How beautiful is all nature in spring! It lies spread out before our eyes in all its grandeur and beauty! The whole earth seems to be covered with a carpet of wondrous beauty and variegated colors. Everything seems to be endowed with new and vigorous life, and begins to grow, and bud and blossom. Even the birds of the air sing with new life and joy the praises of the Most High. Surrounded by silvery clouds, the sun makes his way across the skies, and the higher he rises, the more abundant is vegetable life which his rays call forth. It would seem as if God were looking down with pleasure upon this world as He did on the sixth day after He had created it. It would almost seem as if He were passing silently and unobserved over His creation in order to receive homage from the works of His hands.
   
  Is not the springtime of life, the age of youth, just as glorious and beautiful? What wondrous growth there is in the soul of the child about to develop into the young man or maiden. What a mysterious and vigorous life begins to develop in those years! Who does not rejoice over the years of his youth? Who among the aged does not love to recall the years when his blood flowed vigorous and warm through his veins-----and when the cares, and toils and trials of life were still unknown to him. Who would not wish to live over again the days of his youth, when his eyes undimmed by passion, could look up to Heaven in innocence and joy? To preserve one's youthfulness, and to enjoy in old age the strength of youth unimpaired, is the glory and pride of man.

   But the time of youth is a most decisive, and for this reason, a most serious time of life. From the blossom buds forth the fruit and eventually ripens. Of what use would the beauty, wealth of colors, and the fragrance of the blossom of a tree be, if it bear no fruit? Of what use would the strength and vigor and growth of youth be, if nothing remains for his after life and if no blessing be derived from it for the kingdom of God? We are not born only to enjoy youth and to pluck the roses of life. We grow to the greatness and perfection of life, to which our youth is to lead us. Our life here on earth is not a cheerful and delightful drama, but under the most serene surface there often broods a hidden and bitter earnestness that suddenly envelops us.

   Do we not hear the warning voice coming forth from the very beauty, brightness and glory of spring telling us of this earnestness? When nature lies before us in all its beauty and grandeur, does not the thought suggest itself, how soon, and how quickly will these gay garments of the earth fade away! How soon do flowers wither and their fragrance pass away! The soft green verdure of the fields soon gives place to more somber colors. The sun begins to decline; and as Autumn and Winter draw nigh all nature is surrounded by the torpor of death! Who has not heard the sermon that the all-wise and merciful God preaches to us from the grandness and beauty of spring about the transitoriness, fickleness and vanity of all things earthly?

   And when we behold youth, it would seem that the same voice of God warns us by the beauty and vigor of youthfulness, of the earnestness of life. How soon and how rapidly do the years of our youth pass away? How soon does the freshness of Spring give place to the Summer's heat? The fresh, rosy cheeks of youth soon fade away, and deep wrinkles are engraved upon the countenance. The hair grows white, and the sun of life begins to decline. Like yellow leaves in Autumn, we fall from the tree of life, and are scattered broadcast by the winds of time.

   For this reason God says to youth: Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the time of affliction come, and the years draw nigh of which thou shalt say: They please me not. Young men, and women! You look with mirth and cheerfulness at life and you know not what it conceals for you in the darkness of its bosom and what it will perhaps soon bring you. You know not how bitter and hard the lot of your life may be, and how rough and stony the way you must travel. You know not the forests of sufferings and temptations through which you must pass, and the deep and dark and awful precipice which yawns before you even now. But if all is uncertain that life has in store for you, this one thing mark as certain, yes, a thousand times tested truth: As you spend your youth, so will be your after life! The habits you contract in youth will abide with you through life! The greatest wisdom, therefore, is the sanctification of our youth.

   I wish to impress the wisdom of this fact upon your minds and hearts and therefore shall speak to you this evening of the sanctification of your youthful days.

   But those among us who are already beyond this stage of life will, animated by sincere grief, look back to it with the determined resolution of repairing whatever we have neglected in our youthful days.

   There are three reasons why we should strive to sanctify the time of our youth. If we consider more closely the nature and character of this period of our life, we shall find its sanctification is a necessary, an important and an indispensable duty of our life.

