Table of Contents
Chap. 1 – Proper Education
Chap. 6 – The Home and the School
Chap. 11 – The Schools of the Ancient Hebrews
Chap. 13 – Importance of Training in the Work of God
Chap. 14 – Proper Education of the Young
Chap. 24 – The Science of Salvation the First of Sciences
Chap. 29 – To Teachers and Students
Chap. 35 – To Teachers
Chap. 41 – Work and Education
Chap. 50 – The Divine Teacher
Chap. 66 – Teachers as Examples of Christian Integrity
Chap. 70 – Teacher, Know Thyself

Chap. 1 – Proper Education

It is the nicest work ever assumed by men and women to deal with youthful minds. The greatest care should be taken in the education of youth to so vary the manner of instruction as to call forth the high and noble powers of the mind. Parents and school-teachers are certainly disqualified to properly educate children, if they have not first learned the lesson of self-control, patience, forbearance, gentleness, and love. What an important position for parents, guardians, and teachers! There are very few who realize the most essential wants of the mind, and how to direct the developing intellect, the growing thoughts and feelings of youth. {FE 15.1}

There is a time for training children and a time for educating youth; and it is essential that in school both of these be combined in a great degree. Children may be trained for the service of sin or for the service of righteousness. The early education of youth shapes their characters both in their secular and in their religious life. Solomon says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” This language is positive. The training which Solomon enjoins is to direct, educate, and develop. In order for parents and teachers to do this work, they must themselves understand “the way” the child should go. This embraces more than merely having a knowledge of books. It takes in everything that is good, virtuous, righteous, and holy. It comprehends the practice of temperance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love to God and to one another. In order to attain this object, the physical, mental, moral, and religious education of children must have attention. {FE 15.2}

The education of children, at home or at school, should not be like the training of dumb animals; for children have an intelligent will, which should be directed to control all their powers. Dumb animals need to be trained; for they have not

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reason and intellect. But the human mind must be taught self-control. It must be educated to rule the human being, while animals are controlled by a master, and are trained to be submissive to him. The master is mind, judgment, and will for his beast. A child may be so trained as to have, like the beast, no will of his own. Even his individuality may be merged in the one who superintends his training; his will, to all intents and purposes, is subject to the will of the teacher. {FE 15.3}

Children who are thus educated will ever be deficient in moral energy and individual responsibility. They have not been taught to move from reason and principle; their wills have been controlled by another, and the mind has not been called out, that i t might expand and strengthen by exercise. They have not been directed and disciplined with respect to their peculiar constitutions and capabilities of mind, to put forth their strongest powers when required. Teachers should not stop here, but should give special attention to the cultivation of the weaker faculties, that all the powers may be brought into exercise, and carried forward from one degree of strength to another, that the mind may attain due proportions. {FE 16.1}

There are many families of children who appear to be well trained, while under the training discipline; but when the system which has held them to set rules is broken up, they seem to be incapable of thinking, acting, or deciding for themselves. These children have been so long under iron rule, not allowed to think and act for themselves in those things in which it was highly proper that they should, that they have no confidence in themselves to move out upon their own judgment, having an opinion of their own. And when they go out from their parents to act for themselves, they are easily led by others’ judgment in the wrong direction. They have not stability of character. They have not been thrown upon their own judgment as fast and as far as practicable, and therefore their minds have not been properly

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developed and strengthened. They have so long been absolutely controlled by their parents that they rely wholly upon them; their parents are mind and judgment for them. {FE 16.2}

On the other hand, the young should not be left to think and act independently of the judgment of their parents and teachers. Children should be taught to respect experienced judgment, and to be guided by their parents and teachers. They should be so educated that their minds will be united with the minds of their parents and teachers, and so instructed that they can see the propriety of heeding their counsel. Then when they go forth from the guiding hand of their parents and teachers, their characters will not be like the reed trembling in the wind. {FE 17.1}

The severe training of youth, without properly directing them to think and act for themselves as their own capacity and turn of mind will allow, that by this means they may have growth of thought, feelings of self-respect, and confidence in their own ability to perform, will ever produce a class who are weak in mental and moral power. And when they stand in the world to act for themselves, they will reveal the fact that they are trained, like the animals, and not educated. Their wills, instead of being guided, were forced into subjection by the harsh discipline of parents and teachers. {FE 17.2}

