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Mind, Character, and Personality Volume 1
the nobler qualities will become weaker and weaker.—
Testimonies for
the Church 2:480
(1870).
The Abuse in Marriage of Sexual Privileges—The animal pas-
sions, cherished and indulged, become very strong in this age, and
untold evils in the marriage life are the sure results. In the place of
the mind being developed and having the controlling power, the an-
imal propensities rule over the higher and nobler powers until they
are brought into subjection to the animal propensities. What is the
result? Women’s delicate organs are worn out and become diseased;
childbearing is no more safe; sexual privileges are abused.
[225]
Men are corrupting their own bodies, and the wife has become a
bed servant to their inordinate, base lusts until there is no fear of God
before their eyes. To indulge impulse that degrades both body and soul
is the order of the marriage life.—
Manuscript 14, 1888.
Prenatal Influences—Satan seeks to debase the minds of those
who unite in marriage that he may stamp his own hateful image upon
their children....
He can mold their posterity much more readily than he could the
parents, for he can so control the minds of the parents that through them
he may give his own stamp of character to their children. Thus many
children are born with the animal passions largely in the ascendancy,
while the moral faculties are but feebly developed. These children need
the most careful culture to bring out, strengthen, and develop the moral
and intellectual powers, that these may take the lead.—
Testimonies
for the Church 2:480
(1870).
The Degrading Process—The mind of a man or woman does
not come down in a moment from purity and holiness to depravity,
corruption, and crime. It takes time to transform the human to the
divine or to degrade those formed in the image of God to the brutal or
the satanic.
By beholding we become changed. Though formed in the image
of his Maker, man can so educate his mind that sin which he once
loathed will become pleasant to him. As he ceases to watch and pray,
he ceases to guard the citadel, the heart, and engages in sin and crime.
The mind is debased, and it is impossible to elevate it from corruption
while it is being educated to enslave the moral and intellectual powers
and bring them in subjection to grosser passions.