Our College
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rely wholly upon your own strength and wisdom, your best efforts
will accomplish little. If you are prompted by love to God, His law
being your foundation, your work will be enduring. While the hay,
wood, and stubble are consumed, your work will stand the test. The
youth placed under your care you must meet again around the great
white throne. If you permit your uncultivated manners or uncontrolled
tempers to bear sway, and thus fail to influence these youth for their
eternal good, you must at that day meet the grave consequences of
your work. By a knowledge of the divine law, and obedience to its
precepts, men may become the sons of God. By violation of that law
they become servants of Satan. On the one hand they may rise to any
height of moral excellence, or on the other hand they may descend
to any depth of iniquity and degradation. The workers in our college
should manifest a zeal and earnestness proportionate to the value of
the prize at stake—the souls of their students, the approval of God,
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eternal life, and the joys of the redeemed.
As colaborers with Christ, with so favorable opportunities to impart
the knowledge of God, our teachers should labor as if inspired from
above. The hearts of the youth are not hardened, nor their ideas and
opinions stereotyped, as are those of older persons. They may be won
to Christ by your holy demeanor, your devotion, your Christlike walk.
It would be much better to crowd them less in the study of the sciences
and give them more time for religious privileges. Here a grave mistake
has been made.
The object of God in bringing the college into existence has been
lost sight of. Ministers of the gospel have so far shown their want of
wisdom from above as to unite a worldly element with the college;
they have joined with the enemies of God and the truth in providing
entertainments for the students. In thus misleading the youth they
have done a work for Satan. That work, with all its results, they must
meet again at the bar of God. Those who pursue such a course show
that they cannot be trusted. After the evil work has been done, they
may confess their error; but can they as easily gather up the influence
they have exerted? Will the “well done” be spoken to those who have
been false to their trust? These unfaithful men have not built upon the
eternal Rock. Their foundation will prove to be sliding sand. “Know
ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever
therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”