Five Young Men Part 1

Five Young Men.

by Charles Reynolds Brown.

Preface

These addresses were given in the United Church on the Green, New Haven, Connecticut, on the Sunday evenings of Lent. The audiences were made up largely of men, many of them Yale students. I have brought the addresses together in this little book with the hope that they may have a certain value in their appeal to a wider audience of young men who in school and college, in their homes and in business life, are making those determinations which will decide the issue for them in those exacting years which are before us.

It has been given to us to live through one of the great crises of the world's history. In these days the hearts of men are being tried as by fire. If it is "wood, hay and stubble" that we are putting into our personal moral structures, into the purposes and methods which rule our industrial life and into our national temper and fiber, then we may expect to see our work destroyed. The only qualities which will stand the test are those qualities which are symbolized by "gold, silver and precious stones."

C. R. B.

_Yale University._

I

The Young Man Who Was a Favourite Son

Which would you say is the harder to bear, adversity or prosperity? I am not sure. If I were a betting man I would not know on which horse to put my money.

The Bible says, "The destruction of the poor is their poverty." The narrowness and the meagreness of their lives, the lack of access to the highest interests seems to drive them oftentimes into the coa.r.s.er forms of indulgence which are their undoing. The Bible also says, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of G.o.d." The millionaire who strives to be thoroughly Christian in all his att.i.tudes and actions, in the secret desires which rule his own soul and in the relations he sustains to his fellow men by reason of his wealth has a hard task. In every great city you will find the sons of millionaires falling down or flinging themselves away in thoughtless dissipation where the sons of toil are standing up and making good.

Here, for example, was a young man who was born on the sunny side of the street. He was the son of a rich man, and the favourite son. He was handsome--"It came to pa.s.s that Joseph was a goodly person and well favoured." He was habitually well dressed--"His father gave him a coat of many colours," which there in the Orient marked him as a young man of style. He had a vivid imagination and was a good talker. He was a young man of parts and his story was so interesting to those early Hebrews that here in the Book of Genesis thirteen full chapters are given to his personal history.

Let me notice three points in his career--first, his early unpopularity. You do not have to know Hebrew to understand why he was not as popular as Santa Claus. He was his father's favourite, which is a heavy load for any child to bear. He lived in a family where there were four sets of children. His father had married two wives, Rachel who was handsome because he loved her, and Leah who was "tender-eyed,"

the Scripture says, because she was the daughter of his employer at that time and it was good business. There were also children who had been born to the two housemaids, according to the easy customs of that far-off time and place. Joseph was the son of Rachel, the favourite wife, and her favourite son. He wore the signs of this parental popularity in the gay coat of many colours. It was almost inevitable that he should become vain and overbearing.

He was also a talebearer. He looked down with unconcealed contempt upon his half-brothers who were the sons of the housemaids. "When Joseph was with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah he brought unto his father their evil report."

The tattler in the school and the squealer on the street come in, justly perhaps, for the contempt of their fellows. And whatever allowance may be made for exceptional situations, the instinct which brands the talebearer as mean is mainly wholesome. It was One who knew what was in man who said, "Why beholdest thou the mote in thy brother's eye and considerest not the beam in thine own eye? Judge not that ye be not judged." It is well for every man to sweep his own dooryard first before he begins to peddle stories as to the condition of his neighbour's dooryard.

This young man also had his full share of that conceit which thinks quite as highly of itself as it ought to think. He had his daydreams, and this was well. I would not give a fig for the young fellow who does not see ahead of him ma.s.ses of possible achievement in his particular line as high as the Sierras, if not quite so solid. But Joseph was soft and callow enough to tell his day-dreams to his fellows before he had done anything to indicate that those dreams might come true.

He told his brothers that he would be the tallest sheaf in the field and that they as lesser sheaves would come and make obeisance before him. He went still further and included his elders and betters in that general bowing down. He said, "Behold the sun and moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me." He saw himself as the centre of the whole solar system and the rest of his family revolving about him as minor satellites. This day-dream of the ambitious young man was too much even for his indulgent father. "And Jacob rebuked him for his dream."

There you have all the necessary ingredients for a family explosion.