Those parents and teachers who boast of having complete control of the minds and wills of the children under their care, would cease their boastings, could they trace out the future lives of the children who are thus brought into subjection by force o r through fear. These are almost wholly unprepared to share in the stern responsibilities of life. When these youth are no longer under their parents and teachers, and are compelled to think and act for themselves, they are almost sure to take a wrong course, and yield to the power of temptation. They do not make this life a success, and the same deficiencies are seen in their religious life. Could the instructors of children and youth have the future result of their

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mistaken discipline mapped out before them, they would change their plan of education. That class of teachers who are gratified that they have almost complete control of the wills of their scholars, are not the most successful teachers, although the appearance for the time being may be flattering. {FE 17.3}

God never designed that one human mind should be under the complete control of another. And those who make efforts to have the individuality of their pupils merged in themselves, and to be mind, will, and conscience for them, assume fearful responsibilities. These scholars may, upon certain occasions, appear like well-drilled soldiers. But when the restraint is removed, there will be seen a want of independent action from firm principle existing in them. Those who make it their object to so educate their pupils that they may see and feel that the power lies in themselves to make men and women of firm principle, qualified for any position in life, are the most useful and permanently successful teachers. Their work may not show to the very best advantage to careless observers, and their labors may not be valued as highly as are those of the teacher who holds the minds and wills of his scholars by absolute authority; but the future lives of the pupils will show the fruits of the better plan of education. {FE 18.1}

There is danger of both parents and teachers commanding and dictating too much, while they fail to come sufficiently into social relation with their children or scholars. They often hold themselves too much reserved, and exercise their authority in a cold, unsympathizing manner which cannot win the hearts of their children and pupils. If they would gather the children close to them, and show that they love them, and would manifest an interest in all their efforts, and even in their sports, sometimes even being a child among children, they would make the children very happy, and would gain their love and win their confidence. And the

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children would sooner respect and love the authority of their parents and teachers. {FE 18.2}

The habits and principles of a teacher should be considered of even greater importance than his literary qualifications. If he is a sincere Christian, he will feel the necessity of having an equal interest in the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual education of his scholars. In order to exert the right influence, he should have perfect control over himself, and his own heart should be richly imbued with love for his pupils, which will be seen in his looks, words, and acts. He should have firmness of character, and then he can mold the minds of his pupils, as well as instruct them in the sciences. The early education of youth generally shapes their characters for life. Those who deal with the young should be very careful to call out the qualities of the mind, that they may better know how to direct its power so that they may be exercised to the very best account. {FE 19.1}

Close Confinement at School

The system of education carried out for generations back has been destructive to health and even life itself. Many young children have passed five hours each day in schoolrooms not properly ventilated, nor sufficiently large for the healthful accommodation of the scholars. The air of such rooms soon becomes poison to the lungs that inhale it. Little children, whose limbs and muscles are not strong, and whose brains are undeveloped, have been kept confined indoors to their injury. Many have but a slight hold on life to begin with. Confinement in school from day to day makes them nervous and diseased. Their bodies are dwarfed because of the exhausted condition of the nervous system. And if the lamp of life goes out, the parents and teachers do not consider that they had any direct influence in quenching the vital spark. When standing by the graves of their children, the afflicted parents look upon their bereavement as a special

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dispensation of Providence, when, by inexcusable ignorance, their own course has destroyed the lives of their children. To then charge their death to Providence, is blasphemy. God wanted the little ones to live and be disciplined, that they might have beautiful characters, and glorify Him in this world, and praise Him in the better world. {FE 19.2}

Parents and teachers, in taking the responsibility of training these children, do not feel their accountability before God to become acquainted with the physical organism, that they may treat the bodies of their children and pupils in a manner to pres erve life and health. Thousands of children die because of the ignorance of parents and teachers. Mothers will spend hours over needless work upon their own dresses and those of their children, to fit them for display, and will then plead that they cannot find time to read up, and obtain the information necessary to take care of the health of their children. They think it less trouble to trust their bodies to the doctors. In order to be in accordance with fashion and custom, many parents have sacrificed the health and lives of their children. {FE 20.1}

