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they would be prepared for departments of usefulness in this cause. We
must manifest confidence in our young men. They should be pioneers
in every enterprise involving toil and sacrifice, while the overtaxed
servants of Christ should be cherished as counselors, to encourage
and bless those who strike the heaviest blows for God. Providence
thrust these experienced fathers into trying, responsible positions at
an early age, when neither physical nor intellectual powers were fully
developed. The magnitude of the trust committed to them aroused
their energies, and their active labor in the work aided both mental and
physical development.
Young men are wanted. God calls them to missionary fields.
Being comparatively free from care and responsibilities, they are more
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favorably situated to engage in the work than are those who must
provide for the training and support of a large family. Furthermore,
young men can more readily adapt themselves to new climates and new
society, and can better endure inconveniences and hardships. By tact
and perseverance, they can reach the people where they are.—
Gospel
Workers, 84.
The First Students.—The holy pair [Adam and Eve] were not
only children under the fatherly care of God, but students receiving
instruction from the all-wise Creator. They were visited by angels,
and were granted communion with their Maker, with no obscuring
veil between. They were full of the vigor imparted by the tree of
life, and their intellectual power was but little less than that of the
angels. The mysteries of the visible universe—“the wondrous works
of Him which is perfect in knowledge” [
Job 37:16
.] afforded them an
exhaustless source of instruction and delight. The laws and operations
of nature, which have engaged men’s study for six thousand years,
were opened to their minds by the infinite Framer and Upholder of
all. They held converse with leaf and flower and tree, gathering from
each the secrets of its life. With every living creature, from the mighty
leviathan that playeth among the waters, to the insect mote that floats
in the sunbeam, Adam was familiar. He had given to each its name,
and he was acquainted with the nature and habits of all. God’s glory in
the heavens, the innumerable worlds in their orderly revolutions, “the
balancings of the clouds,” the mysteries of light and sound, of day and
night,—all were open to the study of our first parents. On every leaf
of the forest, or stone of the mountains, in every shining star, in earth