Sermon at Union Church by the Rev. C, E. Darwent.
Suffer har LI Tim. li. 3.
The letter from our friend the " Griffin" has given me an opportunity of proaching on a subject that has been on my mind for a long time, I wanted something @ propos of it, and kindly Providence sent mo the griffin's letter. Then, when I wanted a text with which to link it wonderful book, contain a letter I the old warrior spostle's etter to his young friend Timothy, who happened tobe a griffin in the ministry. And this is what Paul tells him is the first condition of success in his business "to endure hardness," to learn to do without things. You cannot have all you want, all your passions and comfort and pleasures demand. It is because they will not see this there are so many sorry El us.
And this is true of life generally; no young man will make a man of himself-unless he is prepared to "suffer hardship," to deny himself luxuries, to "scorn delights and live laborious days"-as Milton says he did; unless he is prepared to put up with deprivations. He may makes mannikin, a Syberite, a self-indulgent fop, {an "old boy" in his old age) but not a. man in the full heroic sense of the word. The beginning of all greatness of charac. ter is learning to do without things, and being contented to do without them for higher good. The young man who will have everything he likes hes no future. He has no grit, no stamina, no backbone, 'ithe young fellow who wants a c and has it though he cannot afford it; ana goes to the theatre when he cannot afford it, and lives in a first-rate style when he can only afford second-rate, has failed in his first stop in life. We grow by what we refuse. His moral grit is gone.
Tf you cannot afford a thing go without it and be content. Until you learn that you have not learnt the alphabet of the moral or religious life. Above all, a man who gets into debt for thing he can do without ix lost. As, I think, Horace Greeley said: " If you can only afford to dine on split peas, while sitting on a doorstep to eat them, do so rather than get into debt at a hotel." There is. nothing men of the day need learn more than this. Oh that young men of to-day would learn this lesson! To live more simply, to learn to do without: luxuries- To cease to whine ecause they cannot tart where their taipans avd fathers have ended O that they bad more moral grit and self-denial The men who. have made history have learnt this. Lincoln often dined on raw peeled potatoes, und if many Scots have succeeded in life more, it has not been because they are cleverer than others, but because they learned in a hard boyhood how to do without thing:
Now for our good Griffin, and. hi budget. The income is $2,200 " year. This yields four whiskies and sodas a day. 'I tremble to think how many the: Grifin would have had on double his income. Clearly $400 a month would have ruined him, But now for the budget. I would remark first that when we come out we may not be worth more than the grifiin's salary. Let us be modest about ourselves, Ikuow young wen who are happily married, as a fact, on the grifiin's income.
are quite solvent and happy. Board $95. Let the Betting it stand, seeing he gots food, fin take cheaper quarters; still oven
shelter (and service), two of man's prime necessities for that sum, ho does very well.
Clothing. Surely $180 for the first year is too much! He ought only to need summer clothing. I found $100 ample. And do not let him despise white ducks! Some of us wear them ourselves; we find them more comfortable than clothes needing high collars in the hot weather! They are quite respectable and Jast. The griffin's dozen suits will last seven years (credo experto), so they work out cheaply. As for the Club. Very nice: but not necessary (though it is $7 a month not $10). I am acquainted with the griffin's hong and can vouch that there are pumper of excellent follows in it, with some of whom he could have made friend: Then there are the Churches (which the griffin leaves out of account Iam sorry to say.) Remember Horace Greeley's split pei Drinks, $2 a mouth! 8} per cent-of the salary! No griffin who starts thus will end asataipan! L should say cut cocktails off altogether. Then as to pleasures, Why not have joined the cricket club at first. There he would have had company and the exercise the doctor saw he needs. The first year costs about $40 or $3 4 south, not the griffins $5. What does our excellent griffin want with asiesha. Mine costs $10, and I must be in mine four hours to the griffio's one! But why have one? Dr. Edkins used to walk at eighty year of aye; let the griffin walk and he may live (0 be eighty too (tht isit he knocks the cocktails off). All he nards is three or four dollars for odd rides. And.a carriage to the point for a man needing ex-excise! I have never once hired a carriage for pleasure since I came-to Shanghai.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.