To become acquainted with the wonderful human organism, the bones, muscles, stomach, liver, bowels, heart, and pores of the skin, and to understand the dependence of one organ upon another for the healthful action of all, is a study in which most mothers take no interest. They know nothing of the influence of the body upon mind, and of the mind upon the body. The mind, which allies finite to the infinite, they do not seem to understand. Every organ of the body was made to be servant to the mind. The mind is the capital of the body. Children are allowed to eat flesh-meats, spices, butter, cheese, pork, rich pastry, and condiments generally. They are also allowed to eat irregularly and between meals of unhealthful food. These things do their work of deranging the stomach, exciting the nerves of unnatural action, and

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enfeebling the intellect. Parents do not realize that they are sowing the seed which will bring forth disease and death. {FE 20.2}

Many children have been ruined for life by urging the intellect, and neglecting to strengthen the physical powers. Many have died in childhood because of the course pursued by injudicious parents and school-teachers in forcing their young intellects, by flattery or fear, when they were too young to see the inside of a school room. Their minds have been taxed with lessons, when they should not have been called out, but kept back until the physical constitution was strong enough to endure mental effort. Small children should be left as free as lambs to run out-of-doors, to be free and happy, and should be allowed the most favorable opportunities to lay the foundation for sound constitutions. {FE 21.1}

Parents should be the only teachers of their children until they have reached eight or ten years of age. As fast as their minds can comprehend it, the parents should open before them God’s great book of nature. The mother should have less love for the artificial in her house, and in the preparation of her dress for display, and should find time to cultivate, in herself and in her children, a love for the beautiful buds and opening flowers. By calling the attention of her children to their different colors and variety of forms, she can make them acquainted with God, who made all the beautiful things which attract and delight them. She can lead their minds up to their Creator, and awaken in their young hearts a love for their heavenly Father, who has manifested so great love for them. Parents can associate God with all His created works. The only schoolroom for children from eight to ten years of age should be in the open air, amid the opening flowers and nature’s beautiful scenery. And their only textbook should be the treasures of nature. These lessons, imprinted upon the minds of young children amid the pleasant, attractive scenes of nature, will not soon be forgotten. {FE 21.2}

In order for children and youth to have health, cheerfulness,

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vivacity, and well-developed muscles and brains, they should be much in the open air, and have well-regulated employment and amusement. Children and youth who are kept at school and confined to books, cannot have sound physical constitutions. The exercise of the brain in study, without corresponding physical exercise, has a tendency to attract the blood to the brain, and the circulation of the blood through the system becomes unbalanced. The brain has too much blood, and the extremities too little. There should be rules regulating their studies to certain hours, and then a portion of their time should be spent in physical labor. And if their habits of eating, dressing, and sleeping are in accordance with physical law, they can obtain an education without sacrificing physical and mental health. {FE 21.3}

Physical Decline of the Race

The book of Genesis gives quite a definite account of social and individual life, and yet we have no record of an infant being born blind, deaf, crippled, deformed, or imbecile. There is not an instance upon record of a natural death in infancy, childhood, or early manhood. There is no account of men and women dying of disease. Obituary notices in the book of Genesis run thus: “And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died.” “And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years; and he died.” Concerning others, the record states: He lived to a good old age; and he died. It was so rare for a son to die before the father that such an occurrence was considered worthy of record: “And Haran died before his father Terah.” Haran was a father of children before his death. {FE 22.1}

God endowed man with so great vital force that he has withstood the accumulation of disease brought upon the race in consequence of perverted habits, and has continued for six thousand years. This fact of itself is enough to evidence