   I say, first, that it is a necessary duty. Our whole life, every day, and every hour, belongs to our Lord and must be devoted and consecrated to His service. To Him belong the day and the night, the morning and the evening. To Him belong the Spring with its bright sunshine, and sweet flowers-----and Summer with its heat and sweltering sultriness. To Him belong the Autumn with the riches of its fruits-----and the Winter with its severity and ice and snow. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, says the Scripture: the world and all they that dwell in it. Our whole life and every moment of it belongs likewise to Him; for He has created us and redeemed us on the tree of the Cross. Our childhood in its first awakening belongs to Him, and our youth in its development of strength. To Him belongs our manhood in its fullness, and to Him belongs too old age in the decline of life. At every stage of our life our heart should cry out to Heaven: "I am Thy servant and the servant of Thy Handmaid." 

 The years of our youth must not form an exception to this purpose of life. It must be, as every other period of life, devoted and consecrated to the service of God. At every moment we must make all things subservient to this one great purpose of life. Every hour of our life we must labor for a blessed eternity, and no day must pass by without glorifying God. Many die in the flower of youth, and most have reached the fullness of this life and the right to happiness in the days of their youth.

   It is precisely the sacrifice which we make in youth which is most pleasing and acceptable to God. He is delighted with the devoted child who looks up to Him in tender love; and He is pleased with the husband and wife who cheerfully bear the burdens and trials of life for love of Him. And He looks down with pleasure upon the aged man who longs to share the joys of eternal life. But the cheerful service of youth renders Him a special pleasure. The sacrifices of youth are freely made, and have no self interest which often contaminates Divine service in later life. Neither the bitter experience of life, nor the misery of sin nor disgust with the world and its false pleasures compel the young man after many false steps to return to God, but the free impulse of his love and gratitude to His Creator. The first tender budding flowers of spring are more beautiful than later on when the sun has withered their freshness. The prayer of the heart not yet corrupted by the flames of unbridled passion is the most devoted and the most ardent. For this reason God demanded in the Old Law the firstlings of life, as special sacrifice: "Thou shalt set apart all that are first born for the Lord, and all that is first brought forth-----thou shalt consecrate to the Lord." Abel offered the firstlings of his flock and their fat, and the Lord had respect for Abel and his sacrifice. "The Lord is a jealous God; jealous is His name."

   Or should God Who has created us for His service, be satisfied if we dedicate the morning and the flower of our life to sin, and give to Him our shattered old age? Should He be satisfied if we give the gold of our youth to our passions, and to Him the dross? Should He be satisfied if we pour out the wine of life in the service of the world and the lusts of the flesh, and throw to Him the fool husks of a sin-stained old age? And if our soul is the bride of God; if our Redeemer has shed His Sacred Blood to save our soul; if He asks for her with the dowry of his infinite merits and all His Divine love, should He feel satisfied if His chosen bride, the soul, turns her back upon Him in contempt, and courts strange gods and only at the close of life asks for the love of her first and lawful bridegroom? Every earthly bridegroom would dismiss such a bride. Will God then look with pleasure upon such a soul? To Him belong the flowers and gold of life; to Him belong the sparkling wine and the innocence of God. "The Lord is a jealous God, jealous is His name."

   Oh, how foolish men think and act in regard to their youth! Youth, they say, knows no virtue; it must give vent to its passions. With a sad smile many glance at the errors and sins of their misspent youth, as if youth were privileged to live in debauchery. They say, "Come, therefore, and let us enjoy the good things that are present, and let us especially use the creatures as in youth.

   "Let us fill ourselves with costly wine, and ointments; and let not the flowers of time pass by.

   "Let us crown ourselves with roses before they be withered, and let no meadow escape our riot.

   "Let none of us go without his portion of luxury; for this is our portion and this our lot."

   In wild lust and passion, yes, often in total forgetfulness of God, are these years spent. And yet it is precisely the time of youth that must be virtuous; this is the very time which must be devoted and consecrated to a reverential submission and service of God. Youth does not give you a right to satisfy your evil passions. It imposes upon you the sacred duty of devoting yourself heart and soul to the observance of God's laws, because they are God's laws.

Besides these general considerations, the nature and character of youth demands that it be sanctified unto God-----and you will readily perceive that this is not only a necessary, but a most important duty.

   What is the time of youth considered in its relation to the rest of life? It is the seed time of life, the time of growth and development. During this period the seed must be sown, so that a rich harvest will be produced. Whatever is begun in our youthful days, will be continued and perfected in later years. In the days of our youth the foundation for our further life must be laid deep and broad. The way we spend our youth will decide our success in after life.

