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Testimonies for the Church Volume 2
mind were educated to contemplate elevating subjects, the imagina-
tion trained to reflect upon pure and holy things, it would be fortified
against this terrible, debasing, soul-and-body-destroying indulgence.
It would, by training, become accustomed to linger upon the high,
the heavenly, the pure, and the sacred, and could not be attracted to
this base, corrupt, and vile indulgence.
What can we say of those who are living right in the blazing light
of truth, yet daily practicing and following in a course of sin and
crime? Forbidden, exciting pleasures have a charm for them and hold
and control their entire being. Such take pleasure in unrighteousness
and iniquity, and must perish outside of the city of God, with every
abominable thing.
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I have sought to arouse parents to their duty, yet they sleep on.
Your children are practicing secret vice, and they deceive you. You
have such implicit confidence in them that you think them too good
and innocent to be capable of secretly practicing iniquity. Parents
fondle and pet their children, and indulge them in pride, but do not
restrain them with firmness and decision. They are so much afraid
of their willful, stubborn spirits that they fear to come in contact
with them; the sin of negligence, which was marked against Eli, will
be their sin. The exhortation of Peter is of the highest value to all
who are striving for immortality. He addresses those of like precious
faith:
“Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them
that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteous-
ness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be
multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our
Lord, according as His divine power hath given unto us all things
that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him
that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us
exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be
partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that
is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence,
add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge
temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness char-
ity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that
ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our