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to us the strength and electrical energy that God gave to man at his creation. It took more than two thousand years of crime and indulgence of base passions to bring bodily disease upon the race to any great extent. If Adam, at his creation, had not been endowed with twenty times as much vital force as men now have, the race, with their present habits of living in violation of natural law, would have become extinct. At the time of Christ’s first advent, the race had degenerated so rapidly that an accumulation of disease pressed upon that generation, bringing in a tide of woe, and a weight of misery inexpressible. {FE 22.2}
The wretched condition of the world at the present time has been presented before me. Since Adam’s fall, the race has been degenerating. Some of the reasons for the present deplorable condition of men and women, formed in the image of God, were shown me. And a sense of how much must be done to arrest, even in a degree, the physical, mental, and moral decay, caused my heart to be sick and faint. God did not create the race in its present feeble condition. This state of things is not the work of Providence, but the work of man; it has been brought about by wrong habits and abuses, by violating the laws that God has made to govern man’s existence. Through the temptation to indulge appetite, Adam and Eve first fell from their high, holy, and happy estate. And it is through the same temptation that the race have become enfeebled. They have permitted appetite and passion to take the throne, and to bring into subjection reason and intellect. {FE 23.1}

The violation of physical law, and the consequence, human suffering, have so long prevailed that men and women look upon the present state of sickness, suffering, debility, and premature death as the appointed lot of humanity. Man came from the hand of his Creator, perfect and beautiful in form, and so filled with vital force that it was more than a thousand years before his corrupt appetites and passions, and general

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violations of physical law, were sensibly felt upon the race. More recent generations have felt the pressure of infirmity and disease still more rapidly and heavily with every generation. The vital forces have been greatly weakened by the indulgence of appetite and lustful passion. {FE 23.2}

The patriarchs from Adam to Noah, with but few exceptions, lived nearly a thousand years. Since the days of Noah, the length of life has been tapering. Those suffering with disease were brought to Christ from every city, town, and village for Him to heal; for they were afflicted with all manner of diseases. And disease has been steadily on the increase through successive generations since that period. Because of the continued violation of the laws of life, mortality has increased to a fearful extent. T he years of man have been shortened, so that the present generation pass to the grave, even before the age at which the generations that lived the first few thousand years after the creation came upon the stage of action. {FE 24.1}

Disease has been transmitted from parents to children, from generation to generation. Infants in the cradle are miserably afflicted because of the sins of their parents, which have lessened their vital force. Their wrong habits of eating and dressing, and their general dissipation, are transmitted as an inheritance to their children. Many are born insane, deformed, blind, deaf, and a very large class are deficient in intellect. The strange absence of principle which characterizes this generation, and which is shown in their disregard of the laws of life and health, is astonishing. Ignorance prevails upon this subject, while light is shining all around them. With the majority, their principal anxiety is, What shall I eat? what shall I drink? and wherewithal shall I be clothed? Notwithstanding all that is said and written in regard to how we should treat our bodies, appetite is the great law which governs men and women generally. {FE 24.2}

The moral powers are weakened, because men and women

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will not live in obedience to the laws of health, and make this great subject a personal duty. Parents bequeath to their offspring their own perverted habits, and loathsome diseases corrupt the blood and enervate the brain. The majority of men and women remain in ignorance of the laws of their being, and indulge appetite and passion at the expense of intellect and morals, and seem willing to remain in ignorance of the result of their violation of nature’s laws. They indulge the depraved appetite in the use of slow poisons, which corrupt the blood, and undermine the nervous forces, and in consequence bring upon themselves sickness and death. Their friends call the result of this course the dispensation of Providence. In this they insult Heaven. They rebelled against the laws of nature, and suffered the punishment for thus abusing her laws. Suffering and mortality now prevail everywhere, especially among children. How great is the contrast between this generation, and those who lived during the first two thousand years! {FE 24.3}

Importance of Home Training

I inquired if this tide of woe could not be prevented, and something be done to save the youth of this generation from the ruin which threatens them. I was shown that one great cause of the existing deplorable state of things is that parents do not feel under obligation to bring up their children to conform to physical law. Mothers love their children with an idolatrous love, and indulge their appetite when they know that it will injure their health, and thereby bring upon them disease and unhappiness. This cruel kindness is manifested to a great extent in the present generation. The desires of children are gratified at the expense of health and happy tempers, because it is easier for the mother, for the time being, to gratify them than to withhold that for which they clamor. {FE 25.1}

Thus mothers are sowing the seed that will spring up and bear fruit. The children are not educated to deny their

