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Life Sketches of Ellen G. White
pent-up energies, that, if not expended in useful employment, will be
a continual source of trial to themselves and to their teachers. Many
kinds of labor adapted to different persons may be devised. But the
working of the land will be a special blessing to the worker. There is
a great want of intelligent men to till the soil, who will be thorough.
This knowledge will not be a hindrance to the education essential
for business or for usefulness in any line. To develop the capacity of
the soil requires thought and intelligence. Not only will it develop
muscle, but capacity for study, because the action of brain and muscle
is equalized. We should so train the youth that they will love to work
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upon the land, and delight in improving it. The hope of advancing the
cause of God in this country is in creating a new moral taste in love of
work, which will transform mind and character....
“The school to be established in Australia should bring the question
of industry to the front, and reveal the fact that physical labor has its
place in God’s plan for every man, and that His blessing will attend it.
The schools established by those who teach and practise the truth for
this time, should be so conducted as to bring fresh and new incentives
into all kinds of practical labor. There will be much to try the educators,
but a great and noble object has been gained when students shall feel
that love for God is to be revealed, not only in the devotion of heart
and mind and soul, but in the apt, wise appropriation of their strength.
Their temptations will be far less; from them by precept and example a
light will radiate amid the erroneous theories and fashionable customs
of the world....
“The question may be asked, How can he get wisdom that hold-
eth the plow, and driveth the oxen?—By seeking her as silver, and
searching for her as for hid treasures. ‘For his God doth instruct him to
discretion, and doth teach him.’ ‘This also cometh forth from the Lord
of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.’
“He who taught Adam and Eve in Eden how to tend the garden,
would instruct men today. There is wisdom for him who holds the
plow, and plants and sows the seed. The earth has its concealed
treasures, and the Lord would have thousands and tens of thousands
working upon the soil who are crowded into the cities to watch for a
chance to earn a trifle. In many cases that trifle is not turned into bread,
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but is put into the till of the publican [saloon-keeper], to obtain that
which destroys the reason of man formed in the image of God. Those