How Shall Our Youth Be Trained?
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a place unsuitable for the education of our youth makes it unsuitable
today so far as influence is concerned.
When the call came to move out of Battle Creek, the plea was:
“We are here, and all settled. It would be an impossibility to move
without enormous expense.”
The Lord permitted fire to consume the principal buildings of the
Review and Herald and the sanitarium, and thus removed the greatest
objection urged against moving out of Battle Creek. It was His design
that instead of rebuilding the one large sanitarium, our people should
make plants in several places. These smaller sanitariums should have
been established where land could be secured for agricultural purposes.
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It is God’s plan that agriculture shall be connected with the work of
our sanitariums and schools. Our youth need the education to be
gained from this line of work. It is well, and more than well,—it is
essential,—that efforts be made to carry out the Lord’s plan in this
respect.
Shall we encourage our most promising young men and women to
go to Battle Creek to obtain their training for service where they will
be surrounded with so many influences that tend to lead astray? The
Lord has revealed to me some of the dangers that the youth connected
with so large a sanitarium will have to meet. Many of the wealthy,
worldly men and women who patronize this institution will be a source
of temptation to the helpers. Some of these helpers will become the
favorites of wealthy patients and will be offered strong inducements
to enter their employ. Through the influence of the worldly display of
some who have been guests at the sanitarium, tares have already been
sown in the hearts of young men and women employed as helpers and
nurses. This is the way in which Satan is working.
Because the sanitarium is where it ought not to be, shall the word of
the Lord regarding the education of our youth be of no account? Shall
we allow the most intelligent of our youth in the churches throughout
our conferences to be placed where some of them will be robbed of
their simplicity through contact with men and women who have not
the fear of God in their hearts? Will those in charge of our conferences
allow our youth, who, in the schools for Christian workers, could be
fitted for the Lord’s service, to be drawn to a place from which for
years the Lord has been calling upon His people to move?
We desire our youth to be so trained that they will exert a saving
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