Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 20 (1905)

Lt 365, 1905

My Friend

Circa 1905

Previously unpublished. Not sent.

My Friend,

You are a young man and have your life before you. I am sorry that your life has been very much of a mistake. Now you enter manhood and I could not give you the least encouragement [that] any favor being done you in supposing to improve you would have the effect to do that. Anyone who will attempt to help you in your present state of inefficiency will do you an injury. You are now to see what you can do in humbling yourself to help yourself. 20LtMs, Lt 365, 1905, par. 1

I do not advise you even to attend school, but first engage in some kind of outdoor employment that will bring relief to your wearied nerves and [where] you can, if with a wise man, study how to make a man of yourself. You have unwisely been favored too much for your good. Will you now pray the Lord to help you to wake up your slumbering, lazy inclination? Now you could, at the Mountain View printing office, show yourself to be a man. No one can do this for you, but you can now excel where you have defeated yourself. 20LtMs, Lt 365, 1905, par. 2

I have in view several such cases whom I have tried to help, but told them I could not lower themselves in their own estimation and self-respect [by] offering to help them. It would be doing you a decided injury to pay your school bills. A young man of your age is fully able if he appreciates his physical, mental, and moral powers, and puts in hard working as would be best for one who has had the honor to be called industrious in doing common duties in life. The best thing you can do is to work hard, [so] that, if need be, in the future you can sustain your mother in the place of feeling yourself a helpless burden upon her. 20LtMs, Lt 365, 1905, par. 3

Place yourself out of temptation to be idle and sporting with idle boys. Work hard, diligently, and show a justifiable pride in showing your industrious efforts. Seek advice and counsel. Ask what is best to do and never, never grieve your mother’s heart because you are a worthless son that must be supported. Change this. You have had a disposition to dislike industry. Go to work and make a man of yourself. You can find enough to do which properly exercised will give strength of muscles and wake up your dulled brain. Now change this order of things. 20LtMs, Lt 365, 1905, par. 4

Your mother is constantly wise and industrious. Now whatever you do, first surrender and give heart and soul to the Lord and then do not live in this world as a useless young man, but a man studying how to become ingenious in applying yourself to labor. Would you keep on as you are, not to be depended on, you are only a burden any and everywhere. And for you to continue this kind of life, what honor will you gain to yourself that you will have an individuality to be looked upon as a failure? You would today be a useful, strong man had you never seen a diamond or a gold gift. Sporting and amusement has been your sad history. What is written in the books of heaven concerning worth? Should you be placed in the heavenly scale, what virtue have you cultivated? 20LtMs, Lt 365, 1905, par. 5