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Testimonies for the Church Volume 6
adapted to the soil, that this place may become an object lesson to
those living close by and afar off.
Then let everything not essential to the work of the school be kept
at a distance, that the sacredness of the place may not be disturbed
through the proximity of families and buildings. Let the school stand
alone. It will be better for private families, however devoted they may
be in the service of the Lord, to be located at some distance from the
school buildings. The school is the Lord’s property, and the grounds
about it are His farm, where the Great Sower can make His garden
a lessonbook. The results of the labors will be seen, “first the blade,
then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.”
Mark 4:28
. The land
will yield its treasures, bringing the joyousness of an abundant harvest;
and the produce gathered through the blessing of God is to be used as
nature’s lessonbook, from which spiritual lessons can be made plain
and applied to the necessities of the soul.
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An Object Lesson
There are great things before us which we see must be done, and
as fast as the means can be obtained we must go forward. Patient,
painstaking effort needs to be made for the encouragement and uplift-
ing of the surrounding communities, and for their education in indus-
trial and sanitary lines. The school and all its surroundings should be
object lessons, teaching the ways of improvement, and appealing to the
people for reform, so that taste, industry, and refinement may take the
place of coarseness, uncleanness, disorder, ignorance, and sin. Even
the poorest can improve their surroundings by rising early and working
diligently. By our lives and example we can help others to discern that
which is repulsive in their character or about their premises, and with
Christian courtesy we may encourage improvement.
The question will often arise: What can be done where poverty
prevails and is to be contended with at every step? Under these circum-
stances how can we impress minds with correct ideas of improvement?
Certainly the work is difficult; and unless the teachers, the thinking
men, and the men who have means will exercise their talents and will
lift just as Christ would lift were He in their place, an important work
will be left undone. The necessary reformation will never be made
unless men and women are helped by a power outside of themselves.