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Mind, Character, and Personality Volume 2
imagination and leads them to feel a continual anxiety in regard to
their money. It is their idol, and they hoard it with miserly care. They
will sometimes deprive themselves of many of the comforts of life and
labor beyond their strength, rather than use the means which they have.
In this way they place themselves in continual want, through fear that
sometime in the future they shall want.
All these fears originate with Satan. He excites the organs which
lead to slavish fears and jealousies which corrupt nobleness of soul
[748]
and destroy elevated thoughts and feelings. Such persons are insane
upon the subject of money.
If they would take the position which God would have them, their
last days might be their best and happiest. Those who have children in
whose honesty and judicious management they have reason to confide,
should let their children make them happy. Unless they do this, Satan
will take advantage of their lack of mental strength and will manage for
them. They should lay aside anxiety and burdens and occupy their time
as happily as they can, and be ripening up for heaven.—
Testimonies
for the Church 1:423, 424
(1864).
Recent Memory Passes Fast—He who has grown old in the ser-
vice of God may find his mind a blank in regard to the things that are
happening about him, and recent transactions may soon pass from his
memory; but his mind is all awake to the scenes and transactions of his
childhood. Oh, that the youth may realize how important it is to keep
the mind guarded, pure and clean, from corrupting thoughts and to
preserve the soul from all debasing practices, for the purity or impurity
of youth is reflected upon old age.—
The Youth’s Instructor, October
25, 1894
. (
Sons and Daughters of God, 78
.)
Traits Intensify in Old Age—I was shown David entreating the
Lord not to forsake him when he should be old, and what it was that
called forth his earnest prayer. He saw that most of the aged around him
were unhappy and that unhappy traits of character increased especially
with age. If persons were naturally close and covetous, they were
most disagreeably so in their old age. If they were jealous, fretful, and
impatient, they were especially so when aged.—
Testimonies for the
Church 1:422
(1864).
Unrestrained Jealousy and Failing Judgment—David was dis-
tressed as he saw that kings and nobles who seemed to have the fear
[749]
of God before them while in the strength of manhood became jealous