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True Education a Missionary Training
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last. Thus they may advance continually, making God their trust,
clinging to Him who is infinite in wisdom, who can reveal the secrets
hidden for ages, who can solve the most difficult problems for minds
that believe in Him.
God’s Word places great emphasis upon the influence of asso-
ciation, even upon mature people. How much greater is its power
on the developing minds and characters of children and youth! The
company they keep, the principles they adopt, the habits they form,
will decide the question of their usefulness here and of their future,
eternal interest.
It is a terrible fact, and one that should make the hearts of parents
tremble, that in many schools and colleges to which the youth are
sent for mental culture and discipline, influences prevail that mis-
shape the character, divert the mind from life’s true aims, and debase
the morals. Through contact with irreligious, pleasure loving, and
corrupt associates, many youth lose the simplicity and purity, the
faith in God, and the spirit of self-sacrifice that Christian fathers
and mothers have cherished and guarded by careful instruction and
earnest prayer.
Many who enter school with the purpose of fitting themselves for
some line of unselfish ministry become absorbed in secular studies.
Their ambition is aroused to win distinction in scholarship and to
gain position and honor in the world. They lose sight of the purpose
for which they entered school, and their life is given up to selfish
and worldly pursuits. Often habits are formed that ruin the life both
for this world and for the world to come.
As a rule, men and women who have broad ideas, unselfish pur-
poses, noble aspirations, are those in whom these characteristics
were developed by their associations in early years. In all His deal-
ings with Israel, God urged upon them the importance of guarding
the associations of their children. All the arrangements of civil,
religious, and social life were made with a view to preserving the
children from harmful companionship and making them, from their
earliest years, familiar with the precepts and principles of the law
of God. The object lesson given at the birth of the nation was of a
nature to impress deeply all hearts.
Before the last terrible judgment came upon the Egyptians in
the death of the first-born, God commanded His people to gather