Since my boyhood days I have always insisted that our young people—Christian boys and girls, should not keep company with, nor marry those outside of the church. I still believe this and teach it. Solomon says: "He that walketh with wise men shall be wise; but a companion of fools shall be destroyed" (Prov. 13 :20). Jesus says, in Matt. 7, "He that heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likened to a foolish man."

But again, the Jews were a type of Christians, as I think all will agree, and they were not allowed to keep company with, nor marry into another nation. Paul says in 1 Cor. 7:39, that the widow may be married to any one she wishes, "only in the Lord," and God is no respector of persons.

If all of our young Christians could only hear the heart-rending tales that have been told to me, by those who have married out of Christ, how they cannot get to go to church; cannot have the preacher or other Christians visit them in any peace; cannot bring their children up as they realize they should be; cannot give of their means as they would like to for the support of the cause of Christ; and dozens of other things. I say, if all young Christians could only listen to these tales of woe, it would forever turn them against the thought of marrying out of the church.

Often we are told, "0, I don’t intend to marry so and so; I only go with them for a good time." But, by boys and girls going with each other, they do fall in love with each other and do marry. I have known of parents who would go to any amount of trouble to have everything just right for their son or daughter to always be ready to go with some banker or merchant’s son, or daughter, for years, and then when they begin to talk of getting married, they throw a mad fit and try to break it up. I have had parents to come to me many times and tell me, confidentially, "Bro. Gay, I wish you would give George, or Mary a good heart-to-heart talk. I am so afraid they are going to marry so and so and he or she is not a Christian." I wish that ALL Christian parents would, at least, try to break up’ such cases before they start.

Then, there are the parents who say, "Well, now just look: There are no Christian boys or girls around here for our young people to keep company with." If there is no school we send our children to where there is one, or we move there and take them. I am afraid that too many are more interested in the financial, and educational side of life than they are in the moral, religious, and eternal side of life.

But, finally, here is what is hard for me to understand: I talk to the Christian boys about going with Christian girls only, and they say, "Well, Bro. Gay, the girls of the world are nicer, when with us, than the members of the church." Then, I talk to the Christian girls about going only with Christian boys, and they say "Well, Bro. Gay, the worldly boys, that we go with, treat us nicer than the Christian boys do." This makes me wonder, is it a fact that the worldly boys are nicer than our Christian boys? Is it a fact that the girls, who are not members of the church, are nicer than those who are members? Do our Christian boys tell stories on our Christian girls? Do our Christian girls tell stories on our Christian boys? Or, is it that our Christian boys want to go places, do, and say things that they do not want the Christian girls to know about? And is it possible that our Christian girls want to go places, do, and say things that they do not want the Christian boys to know about? I would be glad to have someone else write on this.