Lamentations 3:27

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth." Lam 3:27

From this reference it would appear as if man must of necessity at some period of life undergo the discipline of the yoke. The prophet speaks as if it were commonly known by himself and his contemporaries. Here is no long explanatory introduction, but an immediate use of something with which the people were well acquainted. By "yoke" we are to understand discipline, trial, education, every incident that teaches us the limit of our strength, and the proper range of our ambition. Every man is at some period of life to be mortified, disappointed, humbled, thrown down, and made to feel that he is only a man. The question arises, At what time shall this experience take effect in human life? The prophet has no hesitation in answering the inquiry, for he instantly fixes youth as the period at which discipline shall be undergone. This would appear to be reasonable: are there not compensations in youth which make the yoke-bearing less irksome than it otherwise would be? Youthful spirit soon returns even after humiliation. A kind of collateral life runs along the current of youth, may we not call it a species of alternate life? so that youth can change from one position to another, or from one set of circumstances to another, insomuch that youth can be crying and laughing, groaning and rejoicing, even within the compass of one little day. Besides, is it not important that every man should get his education at the right end of life? We adopt the principle of yoke-bearing in youth in the matter of intellectual education: why not in the matter of the higher moral training and chastening? Who puts off the learning of the alphabet until he is well advanced in life? Who at middle life could begin to commit to memory the things which almost seem to grow up in the mind of childhood and to abide there for ever? Yet the child must be constrained to undergo the discipline needful to the acquisition of elementary knowledge. His play must be curtailed, his inclinations must be rebuked, his indolence must be overcome; it is for the child's good that his parents should insist upon the acceptance of the yoke, otherwise the child will grow up to be an ignorant man. Is it not also true that in youth passion is most violent, and might hurry the young life into the uttermost excesses were it not curbed or cooled or in some degree restrained? Hence it is important that young life should be filled with work, should be almost exhausted at times by long-continued labour. The profit is not seen in the labour alone; behind all the labour there are moral advantages which can hardly be described in words: passion is subdued, pride is mortified, the energy of the will is turned into the right direction, and labour so treated becomes in the end pleasant, as music is pleasant, and easy as breathing is easy. We know what all this is with regard to the learning of a language: how hard at first, how minute the distinctions, how pedantic the regulations, how obstinate and perverse the irregularities and exceptions! Yet after a certain point all things settle down into a happy adjustment, conversation becomes possible, and by the exchange of sentiments friendship is established, and the medium through which this end was attained becomes itself an object of pride and pleasure, and has assigned to it marks of the highest value. What may be expected from one who has borne the yoke well in his youth? I lay special emphasis upon the fact that the yoke must have been borne well. From such a man we expect chastened but not extinguished energy. God does not intend to destroy the passion or the enthusiasm of youth, but to chasten it, sanctify it, and turn it to the highest uses. Paul the Apostle must be as energetic as was Saul of Tarsus, but the energy must be expressed along different lines. Mature saints are not expected to be demure, exhausted, feeble, indolent, or lacking in interest in the pursuits and ambitions of youth: they are expected to take a right view of those pursuits and ambitions, to set a proper estimate upon them, and where the men are wise they will encourage those who are in the very agony of life's race to persevere, because at the end a crown awaits the successful winner. No man has borne his own yoke well who has lived without sympathy for those who are still feeling the burden. The man who has overcome the irksomeness of moral discipline should know exactly where every young man is. He need not explain himself in words, but he should watch the development of the struggle, the increase of the pain, and going back upon his own record he will be able to advise according to his own experience. A word fitly spoken, how good it will be to the young struggler! It need not, and must not, come in the form of a lecture; it must be dropped as it were incidentally, it may even be dropped thoughtlessly, to the observation of the young yoke-bearer himself, but it will not be dropped without calculation on the part of the speaker; he will remember just what he himself wanted to hear at that particular time, and the young man will be surprised that the older one could speak so exquisitely, tenderly, and seasonably upon the very point that was irritating his own life: out of this sympathy will come a corresponding patience with those who are unaccustomed to the yoke. The man will say of the boy, Presently he will be better, he will see the whole matter in the right light; he must not be hurried or driven now, because he is in a state of high sensitiveness, and every word that is spoken to him will come with double weight, and every misunderstanding that is created will come with double aggravation: suspend intercourse, or regulate it, or bring to bear upon the life some sudden and unexpected compensation, and in a hundred wisely devised ways show that more is not expected than can be given; in this way will experience be wisely expended. The right use of this text would renew the life of the world. Foolish parents spare the young, saying, There will be trouble enough by-and-by, let there be lightness and laughter now; and saying again, The old ones must work, and the young ones must play. All this seems to be kind it is indeed set down as generosity and the speakers of these sophisms are looked upon as tender-hearted and considerate. All this estimate must be changed; we must ask ourselves seriously what is the end of all such laxity of discipline. By discipline we must never mean cruelty; by discipline we must never mean the glorification of those who impose it: we must understand by discipline a necessary process of life, something that must really and actually at one time or another take place in the education of every soul. What is the end of trifling with young life? The end of it is bitterness and reproach, and it may be such a recollection of parental names and kind deeds as will awaken in the soul of the sufferer a real and just resentment. On the other hand, discipline carefully administered and wisely regulated, though painful in its immediate operation, may result in many an expression of thanks to God that such parents had charge of the young life. In all these things we need the wisdom of the Holy Ghost; we must pray mightily to God to show us what each child can best endure, what is best for each child; and we must vary the administration of discipline so as to suit it to every temperament and every faculty and even every combination of peculiarities.