When any young man is a favourite son, and a talebearer, and is filled to the eyes with self-conceit, he has in him the sulphur, the saltpeter, and the charcoal which enter into the composition of that sort of gunpowder which is liable to blow him up. You do not wonder that his brothers hated him. You are not surprised that when they saw him coming across the fields at Dothan they said with a sneer, "Behold, the dreamer cometh!"

We might naturally expect that they would conspire against him. They proposed to see whether or not this conceited young tattler would become the tallest sheaf in the field and the centre of the whole solar system there in little Canaan. He had himself to thank for getting in wrong with his a.s.sociates. He was not showing the qualities which make for peace and joy and advancement.

But in the second place he was sent early in life to the school of adversity. The place where he "prepared" was not much like "The Hill"

or Hotchkiss; it bore no resemblance whatever to Andover or Exeter. He took all the grades in the commonest of all common schools. He was under the tuition of struggle and difficulty. He was a Freshman, then a Soph.o.m.ore, a Junior and a Senior in the University of Experience, where the college colours are always "black and blue" because the lessons are learned by hard knocks. He learned obedience by the things that he suffered. He had the conceit taken out of him by being knocked down. He knew the meaning of the word "discipline," so that he could have spelled it and pa.r.s.ed it forward and backwards and crosswise.

He was tried in these three ways: first, by being sold as a slave boy into Egypt. His father sent him out to Dothan to see how his brothers were faring with their flocks. When they saw him coming across the plain they said, "Behold the dreamer! Let us cast him into a pit and see what will become of his dreams."

His brothers seized him and threw him into a deep well, where there was no water, intending to let him die in that horrible way. But when a company of Ishmaelites came along on their way to Egypt, a happier thought struck those men. Judah, who was always a thrifty soul, said, "What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood?"

There is no money in murder. "Let us sell him to the Ishmaelites."

Here was the proverbial instinct, an eye for the main chance, already on its feet and doing business in the very childhood of that race, which has enjoyed such marked success in commercial pursuits. "Let us sell him and let not our hand be upon him, for"--here emerges Mr.

Pecksniff, who is much older than the time of d.i.c.kens--"for he is our brother and our flesh." His argument was plausible and the men drew Joseph out of the pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites who carried him down into Egypt. Now the hands of the ten men were not stained with innocent blood and they were also twenty pieces of silver to the good.

How human and how modern were the mental processes of those crafty men!

The man who decides to coin his brother's life into money instead of killing him with an axe has chosen so much milder a form of wrong-doing that he feels almost virtuous. "Let us not slay our brother"--that has an atrocious sound. It smacks of the doings of gunmen. Let not our hand be upon him for he is our fles.h.!.+

"But let us sell him"--this is so much more humane! Let us burn out his energy swiftly in the long hard hours of the steel mill to make our profits large. When he is exhausted before his time we can sc.r.a.p him, flinging him aside to make room for a fresh hand. Let us set the pace in the factory so sharp that the man in middle life cannot hold it--he will be compelled to drop out and tramp the streets in search of a job, while some younger man takes up his work. Let us keep the wages of the working girl so near the danger line that unless she is splendidly fortified with moral stamina she may be tempted after she has sold her days to greed to add to her income by selling her nights to shame.

Let not our hands be stained by the murder of our own flesh and blood--let us sell them in these more delicate and refined ways to increase the toll of profits! The voice of Judah is still heard in the land. There on the plains of Dothan this favourite son fell into the hands of greed and was sold as a slave boy into the land of Egypt.

He was also tested by the accusations of an evil-minded woman. When the Ishmaelites disposed of him in Egypt he was purchased by Potiphar, an officer in Pharaoh's guard. He was made a house servant. He showed himself diligent and faithful and was advanced until he was the overseer of Potiphar's whole establishment.

He was a handsome young Hebrew, his complexion being much fairer than that of the dark-skinned Egyptians. He attracted the attention and won the admiration of Potiphar's wife, who was an evil-minded, faithless creature. As Joseph went about the house in the discharge of his duties she approached him repeatedly with her solicitations to evil.

He did not look her in the eye, as Billy Sunday suggests in his brisk way, and say, "Nothing doing." He said something infinitely better than that--"There is none greater in this house than I. My master hath kept back nothing from me but thee. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against G.o.d."

He was not one of those men who do in Rome as the Romans do, who do in New York as Broadway does, even though that may mean a less wholesome type of conduct than they are accustomed to put up in their home towns.

