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Counsels for the Church
who, while sensitive to abuse, will yet restrain passion and forgive his
enemies. Such men are true heroes.
Many have such meager ideas of what they may become that they
will ever remain dwarfed and narrow, when, if they would improve the
powers which God has given them, they might develop a noble charac-
ter and exert an influence that would win souls to Christ. Knowledge
is power; but intellectual ability, without goodness of heart, is a power
for evil.
God has given us our intellectual and moral powers, but to a great
extent every person is the architect of his own character. Every day the
structure is going up. The word of God warns us to take heed how we
build, to see that our building is founded upon the eternal Rock. The
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time is coming when our work will stand revealed just as it is. Now
is the time for all to cultivate the powers which God has given them,
that they may form characters for usefulness here and for a higher life
hereafter.
Every act of life, however unimportant, has its influence in form-
ing the character. A good character is more precious than worldly
possessions, and the work of forming it is the noblest in which men
can engage.
Characters formed by circumstance are changeable and
discordant—a mass of contraries. Their possessors have no high
aim or purpose in life. They have no ennobling influence upon the
characters of others. They are purposeless and powerless.
The little span of life allotted us here should be wisely improved.
God would have His church a living, devoted, working church. But
our people, as a body, are far from this now. God calls for strong,
brave souls, for active, living Christians, who are following the true
Pattern, and who will exert a decided influence for God and the right.
The Lord has committed to us, as a sacred trust, most important and
solemn truths, and we should show their influence upon our lives and
characters
A Personal Experience in Counseling Children
Some mothers are not uniform in the treatment of their children.
At times they indulge them to their injury, and again they refuse
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Testimonies for the Church 4:656, 657