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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
I speak the things I know; I testify to you the things which I have
seen when I say there is among our youth, among educated young
men of professedly Christian parents, a grievous offense in the sight
of God, which is so common that it constitutes one of the signs of the
last days. It is so full of evil tendencies as to call for decided exposure
and denunciation. It is the sin of regarding with levity or contempt
their early vows of consecration to God. In a religious interest the
Holy Spirit moved upon them to take their stand wholly under the
bloodstained banner of Prince Immanuel. But the parents were so far
from God themselves, so busily engaged in worldly business, or so
filled with doubts and dissatisfaction in regard to their own religious
experience, that they were wholly unfitted to give them instruction.
These youth, in their inexperience, needed a wise, firm hand to point
out the right way and to bar with counsel and restraint the wrong way.
A religious life should be shown to be in marked contrast to a life
of worldliness and pleasure seeking. He who would be the disciple
of Christ must take up the cross and bear it after Jesus. Our Saviour
lived not to please Himself, neither must we. High spiritual attain-
ments will require entire consecration to God. But this instruction has
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not been given the youth because it would contradict the life of the
parents. Therefore the children have been left to gain a knowledge
of the Christian life as best they could. When tempted to seek the
society of worldlings and participate in worldly amusements, the fond
parents, disliking to deny them any indulgence, have—if they have
said or done anything in the matter—taken a position so indefinite
and undecided that the children have judged for themselves that the
course they desired to pursue was in keeping with the Christian life
and character.
Having once started in this way, they usually continue in it until
the worldly element prevails and they sneer at their former convictions.
They despise the simplicity manifested when their hearts were tender,
and they find excuse to elude the sacred claims of the church and
of the crucified Redeemer. This class can never become what they
might have been had not the convictions of conscience been stifled,
the holiest, tenderest affections blunted. If in after years they become
followers of Christ, they will still bear the scars which irreverence for
sacred things has made upon their souls.