---

A way has a direction, and leads somewhither. A way is continuous, and if we are in it, we are advancing in it. A way differs in its direction from other ways, and diverges more and more from them the farther one travels upon it. There is hardly any error so perilous as that of imagining that there can be isolated acts or states of mind. Every present has its closely affiliated future. Every deed, every reverie, every thought, is a cause. We are moving on in character, as in years. Let me beg you, then, to see whither you are going, whither your way leads. Start not in a direction which you are not willing to follow to the end. Take not your first step on any evil way, unless you are ready to encounter the dishonour, degradation, misery, and ruin which have visibly overtaken the advanced travellers on that way. Remember, our ways lead on through the death-shadow; and I know that there is but one way on which you are willing that death should overtake you, — but one way whose steps brighten under the shadow, and in which you can hope to walk with those whom you would crave as your companions in the life everlasting. "Wherewithal shall a young man 'cleanse' his way," or, more literally, make his way clean? This is a metaphor which appeals vividly to our experience. What is there so disheartening as the necessity of treading muddy streets? We sedulously seek, if they are to be had, clean paths for our feet, and bewail ourselves when we cannot find them. We are ashamed, even though no other eye be upon us, if we are forced to prolong travel-stain or any squalid condition of person or attire. Can it be that there is one so imbruted that he feels not the travel-stain of sinful ways, — that there is not a close-clinging sense of impurity when the soul has debased itself by foul deeds, indulgences, or associations? Must there not be a self-loathing, a self-contempt, in those who are making themselves vile? "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to Thy Word." What is the Word of God? An unerring and undying conscience, a sense of right and wrong, native in the soul of man, is God's Word to you and me. There is never a question of duty, in which you do not know what you ought to do. There is never a sinful compliance to which you are tempted or urged, of whose moral character you have the slightest doubt. So long as you obey your conscience, you are taking heed to your way according to the Word of God. But this phrase has for us another meaning — another, yet the same. The Word of God — the very same word which speaks to us in con-science — has lived incarnate in the one sinless Son of Man, or rather, not has lived, but ever lives, in the heaven whither He has gone before us, and where His welcome awaits our following Him, in His Gospel, fresh as when the words of grace and truth fell from His lips, in the pure spirits trained in His nurture, in the examples of excellence that have transmitted His holiness in a line of living light all down the Christian ages, and in whom the Christ within has shone forth in radiant beauty.

(A. P. Peabody, D. D.)

---

---

KJV: BETH. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.

WEB: How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word.