AN IMPRESSIVE SERVICE

Southland Times, Issue 20498, 29 May 1928, Page 3

AN IMPRESSIVE SERVICE

“THE KEEPING OF THE HEART.’* ADDRESS TO YOUNG PEOPLE. On Sunday last, the Rev. J. U aWBon Robinson delivered a most impressive address to the young people in “The Keeping of the Heart.” In taking as his text, Proverbs 4-23, “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life,” the speaker said:— ‘lt does not say ‘Keep thy head with all diligence’ or ‘Keep thy tongue’ but keep thy heart. We must understand the ‘heart’ here not merely as the seat of the emotions, as we rather loosely regard it now, but as the source of thought and the spring of action. ‘As a man thinketh in his heart’ said Christ, ‘so is he.’ The verse itself is stronger in the marginal reference: ‘With all thy guarding, guard thy heart.’ That intensities the need of keeping the heart under strict control. We have learnt the need of controlling the actions. In this world we cannot do just as we like; we are restricted on every hand. Our actions must be governed by the rights of others as well as our own. If we go out into a public plpce and behave in an unseemly manner, we are very quickly reminded that we have become a nuisance to society, and if we persist in our wrong doing, society invokes the awful majesty of law to restrain us. We must guard our actions. Even our speech must be carefully restrained. No man is allowed to slander his fellow, or to let his tongue run riot in unclean language. Again society steps in and tells us that this is an offence, and if we maintain what we believe to be our rights in the matter, we soon find ourselves up against the power of the law. Laws are simply the regulations mankind has adopted for its own protection, and he who violates ..them must accept the consequences.

“But law can put no restraint upon the thoughts of the heart. This discipline must be exercised by ourselves. No man knows what you are thinking. It might be supposed that while I am speaking to you your mind is running upon the things I say. You seem to be giving me your whole attention and yet your thoughts may be worlds away. You may at this very moment be cherishing evil thoughts, unclean desires. The plotting of diabolical deeds may be going on there without any one being aware of it. There in your heart lies a vast secret inner world across whose boundaries none but yourself may pass; whose secrets none may read, whose intentions none may understand. You are

saying to yourself, Here at any rate I am safe. Here I rule over a kingdom without challenge. Here I may do just as I like without regard to the rights of others. If I want to cherish unclean thoughts who can deny me? If I want to conjure up a lustful image who can say me nay? This is my own world, my own kingdom, and here I reign by undisputed right.’

“And because that is so, because you are sovereign lord of the domain of the heart, I urgQ you to put yourselves under restraint. Guard your thoughts with all diligence. Your very power in the realm of your thinking becomes a danger unless you keep it under the strictest control. Power unrestrained tends to become satanic. The testimony of history and experience proves that. Hearts that are allowed to indulge themselves in evil thoughts will in the end produce an evil character. Shakespeare has pointed that out. ‘There’s nothing good or bad. . .’ he says, ‘but thinking makes it so.’ Marcus Aurelius. ‘The soul is dyed the colour of its thoughts.’ The injunction to keep your heart with all diligence goes down to the very centre of things. It is the all important thing, because everything depends on it. If the heart be right everything is right; if it be wrong everything is wrong. It is the source of all our moral life, the fountain of our speech and the spring of our conduct. The whole character of a man is dependent upon the condition of his heart. Your thoughts either purify or contaminate your whole being. Men indeed will judge you by your speech and behaviour. They may write you down as reputable and honourable because your outward conduct is without spot or blemish. It is possible for a man to deceive his fellows, to live a double life, to put a wholesome restraint upon his speech and conduct even though his heart is seething with evil imaginations. He may do that but only for a time. The tendency always is for the thoughts of the heart to show themselves in the life. I knew of a man who was highly esteemed by his fellows, honoured by the community, a Bayyard among his fellow citizens. One day the community was amazed to hear of his terrible fall, the crash of which seemed to shake men’s confidence in their fellow-men. It seemed like the fall of an angel. Men said to each other if such a one as he could become apostate from the moral life what security could there be for anyone? But the truth was that though for years he had been putting restraint upon his outward behaviour, he had not put a guard upon his heart. When investigation of his affairs was made there was discovered a secret cupboard full of unclean literature. While he had been presenting an outward show of high morality he had been feeding his mind on parnographic books. He had surrendered his secret kingdom to the devil and the devil at last overthrew him. Keep thy heart with all diligence. ‘Greater is he that ruleth his own spirit than he that taketh a city.’ “That is why it is so important to guard well the heart. The thoughts there are hidden, but they may not always remain hidden. Some day they will break through like a flood and wash away the restraints you have put upon yourself and then yom secret will be made known. Jesus himself has said that there is nothing secret that shall not be revealed, nothing hid that shall not be made known. What you are thinking in the secret chambers of your heart will one day be proclaimed upon the housetops. You may be like that young ruler who came to Christ, whose life was moral and honourable and good. None could point the finger of scorn at him. But the question for you to ask is this: What kind of picture am I painting upon my imagination What kind of image do I conjure up in my soul? These are the things that are going to determine your future character. ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.' Young man, young woman, never paint a picture there you would not like your mother to look on. I think that is a pretty good test to apply. Rate yourself so highly that you will net pollute your soul with any evil thought. The positive ideal of a clean life that holds a high opinion of z itself is youth’s ultimate protection. Phillips Brooks put the matter in unforgettable words: ‘To keep clear of concealment, to keep clear of the need of concealment, to do nothing which you might not do on the middle of Boston Common at noonday,—l cannot say how more and more that seems to me to be the glory of a young man’s life. It is an awful hour when the first necessity of hiding anything occurs. Put off that day as long as possible. Put it off forever if you can.

