Chapter 21—To Teachers and Students
To the Teachers and Students in our College at Battle Creek, and in
all our Educational Institutions:
In the night seasons messages have been given to me to give to
you in Battle Creek, and to all our schools. While it is in the order of
God that the physical powers shall be trained as well as the mental,
yet the physical exercise should in character be in complete harmony
with the lessons given by Jesus Christ to his disciples. That which is
given to the world should be seen in the lives of Christians, so that in
education and in self-training the heavenly intelligences should not
record in the books that the students and the teachers in our schools are
“lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” This is the record now
being made of a large number, “Lovers of pleasures more than lovers
of God.” Thus Satan and his angels are laying their snares for your
souls, and he is working in a certain way upon teachers and pupils to
induce them to engage in exercises and amusements which become
intensely absorbing, but which are of a character to strengthen the
lower powers, and create appetites and passions that will take the lead,
and counteract most decidedly the operations and working of the Holy
Spirit of God upon the human heart.
What saith the Holy Spirit to you? What was its power and in-
fluence upon your hearts during the General Conference, and the
Conferences in other States? Have you taken special heed to your-
selves? Have the teachers in the school felt that they must take heed?
If God has appointed them as educators of the youth, they are also
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“overseers of the flock.” They are not in the school work to invent
plans for exercises and games to educate pugilists; not there to bring
down sacred things on a level with the common.
I was speaking to the teachers in messages of reproof. All the
teachers need exercise, a change of employment. God has pointed out
what this should be—useful, practical work; but you have turned away
from God’s plan, to follow human inventions, and that to the detriment
of spiritual life. Not a jot or tittle of the after-influence of an education
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