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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
God, an individual work, which no one can do for us; it is to make the
world better by precept, by personal effort, and by example. While we
should cultivate sociability, let it not be merely for amusement, but for
a purpose. There are souls to save. Come near to them by personal
effort. Open your doors to young men who are exposed to temptation.
Evil invites them on every hand. Seek to interest them. If they are full
of faults, seek to correct these errors. Do not hold yourselves aloof
from them, but come close to them. Bring them to your firesides; invite
them to your family altars. There is work that thousands need to have
done for them. Every tree in Satan’s garden is hung with tempting,
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poisonous fruit, and a woe is pronounced upon everyone who plucks
and eats. Let us remember the claims of God upon us to make the path
to heaven clear and bright and attractive, that we may win souls away
from Satan’s destructive enchantments.
God has given us reason to be used for a noble purpose. We are
here as probationers for the next life. It is too solemn a period for any
of us to be careless or to move in uncertainty. Our intercourse with
others should be characterized by sobriety and heavenly-mindedness.
Our conversation should be upon heavenly things. “Then they that
feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened,
and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for
them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name. And they
shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up
My jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that
serveth him.”
What is more worthy to engross the mind than the plan of redemp-
tion? It is a subject that is exhaustless. The love of Jesus, the salvation
offered to fallen man through His infinite love, holiness of heart, the
precious, saving truth for these last days, the grace of Christ—these
are subjects which may animate the soul and cause the pure in heart to
feel that joy which the disciples felt when Jesus came and walked with
them as they traveled toward Emmaus. He who has centered his affec-
tions upon Christ will relish this kind of hallowed association and will
gather divine strength by such intercourse; but he who has no relish for
this kind of conversation, and who is best pleased to talk sentimental
nonsense, has wandered far away from God and is becoming dead to
holy and noble aspirations. The sensual, the earthly, is interpreted by
such to be heavenly. When the conversation is of a frivolous char-