Indolence
183
Well-regulated labor is essential for the success of every youth.
God could not have inflicted a greater curse upon men and women
than to doom them to live a life of inaction. Idleness will destroy soul
and body. The heart, the moral character, and physical energies are
enfeebled. The intellect suffers, and the heart is open to temptation as
an open avenue to sink into every vice. The indolent man tempts the
devil to tempt him.—MS 2, 1871. (HC 222.)
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Ravages of Indolent Habits (counsel to parents)—You have
been blind to the power that the enemy had over your children. House-
hold labor, even to weariness, would not have hurt them one-fiftieth
part as much as indolent habits have done. They would have escaped
many dangers had they been instructed at an earlier period to occupy
their time with useful labor. They would not have contracted such a
restless disposition, such a desire for change and to go into society.
They would have escaped many temptations to vanity and to engage
in unprofitable amusements, light reading, idle talking, and nonsense.
Their time would have passed more to their satisfaction and without
so great temptation to seek the society of the opposite sex and to ex-
cuse themselves in an evil way. Vanity and affection, uselessness and
positive sin, have been the result of this indolence.—
Testimonies for
the Church 4:97, 98
(1876).
To Strain Every Muscle—Man is allotted a part in this great
struggle for everlasting life; he must respond to the working of the
Holy Spirit. It will require a struggle to break through the powers of
darkness, and the Spirit works in him to accomplish this. But man is
no passive being, to be saved in indolence. He is called upon to strain
every muscle and exercise every faculty in the struggle for immortality;
yet it is God that supplies the efficiency.
No human being can be saved in indolence. The Lord bids us,
“Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek
to enter in, and shall not be able” (
Luke 13:24
). “Wide is the gate,
and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be
which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way,
which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (
Matthew 7:13,
14
).—MS 16, 1896.
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