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Messages to Young People
have done to some soul by your little acts of frivolity, your cheap talk,
your levity, which was wholly inconsistent with your holy faith.
Winning Loved Ones
It is true, you may feel a sort of anxiety for the souls of those you
love. You may seek to open to them the treasures of truth, and in your
earnestness shed tears for their salvation; but when your words seem
to make but little impression, and there is no apparent response to your
prayers, you almost feel like casting reflection upon God that your
labors bear no fruit. You feel that your dear ones have special hardness
of heart, and that they do not respond to your efforts. But have you
thought seriously that the fault may lie in your own self? Have you
thought that you are pulling down with one hand that which you are
striving to build up with the other?
At times you have permitted the Spirit of God to have a controlling
power over you, and at other times you have denied your faith by your
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practice, and have destroyed your labor for your loved ones; for your
efforts in their behalf have been made of none effect by your practice.
Your temper, your unspoken language, your manners, the repining
state of your mind, your want of Christian fragrance, your want of
spirituality, the very expression of your countenance, has witnessed
against you....
Never underrate the importance of little things. Little things supply
the actual discipline of life. It is by them that the soul is trained that
it may grow into the likeness of Christ, or bear the likeness of evil.
God helps us to cultivate habits of thought, word, look, and action that
will testify to all about us that we have been with Jesus and learned of
Him!—
The Youth’s Instructor, March 9, 1893
.
Earnestness
A life spent in active work for God is a blessed one. Multitudes
who are wasting their time in trifles, in idle regrets, and in unprofitable
murmurings, might have altogether a different experience if they would
appreciate the light God has given them, and let it shine upon others;
and many make life miserable by their own selfishness and love of
ease. By a diligent activity, their lives might become as bright rays