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Daughters of God
deportment and a becoming reserve.... I have inquired, When will the
youthful sisters act with propriety? I know there will be no decided
change for the better until parents feel the importance of greater care-
fulness in educating their children correctly. Teach them to act with
reserve and modesty.—
Testimonies for the Church 2:458, 459 (1870)
.
Influence of Debasing Books and Pictures—Many of the young
are eager for books. They read everything they can obtain. Exciting
love stories and impure pictures have a corrupting influence. Novels
are eagerly perused by many, and, as the result, their imagination
becomes defiled. In the [railroad] cars photographs of females in a
state of nudity are frequently circulated for sale. These disgusting
pictures are also found in daguerrean saloons [photo shops] and are
hung upon the walls of those who deal in engravings. This is an age
when corruption is teeming everywhere. The lust of the eye and cor-
rupt passions are aroused by beholding and by reading. The heart is
corrupted through the imagination. The mind takes pleasure in con-
templating scenes which awaken the lower and baser passions. These
vile images, seen through defiled imagination, corrupt the morals and
prepare the deluded, infatuated beings to give loose rein to lustful
passions. Then follow sins and crimes which drag beings formed in
the image of God down to a level with the beasts, sinking them at last
in perdition.—
Testimonies for the Church 2:410 (1870)
.
Satan Is Successful in Bewitching Minds of the Youth—The
corrupting doctrine which has prevailed, that, as viewed from a health
standpoint, the sexes must mingle together, has done its mischievous
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work. When parents and guardians manifest one tithe of the shrewd-
ness which Satan possesses, then can this association of sexes be nearer
harmless. As it is, Satan is most successful in his effort to bewitch the
minds of the youth; and the mingling of boys and girls only increases
the evil twentyfold. Let boys and girls be kept employed in useful
labor. If they are tired, they will have less inclination to corrupt their
own bodies. There is nothing to be hoped for in the case of the young,
unless there is an entire change in the minds of those who are older.
Vice is stamped upon the features of boys and girls, and yet what is
done to stay the progress of this evil? Boys and young men are allowed
and encouraged to take liberties by immodest advances of girls and
young women. May God arouse fathers and mothers to work earnestly