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Testimonies for the Church Volume 8
offense to God. His wrath is kindled against those who do such things.
In these gratifications the mind becomes besotted, even as in liquor
drinking. The door is opened to vulgar associations. The thoughts,
allowed to run in a low channel, soon pervert all the powers of the
being. Like Israel of old, the pleasure lovers eat and drink, and rise up
to play. There is mirth and carousing, hilarity and glee. In all this the
youth follow the example of the authors of the books placed in their
hands for study. The greatest evil of it all is the permanent effect that
these things have upon the character.
Those who take the lead in these things bring upon the cause a
stain not easily effaced. They wound their own souls, and through their
lifetime will carry the scars. The evildoer may see his sins and repent;
God may pardon the transgressor; but the powers of discernment,
which ought ever to be kept keen and sensitive to distinguish between
the sacred and the common, are in a great measure destroyed. Too
often human devices and imaginations are accepted as divine. Some
souls will act in blindness and insensibility, ready to grasp cheap,
common, and even infidel sentiments, while they turn against the
demonstrations of the Holy Spirit.