“ 'Keep your heart with all diligence.’ It is a good thing for young men and women to have a quarantine station where they can stay the suggestions and persuasions that come knocking at the door of the heart until they prove themselves innocuous. Keep your heart at so high a level that it will be raised above the poisonous vapour of the swamps of immorality and the cesspools of uncleanness. A selfrespecting man, like a self-respecting country, will not allow plagues and pestilences to enter his ports. Such a quarantine of the mind is inevitably set up in a man who holds a high opinion of himself, and nothing is more needed to-day among our youth. “There was an old Edinburgh weaver who used to pray, ‘0 God help me to hold a high opinion of myself.’ I commend that to the youth of this congregation as the best means of putting a wall of defence around the heart. Let a man think so highly of himself that he is conscious that there are things in life too valuable to be misused, too fine to be profaned. Tennyson has a fine line about Queen Victoria, ‘0 loyal to the royal in thyself.’ My young friends there are royal powers in those lives of yours that never, never, never should you , allow to be dragged in the mire. There are

sanctities there you must not violate, holy places you must not desecrate, altars that must not be profaned. If you will only try to realize that, you will save your soul alive. There is a good deal of discussion in these days upon the all-important subject of sex. The cry is for more knowledge, more information, more enlightenment. I am myself of the opinion that ignorance will cure nothing, that drawing the veil over certain fundamental things in life is the best way of stimulating an unhealthy curiosity about them. But 1 am not satisfied that the freedom with which this subject is canvassed is altogether in our best interests. I don’t believe any man or woman will be saved from sinking into an immoral life by merely pointing out to them the hideous consequences of immorality. I do not think that in these days you can frighten men and women into the kingdom of heaven by stoking up the fires of hell. That is emphatically not the way. We must give them a new consciousness of the hidden sanctities of life; we must tell them that they are the temples of the living God and that to profane and desecrate them is a sacrilege too awful to be allowed.

“Most of you I think are familiar with the story of Joseph as it is told in the Book of Genesis. You will remember how all through his life he remained faithful to his high ideals. Some of you will understand the fierceness of the temptation that came against him through the seductions of Potiphar’s wife. He was able to withstand because he had set up in his soul a standard of purity. He held his honour as a sacred thing too fine to be profaned. That is the only thing that will save us. Garrison your hearts with high thoughts. Put out the sentinels of watchfulness, candour, truth, righteousness and beauty. Keep your hearts with all diligence.

“That quick sense of possessing in ourselves something inwardly fine that must not be desecrated is essential to all great character. It is that that leads to selfcontrol, that gives a man an anchorage when the fierce gusts of temptation threaten to sweep away his soul. But it is not got without a struggle. It can come to you only as the result of a deliberate choice, backed by the stern compulsions of the will. A man who values his own life must inevitably make that choice. On the one side is the world with its denial of the poor, its persuasions to sin its inducements to men to gratify their desires, its allurements, to pleasure to follow the line of least resistance. On the other side the good, incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ, urging the soul to righteousness and peace and honour and purity and love. Faced with alternatives like that what will you do? Will you not feel the constraint of high and holy things, the impelling power of the true the just the lovely? <‘Who so hath felt the spirit of the highest Cannot confound nor doubt Him nor deny: Yea, with one voice, o world, tho thou deniest, Stand thou on that side, for on this am I.

Let me say to you, my young friends, that it is religion that teaches us to respect life’s sanctities. I have been urging you to preserved unstained the inner sanctuary of the soul. My reasons have been that as the heart is, so will be the conduct and behaviour of your life. The heart is the key to the whole situation. But I am aware that I have been urging an impossible task unless you enthrone .Christ in the realm of your secret thoughts. He will lay his hands upon life’s holy places and insist that they be not violated; will lay his hands on the real sanctity—human personality—and will fight with all the fierceness of a crusader against its profanation. “What shall it be ? Consecration or desecration ? The keeping of the heart unstained and unpolluted, so that the streams of influence may wash and purify the whole conduct of our life, and love with their regenerating power the lives of those about it — shall it be that ? or shall we choose the other —the yielding of the citadel of the heart to the blandishment of the enemy, the desecration of our holy places, the pollution of those hidden sanctities which alone can save the soul? Which shall it be, my young friends ? Life stretches out before you now, and the golden ball of opportunity is at your feet. If you take care to guard your hearts now, to garrison them with everything that is beautiful, then the future for you is full of promise and achievement and you will be more than conquerors.”