Social Relationships
199
households, and an uplifting influence works in the community.—
The
Ministry of Healing, 352
(1905).
Sociability a Powerful Factor—Christian kindness and socia-
bility are powerful factors in winning the affections of the youth.—
Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, 208
(Sept 17, 1902).
Framework of Social Life Tottering—Already the doctrine that
men are released from obedience to God’s requirements has weakened
the force of moral obligation and opened the floodgates of iniquity
upon the world. Lawlessness, dissipation, and corruption are sweeping
in upon us like an overwhelming tide. In the family, Satan is at work.
His banner waves, even in professedly Christian households. There
is envy, evil surmising, hypocrisy, estrangement, emulation, strife,
betrayal of sacred trusts, indulgence of lust. The whole system of
religious principles and doctrines, which should form the foundation
and framework of social life, seems to be a tottering mass, ready to
fall to ruin.—
The Great Controversy, 585
(1888).
God’s Regulations Prevent Social Injustice—The Lord would
place a check upon the inordinate love of property and power. Great
evils would result from the continued accumulation of wealth by one
class, the poverty and degradation of another. Without some restraint,
the power of the wealthy would become a monopoly, and the poor,
though in every respect fully as worthy in God’s sight, would be
regarded and treated as inferior to their more prosperous brethren.
The sense of this oppression would arouse the passions of the
poorer class. There would be a feeling of despair and desperation
which would tend to demoralize society and open the door to crimes of
every description. The regulations that God established were designed
to promote social equality. The provisions of the sabbatical year and
[626]
the jubilee would, in a great measure, set right that which during the
interval had gone wrong in the social and political economy of the
nation.—
Patriarchs and Prophets, 534
(1890).
Ranks of Society to Prove and Develop Character—It was not
the purpose of God that poverty should ever leave the world. The ranks
of society were never to be equalized, for the diversity of condition
which characterizes our race is one of the means by which God has
designed to prove and develop character.
Many have urged with great enthusiasm that all men should have
an equal share in the temporal blessings of God, but this was not the