“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? Even by ruling himself after Thy word.” The question of questions this, at the most critical time in his life for every child of Adam who ever grew to manhood on the face of our planet; and so far as human experience has yet gone, the answer of answers. Other answers have been, indeed, forthcoming at all times, and never surely in greater number or stranger guise than at the present time: “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?” Even by ruling himself in the faith “that human life will become more beautiful and more noble in the future than in the past.” This will be found enough “to stimulate the forces of the will, and purify the soul from base passion” urge, with a zeal and ability of which every Christian must desire to speak with deep respect, more than one school of our nineteenth century moralists.

“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?” Even by ruling himself on the faith “that it is probable that God exists, and that death is not the end of life;”[92] or again, “that this is the only world of which we have any knowledge at all.” Either of these creeds, says the philosopher of the clubs, if held distinctly as a dogma and consistently acted on, will be found “capable of producing results on an astonishing scale.” So one would think, but scarcely in the direction of personal holiness, or energy. Meantime, the answer of the Hebrew psalmist, three thousand years ............