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Chapter 43—Letter to an Orphan Boy
Dear Friend,
In the last vision given me, I saw that you had faults to correct.
It is necessary for you to see these before you will make the required
effort to correct them. You have much to learn before you can form
a good, Christian character which God can approve. From your
childhood you have been a wayward boy, disposed to have your own
way and to follow your own mind. You have not loved to yield your
wishes and will to those who have had the care of you. This is the
experience you must obtain.
Your danger is increased by the spirit of independence and self-
confidence—connected, as of course it must be, with inexperience—
which young men of your age are apt to assume when they have not
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their own dear parents to watch over them and stir the tender chords
of affection in the soul. You feel that it is time for you to think and
act for yourself. “I am a young man, and no longer a child. I am
capable of discriminating between right and wrong. I have rights,
and I will stand for them. I am capable of forming my own plans of
action. Who has authority to interfere with me?” These have been
some of your thoughts, and you are encouraged in them by youth
who are about your age.
You feel that you may assert your liberty and act like a man.
These feelings and thoughts lead to wrong action. You have not
a submissive spirit. Wise is that young man and highly blest who
feels it to be his duty, if he has parents, to look up to them, and
if he has not, who regards his guardian, or those with whom he
lives, as counselors, as comforters, and in some respects as his
rulers, and who allows the restraints of his home to abide upon him.
Independence of one kind is praiseworthy. To desire to bear your
own weight, and not to eat the bread of dependence, is right. It is a
noble, generous ambition that dictates the wish to be self-supporting.
Industrious habits and frugality are necessary.
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