He was a man of principle wherever he was placed. How can I sin against G.o.d!

Heaven be praised for men of principle and for men who are not afraid!

A well-to-do Harvard student in one of the dormitories was shaving one morning when a wretched woman of the street slipped into his room through the door which he had left ajar. She shut the door and with her back against it said to him, "Give me fifty dollars instantly or I will scream for help." He looked around at her and said, "Yell away"--and went on with his shaving. He knew that his own life was clean. He had lived as a man of integrity and he felt that his statement would be taken anywhere against hers, because it was worth one hundred cents on the dollar. And she knew it--so she slunk out like a whipped cur. If he had compromised with her or had given her a dollar, he might have been in for endless trouble and disgrace.

But Joseph was not in Cambridge--he was in Egypt. He was not a well-known Harvard student--he was only a slave boy there in the house of his master. When this woman whom he had repulsed made her ugly, lying accusation against him she was believed and he was thrown into prison.

What indeed has now become of his dreams! He was a stranger in a strange land. He was a slave who had been jailed on an ugly charge.

He must have felt that he was a long way from becoming the tallest sheaf in the field or the brightest star in the sky.

He was also tested by the ingrat.i.tude of those whom he had befriended.

While he was in jail he did not for one hour give up his hope of advancement. He kept right on, attending the school of those instructors whose names are printed in the catalogue as Professor Adversity, Professor Difficulty and Doctor Discipline. He found them most capable teachers. They did not teach him much of that which is found in text-books, but they were teaching him to be a man, which after all is the main object of all education.

When Joseph was knocked down he did not wait for some Red Cross nurse to come with "first aid to the injured." He got right up and was there on the mat ready for the next round. And the young fellow with that sort of stuff in him learns, I care not how soft, callow and conceited he may have been in his "prep. school" days.

He was in prison, but since nothing better offered he would show himself the best prisoner behind those bars. He bore the false accusation of that lying woman without a word of recrimination lest he should injure the honour of his master, who had befriended him when he was in his employ. He spent his days not in laziness nor in vice, not in repining and dejection. He bore himself with such a thoughtful, unselfish spirit that he won the favour of the warden and was made a kind of overseer among the prisoners of his ward.

He won the regard and confidence of his fellow prisoners by his sympathetic interest in their welfare. When they were perplexed they came to him. The butler and the baker from Pharaoh's household were imprisoned for some fault, and when they dreamed Joseph interpreted to them their dreams in skillful fas.h.i.+on. And when the butler was pardoned out a few days later, according to Joseph's prediction, he promised to remember his friend when once more he stood in Pharaoh's presence.

But after the manner of many he forgot all about his fellow prisoner in the joy of his own release. Joseph still lingered in jail. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless friend! There in the jail he drank to the dregs the cup of ingrat.i.tude.

But read on, read on! The Lord has not let His voice fall yet. This is not a period--it is only a comma or semicolon. The mills of the G.o.ds grind slow, but they grind; and to every man who merits it a good grist comes at last. Read on!

There came a night when Pharaoh dreamed. The monarch saw seven fat cows come up out of the River Nile, which was the source of all fertility there in the Delta. Then he saw seven lean cows come up out of the river and they ate up the seven fat cows and yet remained as lean and hungry as they had been before. In the morning Pharaoh called for his wise men and his magicians, but they could make nothing of it.

Then the chief butler remembered his fault. He remembered Joseph who had interpreted his own dream in yonder prison. He told Pharaoh of that strange experience, and the monarch promptly sent for this gifted young Hebrew. "Seest thou a man diligent in his business he shall stand before kings." Joseph had shown himself diligent in his business as a servant in the house of Potiphar, and as a prisoner he had made himself useful to the warden of the jail. Now he is summoned to stand before the ruler of all the land of Egypt.

He is the same man in name as when he walked across the fields of Dothan with his heart full of conceit, but how much he has learned!

His coat of many colours has been replaced by the dull gray of the prison garb. He has acquired new moods and new methods and a finer quality of manhood. When Pharaoh called upon him to interpret his strange dream, Joseph replied modestly, "It is not in me.

Interpretations belong to G.o.d. And G.o.d shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace." It was in this mood of reverent, expectant awe that he undertook the interpretation of the monarch's dream.