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On the sixth of March, in the year 1741, the brilliant statesman, William Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, felt it necessary to apologise from his place in the House of Commons for what he styled "the atrocious crime of being a young man." The sneers at youth which provoked this wrathful protest are seldom heard to-day. In this more democratic age the value of young men as a factor in human affairs is better understood. The elder Disraeli has pointed out that "almost everything that is great in" the story of the race has been done by youth, and Thomas Carlyle has taught us that the history of heroes is the history of young men. We remember that in war the victories of Hannibal and Alexander, of Clive and Napoleon, were the triumphs of young men; that Innocent m. and Leo X., the greatest of the Popes, had won the tiara before they were thirty-seven, and that Martin Luther at five-and-thirty had achieved the Reformation. We remember that Pascal and Sir Isaac Newton had written their greatest treatises before they were thirty; that Raphael and Correggio among painters; Byron, Shelley, and Keats among poets; Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Bellini among musicians — these, and many more too numerous to quote, had won their place among the immortals and died while they were yet young men. We have come to recognise that the qualities which command success — dash, courage, hopefulness, fertility of invention and resources — are often more abundant in youth than in age; and knowing how largely young men have made the world's history in time past, we look to young men as the history-makers of time present and to come. There is little peril to-day of our despising young men on account of their youth; we rather need to be warned against despising old men on account of their age. The position which young men thus take in modern life adds a tone of deeper emphasis and keener urgency to the ancient, familiar, and inspiring exhortation of my text. The injunction echoes the words which Moses addressed to Joshua when he entrusted him with command. A thousand years later we meet it again in Paul's appeal to Timothy: "Thou, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus," as also in the exhortation to the Corinthians, when Timothy was coming amongst them: "Watch ye; stand fast in the faith; quit you like men; be strong!" Again and again in profane history, in the pages of Homer, Herodotus, or Xenophon, we find great chieftains charging their followers in the same strain. modern history likewise takes up the call, Latimer in the fire exclaiming: "Be of good comfort, Master Ridley; play the man!" Nelson at Trafalgar sounding the war-cry: "England expects every man to do his duty." Every mother who sends her son into the world breathes the spirit of it.. The words imply an ideal. John Trebonius, Martin Luthers schoolmaster, always took his hat off to his schoolboys. "Who can tell," he would say, "what man there may be here? "There was wisdom in the act, for among those boys was the solitary monk that shook the world. Yet it is not every man who becomes all that we mean by a man. Vanity emasculates some. and they become — not men, but the show-blocks of their hatter, the lay-figures and walking advertisements of their tailor. Indolence destroys others, and they become — not men, but manikins dependent on the charity of their relations, and parasites that live by suction. Vice is, the degradation of others, until, sinking below shame, unworthy utterly of the human form — erect, divine," they become as swine in sensuality or as wolves in brutal ferocity. But even if men escape these degradations they may still remain immeasurably below the standard implied in this great word, "a man."

Unless above himself he can

Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!

What, then, is this ideal? What is it that every woman puts into her love and every man into his self-respect when we sound the challenge: "Show thyself a man? What are the marks by which a sterling manhood may be known.

I. ONE MARK OF MANHOOD IS STRENGTH. "Be thou strong, therefore, and show thyself a man." In the notion of an ideal man we all include the attribute of physical strength. It is true that some have asserted their manhood in spite of bodily infirmity. The Apostle Paul carried the Gospel over two continents, notwithstanding that he was half blind and paralysed. Richard Baxter, the most voluminous writer and most successful pastor of his day, was a lifelong invalid. Dr. George Wilson was accustomed to deliver his lectures with a great blister on his chest. Bishop Butler, who wrote the Analogy of Religion, and James Watt, inventor of the steam engine, were both so harassed with bile and consequent melancholy as to be constantly tempted to make away with themselves. The lives of such men are notable illustrations of the triumph of mental energy over bodily infirmities, and should encourage those of us who suffer from constitutional debility; but they do not make physical weakness either natural or desirable. Young men ought to be strong, ought to take pleasure in vigorous exercises, ought to remember the ancient proverb: "The glory of young men is their strength." In this matter of physical culture I say to every young man: "Shew thyself a man." More, however, than either physical or mental strength, as sunlight is more than moonlight or starlight, is moral strength. In the high firmament of ideal manhood, moral strength is the greater light that rules the day. You must put the dement of conscience, you must put love for righteousness and hatred of evil-doing into your conception of manly vigour, or you never can truly say of any man what Marc Antony said of Brutus: —

The elements were

So mixed in him that Nature might stand up

And say to all the world — this was a man.

II. A SECOND MARK OF MANHOOD IS SAGACITY. Milton asks: "What is strength without a double share of wisdom?" and then he adds: "Strength is not made to rule, but to subserve, where wisdom bears command." He that would show himself a man must couple sagacity with strength; for we live in a world of illusions, which are like traps at a young man's feet. You young men of this new generation are face to face with what Carlyle described as "the Everlasting No." To every precept of heaven the devil brings a "No." "Fear God and keep His commandments." "No," says the devil; "indulge your passions." "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever." "No," says the devil; "man's chief end is to glorify himself and enjoy his own way." "He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it." "No," says the devil; "let every other man be damned, body and soul, and what does it matter to you? This "Everlasting No" meets us at every call of duty, and has to be resisted and foresworn once and for ever, or we cut ourselves adrift from every possibility of achieving the ideal manhood. Thousands of men to-day are crippled and emasculated by this negative of unbelief. Their loss is incalculable. Themselves are stripped of blessing, and their influence is emptied of power. To the devil's "Everlasting No" do you oppose God's "Everlasting Yes." Be positive and practical; add sagacity to strength.

III. A third mark of manhood is saintliness. A saint is one who lives unto God, and in whom God's will is law. Here manliness completes itself. Man being created in the image of God, we can regard none as attaining the ideal of manhood who does not in thought, purpose, impulse, and deed reflect the God in whom he lives, moves, and has his being; and is not this what we mean by saintliness? Saintliness includes honesty, for it accepts the golden rule: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye also to them"; and does not Pope affirm " an honest man's the noblest work of God"? Saintliness includes the service of others; for every saint is a follower of Him who "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and give His life a ransom for many." And does not Lord Lytton remind us —

That man is great, and he alone

Who serves a greatness not his own

For neither praise nor pelf.

Content to know and be unknown,

Whole in himself!Strength, sagacity, saintliness — these three, and the greatest of these is saintliness, if any one of us would show himself a man.

(W. J. Woods, B. A.)

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KJV: I go the way of all the earth: be thou strong therefore, and shew thyself a man;

WEB: "I am going the way of all the earth. You be strong therefore, and show yourself a man;