156
Special Testimonies On Education
channel, soon pervert all the powers of the being. Like Israel of old, the
pleasure-lovers eat and drink, and rise up to play. There is mirth and
carousing, hilarity and glee. In all this the youth follow the example
of the authors of books that are placed in their hands for study. The
greatest evil of it all is the permanent effect these things have upon the
character.
Those who take the lead in these things bring upon the cause a
stain not easily effaced. They wound their own souls, and will carry
the scars through their lifetime. The evil-doer may see his sins and
repent; God may pardon the transgressor; but the power of discernment
[212]
which ought ever to be kept keen and sensitive to distinguish between
the sacred and the common, is in a great measure destroyed. Too often
human devices and imaginations are accepted as divine. Some souls
will act in blindness and insensibility, ready to grasp cheap, common,
even infidel sentiments, while they turn against the demonstrations of
the Holy Spirit.
It is a fearful thing for any soul to place himself on Satan’s side of
the question; for as soon as he does this, a change passes over him, as
it is said of the king of Babylon, that his visage changed toward the
three faithful Hebrews. Past history will be repeated. Men will reject
the Holy Spirit’s working, and open the door of the mind to Satanic
attributes that separate them from God. They will turn against the
very messengers through whom God sends the messages of warning.
Even now I fear that the very things I am seeking to make plain will be
misapplied, misinterpreted, and falsified; some have felt it a virtue to
educate themselves in this line, and by their misapplication they make
of no effect the messages God sends.
I urge upon all to whom these words shall come: Review your own
course of action, and “take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your
hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of
this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall
it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.”
[213]