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Child Guidance
been injured by reading love stories and romances, and your mind has
been fascinated by impure thoughts. Your imagination has become
corrupt, until you seem to have no power to control your thoughts.
Satan leads you captive as he pleases....
Your conduct has not been chaste, modest, or becoming. You
have not had the fear of God before your eyes. You have so often
dissembled in order to accomplish your plans that you bear a violated
conscience. My dear girl, unless you stop just where you are, ruin is
surely before you. Cease your daydreaming, your castle-building. Stop
your thoughts from running in the channel of folly and corruption.
You cannot safely associate with the boys. A tide of temptation
is roused and surges in your breast, having a tendency to uproot prin-
ciple, female virtue, and true modesty. If you go on in your willful,
headstrong course, what will be your fate? ... You are in danger, for
you are just upon the point of sacrificing your eternal interests at the
altar of passion. Passion is obtaining positive control of your entire
being—passion of what quality? Of a base, destructive nature. By
yielding to it, you will embitter the lives of your parents, bring sadness
and shame to your sisters, sacrifice your own character, and forfeit
heaven and a glorious immortal life. Are you ready to do this? ...
You are forward. You love the boys and love to make them the
theme of your conversation. “Out of the abundance of the heart the
mouth speaketh.” Habits have become powerful to control you, and
you have learned to deceive in order to carry out your purposes and
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accomplish your desires. I do not consider your case hopeless; if I did,
my pen would not be tracing these lines. In the strength of God, you
can redeem the past....
Keep clear of the boys. In their society your temptations become
earnest and powerful. Put marriage out of your girl’s head. You are in
no sense fit for this. You need years of experience before you can be
qualified to understand the duties and take up the burdens of married
life. Positively guard your thoughts, your passions, and your affections.
Do not degrade these to minister to lust. Elevate them to purity; devote
them to God.
You may become a prudent, modest, virtuous girl, but not without
earnest effort. You must watch, you must pray, you must meditate,
you must investigate your motives and your actions. Closely analyze
your feelings and your acts. Would you, in the presence of your father,