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Speedy Preparation for Work
335
As long as time shall last, we shall have need of schools. There
will always be need of education; but we must be careful lest ed-
ucation absorb every spiritual interest. There is positive peril in
advising students to pursue one line of education after another and
in leading them to think that by so doing they will attain perfection.
The education thus obtained will prove to be deficient in every way.
The Lord says: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will
bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the
wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath
not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in
the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”
1
Corinthians 1:19-21
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Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. In the
providence of God he received a broad education, but a large part
of that education had to be unlearned and accounted as foolishness.
Its impression had to be blotted out by forty years of experience
in caring for the sheep and the tender lambs. If many who are
connected with the work of the Lord could be isolated as was Moses,
and could be compelled by circumstances to follow some humble
vocation until their hearts became tender, ... they would not be so
prone to magnify their own abilities, or seek to demonstrate that the
wisdom of an advanced education could take the place of a sound
knowledge of God....
The disciples of Christ are not called upon to magnify men, but
to magnify God, the Source of all wisdom. Let educators give the
Holy Spirit room to do Its work upon human hearts. The greatest
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Teacher is represented in the midst of us by the Holy Spirit. However
you may study, though you may reach higher and still higher, and
occupy every moment of your probationary time in the pursuit of
knowledge, you will not become complete. When time is over, you
would have to ask yourselves the question, What good have I done to
those who are in midnight darkness? To whom have I communicated
the knowledge of God or even the knowledge of those things for
which I have spent so much time and money?
It will soon be said in heaven, “It is done.” “He that is unjust,
let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still:
and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is