Chapter 6—Educational Influence of Surroundings
In the selection of a home, parents should not be governed by
temporal considerations merely. It is not altogether a question of the
place where they can make the most money, or where they will have
the most pleasant surroundings, or the greatest social advantages. The
influences that will surround their children, and sway them for good
or evil, are of more consequence than any of these considerations. A
most solemn responsibility rests upon parents in choosing a place of
residence. As far as possible they are to place their families in the
channel of light, where their affections will be kept pure, and their love
to God and to one another active. The same principle applies to the
location of our schools, where the youth will be gathered, and families
will be attracted for the sake of the educational advantages.
No pains should be spared to select places for our schools where
the moral atmosphere will be as healthful as possible; for the influences
that prevail will leave a deep impress on young and forming characters.
For this reason a retired locality is best. The great cities, the centers
of business and learning, may seem to present some advantages; but
these advantages are outweighed by other considerations.
Society at the present time is corrupt, as it was in the days of Noah.
To the long-lived antediluvian race, only a step from paradise, God
gave rich gifts, and they possessed a strength of body and mind of
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which men now have but a faint idea; but they used his bounties, and
the strength and skill he gave them, for selfish purposes, to minister to
unlawful appetites, and to gratify pride. They expelled God from their
thoughts; they despised his law; trampled his standard of character
in the dust. They reveled in sinful pleasure, corrupting their ways
before God, and corrupting one another. Violence and crime filled the
earth. Neither the marriage relation nor the rights of property were
respected; and the cries of the oppressed entered into the ears of the
Lord of Sabaoth. By beholding evil, men became changed into its
image, until God could bear with their wickedness no longer, and they
were swept away by the flood.
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