Influence of Association
359
Students, night and day the prayers of your parents are rising to
God in your behalf; day by day their loving interest follows you. Listen
to their entreaties and warnings, and determine that by every means in
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your power you will lift yourselves above the evil that surrounds you.
You cannot discern how insidiously the enemy will work to corrupt
your minds and habits, and develop in you unsound principles.
You may see no real danger in taking the first step in frivolity
and pleasure-seeking, and think that when you desire to change your
course you will be able to do right as easily as before you yielded
yourselves to do wrong. But this is a mistake. By the choice of evil
companions many have been led step by step from the path of virtue
into depths of disobedience and dissipation to which at one time they
would have thought it impossible for them to sink.
The student who yields to temptation weakens his influence for
good, and he who by a wrong course of action becomes the agent of
the adversary of souls, must render to God an account for the part he
has acted in laying stumbling-blocks in the way of others. Why should
students link themselves with the great apostate? Why should they
become his agents to tempt others? Rather, why should they not study
to help and encourage their fellow students and their teachers? It is
their privilege to help their teachers bear the burdens and meet the
perplexities that Satan would make discouragingly heavy and trying.
They may create an atmosphere that will be helpful, exhilarating. Ev-
ery student may enjoy the consciousness that he has stood on Christ’s
side, showing respect for order, diligence, and obedience, and refusing
to lend one jot of his ability or influence to the great enemy of all that
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is good and uplifting.
The student who has a conscientious regard for truth and a true
conception of duty can do much to influence his fellow students for
Christ. The youth who are yoked up with the Saviour will not be
unruly; they will not study their own selfish pleasure and gratification.
Because they are one with Christ in spirit, they will be one with Christ
in action. The older students in our schools should remember that it is
in their power to mold the habits and practices of the younger students;
and they should seek to make the best of every opportunity. Let these
students determine that they will not through their influence betray
their companions into the hands of the enemy.