YOUTH would eat unwholesome things and walk in hurtful ways, because they are pleasant for the time being, and do not, in their first impressions, show him the mischief. Knowledge, parentally enforced where there is wisdom, steps in and says, “Don’t”. The child either has loving confidence in the restriction, and submits willingly to the disagreeable denial to find out afterwards the sweetness of wisdom; or dislikes the “don’t” and yields only to compulsion, but afterwards to discover the same lesson. Youth grown up, i.e., men and women, old and young, shows the same tendency to be led by the appearance of things, but lacks, in the absence of the kingdom of God, the guidance which is the privilege of some children. In most things, they judge by proximate sensations, and consequently, go astray. It is pleasant to be free from restraint, and therefore, they go, “every one to his own way”, to find at last that the pleasant ways of the natural man incline to darkness and death.

ROBERT ROBERTS, Seasons of Comfort, pages 139,140.

Proverbs

7My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee. Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye. Bind them upon thy fingers, write them upon the table of thine heart. Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman: That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words. For at the window of my house I looked through my casement, And beheld among the simple ones, I discerned among the youths, a young man void of understanding, Passing through the street near her corner; and he went the way to her house, In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night: And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and subtil of heart. (She is loud and stubborn; her feet abide not in her house: Now is she without, now in the streets, and lieth in wait at every corner.) So she caught him, and kissed him, and with an impudent face said unto him, I have peace offerings with me; this day have I payed my vows. Therefore came I forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee. I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt. I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning: let us solace ourselves with loves. For the goodman is not at home, he is gone a long journey: He hath taken a bag of money with him, and will come home at the day appointed. With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with the flattering of her lips she forced him. He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks; Till a dart strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life. Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.