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Mind, Character, and Personality Volume 1
every instructor take this into consideration. Hereditary and cultivated
deformity of human character, as also beauty of character, will have to
be met, and much grace cultivated in the instructor to know how to deal
with the erring for their present and eternal good. Impulse, impatience,
pride, selfishness, and self-esteem, if cherished, will do a great amount
of evil which may thrust the soul upon Satan’s battleground without
wisdom to navigate his bark, but he will be in danger of being tossed
about at the sport of Satan’s temptations until shipwrecked. Every
teacher has his own peculiar traits of character to watch lest Satan
should use him as his agent to destroy souls, by his own unconsecrated
traits of character.—
Letter 50, 1893
. (
Fundamentals of Christian
Education, 277, 278
.)
Must Be Christlike in Dealing With Minds—It is a daily work-
ing agency that is to be brought into exercise, a faith that works by
love and purifies the soul of the educator. Is the revealed will of God
placed as your highest authority? If Christ is formed within, the hope
of glory, then the truth of God will so act upon your natural tem-
perament that its transforming agency will be revealed in a changed
character, and you will not by your influence through the revealings of
an unsanctified heart and temper turn the truth of God into a lie before
any of your pupils; nor in your presentation of a selfish, impatient,
unchristlike temper in dealing with any human mind, reveal that the
grace of Christ is not sufficient for you at all times and in all places.
Thus you will show that the authority of God over you is not merely
in name but in reality and truth. There must be a separation from all
that is objectionable or unchristlike, however difficult it may be to the
true believer.—
Christian Education, 148 (1893).
(
Fundamentals of
Christian Education, 263, 264
.)
[356]
Continual Censure Bewilders the Child—Heavens sees in the
child the undeveloped man or woman, with capabilities and powers
that, if correctly guided and developed with heavenly wisdom, will
become the human agencies through whom the divine influences can
cooperate to be laborers together with God. Sharp words and contin-
ual censure bewilder the child but never reform him. Keep back that
pettish word; keep your own spirit under discipline to Jesus Christ;
then will you learn how to pity and sympathize with those brought
under your influence. Do not exhibit impatience and harshness, for
if these children did not need educating, they would not need the ad-