   It is true, man is always master of his life and deeds, and with the grace of God, in later years can make amends for past negligence, but as a rule the words of Scripture will hold good: "A young man according to his way, even when he is old will not depart from it." In most cases life will continue quietly and constantly building up the character commenced in youth. A stream but seldom leaves the course it has once taken. And even if one did wish to abandon the path he has trodden in the days of his youth, it would only be possible with great difficulties and strenuous efforts. The harvest will be as the seed-----and the one who does not sow in Spring cannot expect to reap in Autumn. Whoever has not learned or accomplished anything in his youth, will accomplish but little in after life. We become more accomplished in doing good or evil as time goes on. The child's piety and fear of God molds and forms youth and old age to constancy and perseverance, but vice also takes deeper root as the years roll by.

   Is not experience itself the author of this saying: The habits of youth are the acts of old age? Show me the father of a family who labors in his family after the heart of God, and you will find upon inquiry that in the days of youth he was God-fearing and moral. Tell me of the able and successful merchant, or a conscientious officer, who did not possess the germs of virtue in his early youth and develop them to their best fruition. All good and devoted mothers who rule in their homes as the faithful companions of their husbands, and the intelligent educators of their children, were modest and chaste maidens in their youth. If we survey our own life, we will perceive that we are still traveling the same paths that we walked in the early days of our life; and if perchance we were obliged to take a different path, to change our mode of living, it would cost us great labor. "A young man according to his way, even when old will not depart therefrom."

   For this reason how unreasonable it is, if the very foundations of our life are built on false principles and in direct contradiction to the will of God. How baneful it is, if we neglect to plant, to establish ourselves on sound principles in the days of our youth. How destructive for our whole life if we dream away its most important part, or misspend it in sin and vice. 

Young men! In the early days of young manhood you must lay deep and broad the foundation upon which you can build you happiness for time and eternity! It is good for you to cherish in your hearts the blossom of every virtue, and to nourish and foster them, so that the tree of your life may one day stand loaded with choicest fruits before the judgment seat of God. It is good for you to sow the good seed of good works in the springtime of life, so that in your last days, you may stand before your Judge with hands full of good deeds. Your whole life will depend largely upon how you spend your youth!

How important therefore is the sanctification of youth! Who among you would look with indifference upon his youthful years, when he considers that the greater part of the negligence and mistakes of youth can in no case be corrected, and entirely effaced. The dews of heaven seldom fall twice upon the same pastures, and time once lost can never be regained. Think earnestly of this fact that is so often entirely forgotten.

   The word that I speak dies away in the air, and can never be recalled again. Command the stone that you have hurled down the precipice to return. It would be in vain. Call back the years of your youth. It would be in vain too, for they will not and cannot return. You may lament with bitter tears the time you have misspent and lost. But the deepest sorrow and the greatest remorse can never bring them back once they have flowed into the ocean of eternity.
This is the greatness and the importance of the few and transient moments of our life with which we must purchase Heaven. Whoever wastes away his substance on useless things deceives himself and destroys his own happiness.

   Go and approach the deathbed of a man! Do you know what torments him the most? Do you know what renders his departure from this life to the judgment seat of God so terrible? It is the time of youth that has been neglected and spent in vice. "Oh, if I could but erase the years of my youth from the book of life," he says, "I could close my eyes in peace." "If I could forget these years of unbridled license and vice I could approach my Judge with more confidence." The Psalmist cries out, "The sins of my youth and ignorance do not remember, for there thou showest the bitterness against me and will consume me in the sin of my youth."

   Would you wish to look back at the close of your life, tormented by such thoughts! Will you not use every effort to sanctify and to fulfill this duty so necessary, so important, and indispensable. "His bones shall be filled with the vices of his youth, and they shall sleep with him in the dust," says the Holy Scripture of the death of a man who has spent his youth in vice, and who has not wiped out his sin with tears of sorrow.

