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Danger in Amusements
285
niversary of the opening of the school? Is this the gratitude offering
you present to God for the blessings He has given you? The world
could render as acceptable an offering on this memorial occasion.
The teachers are making the same mistake that has been made over
and over again. They should learn wisdom from the experiences of
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the past. The careless, godless world can offer an abundance of such
offerings as these, in a much more acceptable manner.”
Turning to the teachers, He said, “You have made a mistake the
effects of which it will be hard to efface. The Lord God of Israel
is not glorified in the school. If at this time the Lord should permit
your life to end, many would be lost, eternally separated from God
and the righteous.”
The Consequence of One Departure From Right
These things are a repetition of the course of Aaron, when at the
foot of Sinai he allowed the first beginning of wrong by permitting a
spirit of reveling and commonness to come into the camp of Israel.
Moses was in the mount with God, and Aaron had been left in
charge. He showed his weakness by not standing firmly against the
propositions of the people. He could have exercised his authority
to hold the congregation back from wrong-doing; but just as in his
home he failed with his children, so he showed the same defective
administration in his management of Israel. His weakness as a
general was seen in his desire to please the people, even at the
sacrifice of principle. He lost his power of command at the very
first permission that he gave which allowed them to go contrary to
God’s commands in the least particular. And as a result the spirit of
idolatry came in, and the current set in motion could not be stayed
until stern and decisive measures had been taken.
It took time and a vast amount of labor and sorrow to wipe out the
influence of the proceedings at the Avondale school on that Wednes-
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day afternoon. But the experience was a lesson that helped those in
charge of the school to realize the tendency of such amusements.
What an exhibition was this to be reported by the students to
their distant friends and acquaintances! It was a witness that showed,
not what God has accomplished in the school, but what Satan had
accomplished. Serious is the consequence of even one such depar-