make up your mind as to what you
believe, and on what grounds you believe it. Ask yourself, my boy, if
you believe the articles of the Apostles' Creed to be real positive
truths. Do you think there is evidence for the facts, as matters of
history? Are you ever likely to have the time or the talent to test
this for yourself? And, if not, do you consider the authority of those
who have done so, and staked everything upon their truth, as
sufficient? Will you receive it as the Creed of your Church? Make up
your mind, my boy, above all things make up your mind! Have _some_
convictions, some real opinions, some worthy hopes; and be loyal to,
and in earnest about, whatever you do pin your faith to, I assure you
that vagueness of faith affects people's every-day conduct more than
they think. The sort of belief which takes a man to church on Sunday
who would be ashamed to look as if he were really praying, or
confessing real sins when he gets there, is small help to him when the
will balances between right and wrong. It is truly, as a matter of
mere common sense, a poor bargain, a wretched speculation, to be half
religious; to get a few checks and scruples out of it, and no real
strength and peace; and, it may be, to lose a man's soul, and not even
gain the world. For who dare promise himself that Christ our Judge,
who spent a self-denying human youth as our example, and so loved us
as to die for us, will accept a youth of indifference, and a
dissatisfied death-bed on our part? And if it be all true, and if
gratitude and common sense, and self-preservation, and the example and
advice of great men, demand that we shall serve GOD with all our
powers, don't you think the devil must, so to speak, laugh in his
sleeve to see us really conceited of being too large-minded to attend
too closely, or to begin to attend too early, to our own best
interests?"

"Ah!" he added after a while, "my dear boy--dearer to me than you can
tell--the truth is, I covet for you the unutterable blessing of a
youth given to GOD. What that is, some know, and many a man converted
late in life has imagined with heart-wrung envy: an Augustine, already
numbered with the Saints, a Prodigal robed and decked with more than
pardon, haunted yet by dark shadows of the past, the husks and the
swine. My boy, with an unstained youth yet before you to mould as you
will, get to yourself the elder son's portion--'Thou art ever with
Me, and all that I have is thine.' And wh