Students Deciding their Eternal Destiny
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Heaven looks down with approbation upon the students who strive to
do right, and have a firm purpose to be true to God. They will receive
help from God. Of Daniel and his companions who stood firm as a
rock to truth, it is written, “As for these four children, God gave them
knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom: ... and in all matters
of wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found
them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were
in all his realm.”
If you do not intend to improve your opportunities and privileges,
why do you spend, in attending the school, money that your parents
have worked hard to obtain? They have sent you away from the home
roof, with high hopes that you would be educated and benefited by
your sojourn at college. They have followed you with letters and
with prayers, and every line you have written them has been read
with eagerness. They have thanked God for every indication that
you would make a success of your Christian life, and they have wept
for gladness at the indications of your advancement in scientific and
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spiritual knowledge. O I want to beseech of you to do nothing that
is questionable. Consider in what light your parents would regard
your actions, and forbear to do anything that would put thorns in their
pillows. Do not be thoughtless, careless, and lawless. Your actions
do not end with yourselves; they reflect credit or discredit upon the
school, according as they are good or bad. If you do evil, you grieve
Jesus Christ, who bought you with the price of His own blood, hurt the
soul of your principal, wound the hearts of your teachers, and injure
and mar your own soul. You make a blot upon your record, of which
you will be ashamed. Will it pay? It is always best and safe to do right
because it is right. Will you not now do some serious thinking? Right
thinking lies at the foundation of right action. Make up your mind that
you will respond to the expectations your parents have of you, that
you will make faithful efforts to excel, that you will see to it that the
money expended for you has not been misapplied and misused. Have
a determined purpose to co-operate with the efforts made by parents
and teachers, and reach a high standard of knowledge and character.
Be determined not to disappoint those who love you well enough to
trust you. It is manly to do right, and Jesus will help you to do right, if
you seek to do it because it is right.