   But how can a young man avert such bitter pangs of soul which a misspent youth causes? How should our youthful years be sanctified? The sanctification of youth consists principally in the acquisition and practice of the virtues that should adorn the heart of every young man. The young man must above all things cultivate true manly piety, and the fear of God. "The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom." Religion must form the base upon which man builds his life, so that no storm can move him from this impregnable rock. The wise man, says our Lord, builds his house upon a rock. "And the rain and the floods came, and the winds blew; and they beat upon the house, and it fell not; for it was founded upon a rock." Without religion a man has no support in trial, no consolation in suffering, no hope in the hour of death. Religion is an absolute necessity, a rational need for every age of our life, and no one can dispense with it, without a denial of his very being and its most imperious demands.

   And the young man is obliged in a most particular manner to be religious and God-fearing. Boyhood and youth must strive to be conscientious and zealous in the discharge of their every duty. For in the time of youth we should acquire those principles which must be the law and standard of our future life. The foundations of a living faith must be laid deep and broad in the heart of the youth upon which the superstructure of perfect manhood may be built. The child is endowed by nature and trained by its parents to piety and the fear of God. As the child develops into the youth and comes to maturity, he should freely serve God and make religion the very groundwork of his life.

   In youthful years true piety and the fear of God is doubly necessary, because the young and inexperienced encounter so many dangers-----and because only a heart filled with faith and well grounded in religion can overcome these temptations. Boys and girls leave the quiet family circle and gradually enter the wider spheres of human life. They soon see the faith which they so lovingly practiced treated with contempt and indifference, vilely attacked and maliciously persecuted. They come in contact with men whose lives are governed by atheistic and agnostic principles; who ridicule and sneer at faith in God and man; and to whom virtue and morality are but empty names. The result is, that spurred on by their own unruly passions, doubt soon rises in their own hearts. Poisonous plants are strewn along their path, and they are beautiful and enchanting to behold; but like Sodom's apples they appear beautiful and red to the eye but are full of foulness and ashes.

   Woe then to the young man who has not fortified his soul with Christian principles and the practice of true manly piety. Woe to him, if when surrounded by these dangers he cannot lean upon the staff of God. Woe to him, if prayer, and a God-fearing life do not lead him safely through the perils that threaten the life of his soul in his youthful days. Many a young man has gone forth from his home, the pride and joy of his parents. With loving care he was trained for the duties of life, and he went forth upon the sea of life, cultured and equipped for life, like some stately ship fitted out for a voyage. And after a few years he returns to his father's house, like a broken, wrecked vessel, disabled in body and sick unto death in soul. He neglected his religious duties, he lost his faith, and when the storm came was not able to breast its impetuous fury and sank beneath its force.

   To be able to fight the good fight and to come out of the fray victorious, you must have deep down in your heart the desire to be Christ-like in your life. You need only to be true to the Divine within you, and the voice of conscience in order to appear before others, in all the relations of life, as God and men would have you.

   Your piety must not be assumed to suit the occasion. The spirit of true manly piety is not the sad, melancholy, brooding and bitter thing, that a gloomy fanaticism would make it. It is lightsome, joyous, cheerful, loving, compassionate and all-embracing in its kindness. The spirit of God in a youthful soul sheds abroad over the moral as well as the material world the light of deep and joyous contentment.

   But how could I speak of the virtues that should adorn the youth without mentioning that virtue which should be the glorious crown on the brow of every young man and woman-----the virtue of chastity!

   "Need I tell you, my friends, that of all the evils in this our day, there is one which has arrived at such enormous proportions that it has received the name of 'the social evil.' The evil which finds its way into every rank and grade of society; the evil which, raising its miscreated head, now and again frightens us, and terrifies the very world by the evidence of its widespread pestilence; the evil that today pollutes the heart, destroys the soul of the young, and shakes our nature and manliness to its very foundation, and brings the indignant and sweeping curse of God upon whole nations. Need I tell you that this is the terrible evil of impurity-----the unrestrained passion, the foul imagination, the debased and degraded craving of this material flesh and blood of ours, rising up in rebellion, and declaring in its inflamed desires that nothing of God's law, nothing of God's Redemption-----shall move it; that all may perish-----but it must be satiated and gorged with the food of lust of which the Scripture says 'The taste is death.' Of this sickening food, disgusting vice I will not speak, but of the opposite virtue-----the index virtue, the virtue by which lost man is raised up to the very perfection of his spiritual nature; by which the Divine effulgence of the highest resemblance is impressed upon the soul; by which the fragrance and brightness of the Virgin
and her Son seem to shine in the body of man, as well as the spirit filling the whole being with its sweetness."

