Servants of Sin
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the ascendancy over the higher powers. Men and women lack principle.
They are dying spiritually, because they have so long pampered their
natural appetites that their power of self-government seems gone. The
lower passions of their nature have taken the reins, and that which
should be the governing power has become the servant of corrupt
passion. The soul is held in lowest bondage. Sensuality has quenched
the desire for holiness, and withered spiritual prosperity.
Fruits of Indolence
My soul mourns for the youth who are forming characters in this
degenerate age. I tremble for their parents also, for I have been shown
that as a general thing they do not understand their obligations to train
up their children in the way they should go. Custom and fashion are
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consulted, and the children soon learn to be swayed by these and are
corrupted, while their indulgent parents are themselves benumbed and
asleep to their danger. But very few of the youth are free from corrupt
habits. They are excused from physical exercise to a great degree for
fear they will overwork. The parents bear burdens themselves which
their children should bear. Overwork is bad; but the result of indolence
is more to be dreaded.
Idleness leads to the indulgence of corrupt habits. Industry does
not weary and exhaust one fifth part as much as the pernicious habit of
self-abuse. If simple, well-regulated labor exhausts your children, be
assured, parents, there is something, aside from their labor, which is
enervating their systems and producing a sense of constant weariness.
Give your children physical labor which will call into exercise the
nerves and muscles. The weariness attending such labor will lessen
their inclination to indulge in vicious habits. Idleness is a curse. It
produces licentious habits.
Many cases have been presented before me, and as I have had a
view of their inner lives, my soul has been sick and disgusted with the
rottenheartedness of human beings who profess godliness and talk of
translation to heaven. I have frequently asked myself, Whom can I
trust? Who is free from iniquity?