About Experimenting With Life
"Where is the good way?" -- Jeremiah 6:16
The answer to this question is seen in the age-long experience of mankind. This experience proves the good way to be the way of good men who have walked in the way of God’s will and law. All ways contrary to this way, are shown to be neither good nor safe. We see the same answer to the question in the current experience of mankind.
This should be of special value to young people. It is what the old have learned by experience, and what the young may learn, if they are wise, by observation. If they learn it thus, they may avoid that dead, unprofitable period of experimenting with life. You do not need to repeat the experiences of others to prove the thing for yourself.
One should accept the findings of moral experiments as he accepts the results of experiments in science and invention. You do not go back to the oil lamp or the gas jet to prove the superiority of electricity. You accept electricity because others have proved its superior value, and go on with its use.
Long ago men experimented with life. They tried every conceivable pursuit, every variety of indulgence, every pagan liberty, and found that these were all false roads that led nowhere. They also tried the way of obedience to God; and, though this way required self-denial and self-restraint, they found that it led to the completest life and the fullest satisfaction. Why not accept these findings? Why go on experimenting with life?
The Bible makes the good way plain—so plain "that wayfaring men, though fools, need not err therein." It points out to us the one way of successful living and warns us of every snare and pitfall along the way. It tells us what is right and what is wrong, what to do and what not to do, where to place the emphasis and where not to place it. It tells us what constitutes life and how to make the most of it. The Bible is full of wise and safe counsel touching every phase of the great business of living. Its teachings represent the moral findings of the ages.
Life need not be frittered away in making experiments. We have before us the long experience of mankind, and in that experience we can see clearly enough, if only we are wise enough to observe, what is good and what is bad. We need not live tentatively. We need not go out in the dark to feel our way uncertainly. The great moral discoveries have already been made, and moving in the line of these discoveries we are safe. Not only are we safe, but we are in the way that leads to the best things in life’s store.
If the young are wise, instead of wasting their early years in adventurous and foolish experiments, they will accept and act on the experiments others have already made, the findings of which are couched in the established moral code of society.
