These generally form a very considerable class of our
members, and have duties to perform appropriate to their age and station.
They should be very watchful against the sins to which the ardor and
inexperience of their years may expose them. They should flee youthful
lusts, and be very cautious to abstain from vanity and
self-conceit. Their introduction at so early a period to the church, is
very apt, in some cases, to inflate them with pride, to invest them with
self-importance, and impair that modesty of deportment, which is the
loveliest ornament of their character. In all their conduct towards the
church, there should be an amiable retiredness of disposition. They
should be seen at the church meetings—but very rarely heard.
It is difficult to conceive of a more disgusting or mischievous spectacle,
than a young member dogmatically stating his opinion, and
pertinaciously enforcing it, before men who were grey in the service of
God, before his head was covered with the down of infancy.
Young Christians should be very careful not to form
matrimonial connections, in opposition to the apostolic injunction, "not
to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers." Both reason and revelation
unite their testimony against the practice of Christians marrying ungodly
people. What an interruption to marital comfort, what an obstacle to
domestic piety, what an injury to the cause of religion, does such a
practice bring with it!
There is one way, in which young Christians may bring
great reproach upon the cause of God, and that is by engaging the affections
of a female, and then abandoning her. This is a species of cruelty which
certainly deserves, and always receives, the severest reprobation. It is
dishonorable in a man of the world, much more in a church member.