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Mind, Character, and Personality Volume 1
Christ’s followers will be temperate in eating and drinking. They will
not indulge appetite at the expense of health and spiritual growth.
“They married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day
that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed
them all” (
verse 27
). We see the same manifestation now in regard to
marriage. Youth, and even men and women who ought to be wise and
discerning, act as if bewitched upon this question. A satanic power
seems to take possession of them. The most indiscreet marriages are
formed. God is not consulted. Human feelings, desires, and passions
bear down everything before them, until the die is cast. Untold misery
[298]
is the result of this state of things, and God is dishonored. The marriage
vow covers every kind of lustful abomination. Shall there not be a
decided change in reference to this matter?—
Letter 74, 1896
. (
Special
Testimony to the Managers and Workers in our Institutions 1898, 22
.)
Blind Love Affects Every Faculty—Every faculty of those who
become affected by this contagious disease—blind love—is brought
in subjection to it. They seem to be devoid of good sense, and their
course of action is disgusting to all who behold it. My brother, you
have made yourself a subject of talk and have lowered yourself in the
estimation of those whose approval you should prize.
With many the crisis of the disease is reached in an immature
marriage, and when the novelty is past and the bewitching power of
lovemaking is over, one or both parties awake to their true situation.
They then find themselves ill-mated, but united for life.
Bound to each other by the most solemn vows, they look with
sinking hearts upon the miserable life they must lead. They ought then
to make the best of their situation; but many will not do this. They
will either prove false to their marriage vows or make the yoke which
they persisted in placing upon their own necks so very galling that
not a few cowardly put an end to their existence.—
Testimonies for the
Church 5:110, 111
(1882).
Early Teenage Love—Satan controls the minds of the youth in
general. Your daughters are not taught self-denial and self-control.
They are petted, and their pride is fostered. They are allowed to have
their own way until they become headstrong and self-willed, and you
are put to your wit’s end to know what course to pursue to save them
from ruin. Satan is leading them on to be a proverb in the mouth