though boys apparently do not understand. One of these days, you fellows who like to park won’t be playing games with love. It’ll be for real, with marriage, a home, and a family. What sort of a wife will you want — a girl who’s been pawed over by the guys she’s dated? And what are you going to bring to marriage? A dirty mind and guilty hands? Are you going to be able to look back on your dating years with approval, or are your memories going to be stained ? Ask a wise Christian couple, and they’ll turn “ thumbs down” on parking and necking. They’ll tell you it’s important to keep minds and actions pure if you want the greatest happiness from marriage. Recently a nurse told the girls in our young people’s society: “ Petting can be the same as lighting the fuse on a charge of dynamite. It can blast your lives, and the lives of your par ents, for a long, long time.” This very thing happened to a couple of Chris tian kids in our school last year. They couldn’t control their petting, and now they have a baby. They got married, and thought that their problem would end as soon as the gossip died down. But their troubles only seemed to start. The boy wasn’t able to go back to school to graduate. In order to earn a living, he had to take a job wheeling cement with a construction crew. He tries to pretend that he’s as happy as he would have been had he gone to college and into chemical engineering as he had planned. But his eyes aren’t happy. He seldom smiles. I think he and his wife love each other, but she seems to be unhappy too. She’s learning to cook and clean house and take care of a family, though her heart had been set on nurse’s train ing. Both sets of parents were stunned by what happened. They stood by their children, and so did most of the people in the church, but the hurt went deep, and it will be a long time before they all get over it. Romans 12:1, 2 applies to Christians on dates as well as in everything else. “ I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed. . . .” We girls are far from perfect, but we’d like some help from you boys. How about dedicating your cars to the Lord? Available in printed form from American Tract Society, Oradell, New Jersey.
smoke, either, so I appreciate it when a fellow has the same convictions that I have. But you fellows should know that drinking and smoking and going to worldly places aren’t the only sinful activities. It’s time that you turn a strong beam of Scriptural light on your date life and begin to act like Christian gentlemen when you’re alone with a girl, as well as when you’re in front of people. You say you want to park with your girl be cause you like her so much ? If you really thought as much of your girl as you say you do you wouldn’t think of parking with her. You wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt her. You’d want to protect her from the shame she will feel after heavy necking, and the low reputation she’s like ly to suifer in the gossip of others. Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Do you give any thought to the way talk can blast a girl’s reputation? It doesn’t have to be much talk, and it doesn’t take much time for it to do its worst. There doesn’t even have to be much truth in it. One of my best friends was the victim of a tale like that. The “wrong” people saw her, and the word went around fast: “ Sue is an easy mark.” And nothing she could say or do would stop the smirks and looks. Sue walked home from school with me a couple of nights ago. “ I’ve never been so humiliated,” she choked. And what about the guy? He’s a Christian fellow who does a lot of talking about going into “ full-time service.” People hardly mention his name in connection with the gossip. Even if there isn’t any loose talk, something happens to a girl who makes a practice of pet ting — something unclean and degrading. She doesn’t feel that she’s as nice a person after wards. Love is something tender and beautiful to me. It probably means more to most girls than any thing else in the world. Love, a home, and a family of her own — those are the things a girl my age considers the highest goals in life. And we’re deeply concerned about being pure and clean for our future husbands. What happens? Some fellow insists on more and more special attentions from a girl. Maybe she falls for the line, “ Everybody’s doing it,” or she might be afraid he won’t ask her for another date unless she goes along to some ex tent. So she starts compromising her convictions. She probably tries to hide it from her boy friend, but she begins to feel cheap, and a little of her self-respect dies. This hurts a girl, even
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AUGUST, 1965
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