, and only if so, are you praying
Alright and treating God as father
aud friend. Mans most effectual
prayer TO God is a course of faithful
service in lis name.
] said that God and the teachers
who have III this Book recorded his
will appear peculiarly sollcitous about
the young. "Remember thy creator
in the days of thy youth, etc" My
son, give NE thy heart" "Those
that he plarted i'll the House of the
Lord shall flourish in the Courts of
our God; they shall still bring forth
fruit in old age" "Bring up child
IN the way he shall go and when he
is old he will not depart from it."
That our sons may grow mp like
corner stones in the house of the
Lord and thy daughters like the
polished pillars of a palace"
These and numberless passages of
like import that you may recall bear
witness to Gods benevolence-Jenec.
Ole''ce, mind you, not Indulgence, to
wards youth. His whole dealing
with mankind shows that He has in
mind, not religious hothouse in
which to experiment with and force
exotic growth, but "A christian school
In which the children of the house.
hold may be brought up and normal
ly developed. The process is in the
text figuratively called cleansing
O'ae'S 'cay "Wherewithal shall
young man cleanse his way?" Every
age in life has its own peculiar OBJ
structions and hindrances. And if it
is progress that he is after, no path
way needs cleansing more than that
ofyouth. The sharp stones of opposi
tion TO way wardness, over which he
stumbles aud is bruised in his con
tact with a world not so sympathetic
as he expected it to be-every Young
man knows of them; the briars and
thorns of envy, jealousy, conceit,
temper, selfwill, ever vex and prick
his not yet hardened feet-you
have all felt them: the lurid poison.
Gus flowers of temptation whose
name Is legion-temptation TO extrav
agance of living, to disregard of law,
truth, honesty, purity; the mire of
contaminating society and compan
ionship; the slime of vicious habits
dragging one to degradation of life:
to lose self respect and the respect
of the virtue of Others-these things
and many more are to be removed
from the way by every young man
who would make legitimate pr. gress.
And God knows, whatever cautions
and precepts apply to the right
training of our young men benefit
only too well the young women of
this generation. If, in the crazy
rush after things strange and new
we connive at the removal of those
very barriers which once made wo-
man womanly as apart from her
sterner protector, if woman shows
herself unfortunately eager to enter
th' race for preferment and emolu.
ment with man,-then, must she too
learn to cleanse the way from obstruc
tlons, from briars and thorns and
Infamous weeds, such as she would
never in Gods providence have
known. These very ''fads" arc,
themselves bindrances to tha4 christ.
ians' worth and heipfullness for
which it is our proper business to
strive. The Bible knows nothing of
an artificial guage which compares
woman's brains with mans with
view to opening eyes to rights" and
privileges and emoluments of posi-
tion such as she only attains with
loss OF womaniy dignity
But, it may be asked, why, if
progress is ones aim, should he
stop to remove distractions over
which, in the exuberant vitality of
OF youth he can step or climb?
Why cleanse way over which one
never needs pass but once? Silly as
the question appears, it is the selfish
protest, under cover of which we push
our schemes with a ''Devil.take-the-
hindmost inhumanity that lie simply
appalling, If am in pursuit of leg
itImate calling, and if in any sense L