Western Normal Institute Address
11
Importance of influence
You will be subject to temptations here. There are brought together
here many of various ideas and temperaments. You have come from
homes where you have received different molds of thought and edu-
cation. Unless you are partakers of the divine nature, there is danger
that you will lead one another to forgetfulness of God. It were better
for you to have your right hand cut off than that you should lead one
soul in a wrong direction. In your education, seek for those principles
that will help you to form the best possible characters in this life, thus
fitting yourselves for the future, eternal life.
Now I will read a portion of the first chapter of second Peter. Notice
who are addressed: it is those who have obtained something: “Simon
Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have
obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God
and our Saviour Jesus Christ.“
Character and future destiny
“The righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ,” this
is our dependence. Through the merits of Jesus, you can be made
clean and white in character, if you consecrate yourselves to Him,
with a determined purpose that right here in this school you will live
a Christian life. You are now forming characters that will determine
your future destiny, for life or for death. If there are those here that
have never taken hold of Christ by living faith, I entreat of you to do
this at the earliest possible moment; for you will suffer great loss if
you neglect this.
“Grace and peace be multiplied unto you.” How, through your
ignorance; through your acting like the world?—“Through the knowl-
edge.” Now here is a knowledge that is worth more than silver or gold
or precious stones. It is the “knowledge of God, and of Jesus our
Lord.“
Preparing the children
“According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that
pertain unto life and godliness.” Then if you are lost, you will be left
without excuse. The time is coming when your parents, if they have