Infatuation and Blind Love
239
Discipline Yourself—You will be inclined to accept the attention
of those who are your inferiors in everything. You must be made wiser
through the grace of Christ. You must consider every step in the light
[of the fact] that you are not your own; you are bought with a price.
May the Lord be your Counselor. Do nothing to impair or cripple
your efficiency. Deal faithfully with yourself; with painstaking effort
discipline yourself. The grace of Jesus Christ will help you at every
step if you will be teachable and considerate.
I write you this now, and will write again erelong, for as the
mistake of your past life has been set before me, I dare not withhold
most earnest entreaties that you hold yourself strictly to discipline....
Be not led astray into any false paths and do not show a preference
for the society of young men, for you will not only injure your own
reputation and future prospects, but you will raise hopes and expecta-
tions in the minds of those to whom you show preference, and they
will become as if bewitched with love-sick sentimentalism and spoil
their student life. You and they are at the school for the purpose of
obtaining an education to qualify you in intellect and character for
greater usefulness in this life and for the future immortal life. Make no
mistake in receiving attentions or giving encouragement to any young
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man. The Lord has designated that He has a work for you to do. Let it
be your motive to answer the mind and will of God, and not to follow
your own inclination and be bound up in future destiny with cords like
bands of steel.—
Letter 23, 1893
Wrong Attachments Can Impair Mental Powers (counsel to a
girl of eighteen)—You have no right to place your affections on any
young man without your father’s and your mother’s full sanction. You
are but a child, and for you to show a preference for any young man
without the full knowledge and sanction of your father is to dishonor
him. Your attachment to this young man is robbing you of a peaceful
mind and of healthful sleep. It is filling your mind with foolish fancies
and with sentimentalism. It is retarding you in your studies and is
working serious evil to your mental and physical powers. If opposed,
you become irritable and low spirited.—
Letter 9, 1904
.
School Regulations—The rules of this college [at College City in
northern California] strictly guard the association of young men and
young women during the school term. It is only when these rules are