   It must be the life-study of youth to preserve his soul and body free from the pest of unchastity. This vice is the worm that gnaws at the root of life, and destroys the most vigorous plants. It is deadly poison to soul and body. Avoid and eschew therefore all
company and places, where no respect is paid to man's virtue or woman's chastity; where the atmosphere is loaded with unsavory odors of uncleanness. Never forget that the all-seeing eye of God is upon you at all times and in all places.

   And so long as God spares your mother's life, never fail to show her daily and hourly a love full of infinite reverence and tenderness. Let your love for your sisters be also most respectful and deferential. Think and speak of all women with respect and deference, and never permit yourself anything approaching to disrespect toward the poorest, the lowliest, the most unworthy of their sex. If you would have a sure and infallible sign marking out to you, in the intercourse of life, the man who should never be your friend, your companion or business associate, let it be disrespect to woman. The man who forgets what is due to his mother's sex is neither a true gentleman, nor a true man, and he who habitually thinks and speaks evil of women is one who long ago forfeited self respect and is unworthy the esteem of virtuous men. He is a moral leper, to be shunned carefully and mercilessly. The fear of God and true manly piety beget in the youth industry and temperance.

   "An active doer, noble liver,"-----should be the motto of every young man. The law of life is labor and activity. It is only when we labor with zeal and earnestness that we are fulfilling the high purposes for which we are born. Industry begets earnestness and promotes happiness.

   Buoyant spirits are an element of happiness, and activity produces them; but they fly away from sluggishness. Men's spirits are like water which sparkles while it runs, but stagnates in still pools, and breeds corruption and filth. The applause of conscience, the self respect of manhood, the consciousness of independence, a manly joy of usefulness-----these constitute a happiness, superior to the fever-flashes of vice-----in its brightest moments. After an experience of ages, men should have learned that satisfaction is not the product of excess or of indolence, or of riches, but of industry, temperance, and usefulness. Every village has instances which ought to teach young men that he who goes aside from the simplicity of nature and purity of virtue, to wallow in excesses, carousals and surfeits, at last misses the errand of his life, and sinking with shattered body prematurely to a dishonored grave, mourns that he mistook exhilaration for satisfaction, and abandoned the very home of happiness when he yielded to the temptation of idleness and its train of vices.

   Idleness begets intemperance, and it, like idleness, is an enemy of all true manliness. Temperance preserves the strength of youth and prepares the soul for every virtue. If a young man be not chaste and temperate; if he has not the strength of soul to suppress his sinful inclinations, and to restrain even his lawful desires,-----then his passions will gain control of his soul-----and he will become their slave. Be temperate, therefore, not only in food and drink but in all your desires. Not in the gratification of our passions, but in a wise moderation, which subordinates them to the high purpose of life. Not every pleasure is unlawful, and not every one is lawful. And the more you deny yourselves in lawful pleasures the greater will be the strength of body and soul. By industry and moderation you will lay the foundation of a permanent happiness. How terrible the thought that so many perish for time and eternity owing to idleness and intemperance. How painful is old age when the sins of youth have made the man unfit for every task of life. How fearful must be the account rendered before the Eternal judge.

   Finally there are two more virtues which are a particular ornament of youth-----obedience and modesty. It is with great pleasure that we behold these virtues in a young man, and painfully regret their absence. There is no virtue that is more necessary to a young man and corresponds more to his age than obedience and modesty. The environments, health and animal spirits of youth conspire against these virtues. We should be nobly independent,-----but a modest obedience to lawful authority is not degrading but ennobling and elevating. The consequences of disrespect, and disregard, and disobedience to lawful authority are too evident to need comment.

   But now let those who have passed the time of youth look back upon this springtime of life. How hopeful, how expectant we looked into the future! How many have had their fondest hopes shattered, and their most cherished ambition unrealized! Who would not live over again his youth if he could, but in a different, in a more wise manner. But alas, there is nothing left to us but to give the benefit of our experience to the youth of our day. And this we can impart to them by the uprightness and honesty of our lives. The young naturally look up to the old, and model their lives after theirs: God grant that we may have a race of young men who are chaste and pure, temperate and obedient, honest and upright, modest, God-fearing, manly and true. God grant them the strength and the grace to live up to the high ideal of their God-like vocation. And God grant us all the immortal youth of eternal bliss in Heaven. Amen.