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appetites and restrict their desires. And they become selfish, exacting, disobedient, unthankful, and unholy. Mothers who are doing this work will reap with bitterness the fruit of the seed they have sown. They have sinned against Heaven and against their children, and God will hold them accountable. {FE 25.2}

Had education for generations back been conducted upon altogether a different plan, the youth of this generation would not now be so depraved and worthless. The managers and teachers of schools should have been those who understood physiology, and who had an interest, not only to educate the youth in the sciences, but to teach them how to preserve health, so that they might use their knowledge to the best account after they had obtained it. There should have been connected with the schools, establishments for carrying on various branches of labor, that the students might have employment, and the necessary exercise out of school hours. {FE 26.1}

The students’ employment and amusements should have been regulated with reference to physical law, and should have been adapted to preserve to them the healthy tone of all the powers of body and mind. Then a practical knowledge of business could have been obtained while their literary education was being gained. Students at school should have had their moral sensibilities aroused to see and feel that society has claims upon them, and that they should live in obedience to natural law, so that they can, by their existence and influence, by precept and example, be an advantage and blessing to society. It should be impressed upon the youth that all have an influence that is constantly telling upon society, to improve and elevate, or to lower and debase. The first study of the young should be to know themselves and how to keep their bodies in health. {FE 26.2}
Many parents keep their children at school nearly the year round. These children go through the routine of study mechanically, but do not retain that which they learn. Many

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of these constant students seem almost destitute of intellectual life. The monotony of continual study wearies the mind, and they take but little interest in their lessons; and to many the application to books becomes painful. They have not an inward love of thought, and an ambition to acquire knowledge. They do not encourage in themselves habits of reflection and investigation. {FE 26.3}

Children are in great need of proper education, in order that they may be of use in the world. But any effort that exalts intellectual culture above moral training is misdirected. Instructing, cultivating, polishing, and refining youth and children should be the main burden with both parents and teachers. Close reasoners and logical thinkers are few, for the reason that false influences have checked the development of the intellect. The supposition of parents and teachers that continual study would strengthen the intellect, has proved erroneous; for in many cases it has had the opposite effect. {FE 27.1}

In the early education of children, many parents and teachers fail to understand that the greatest attention needs to be given to the physical constitution, that a healthy condition of body and brain may be secured. It has been the custom to encourage children to attend school when they are mere babies, needing a mother’s care. When of a delicate age, they are frequently crowded into ill-ventilated schoolrooms, where they sit in wrong positions upon poorly constructed benches, and as the result the young and tender frames of some have become deformed. {FE 27.2}

The disposition and habits of youth will be very likely to be manifested in mature manhood. You may bend a young tree into almost any shape that you choose, and if it remains and grows as you have bent it, it will be a deformed tree, and will ever tell of the injury and abuse received at your hand. You may, after years of growth, try to straighten the tree, but all your efforts will prove unavailing. It will ever be a crooked

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tree. This is the case with the minds of youth. They should be carefully and tenderly trained in childhood. They may be trained in the right direction or in the wrong, and in their future lives they will pursue the course in which they were directed in youth. The habits formed in youth will grow with the growth and strengthen with the strength, and will generally be the same in after life, only continually growing stronger. {FE 27.3}

We are living in an age when almost everything is superficial. There is but little stability and firmness of character, because the training and education of children from their cradle is superficial. Their characters are built upon sliding sand. Self -denial and self-control have not been molded into their characters. They have been petted and indulged until they are spoiled for practical life. The love of pleasure controls minds, and children are flattered and indulged to their ruin. Children should be so trained and educated that they will expect temptations, and calculate to meet difficulties and dangers. They should be taught to have control over themselves, and to nobly overcome difficulties; and if they do not willfully rush into danger, and needlessly place themselves in the way of temptation; if they shun evil influences and vicious society, and then are unavoidably compelled to be in dangerous company, they will have strength of character to stand for the right and preserve principle, and will come forth in the strength of God with their morals untainted. If youth who have been properly educated, make God their trust, their moral powers will stand the most powerful test. {FE 28.1}

But few parents realize that their children are what their example and discipline have made them, and that they are responsible for the characters their children develop. If the hearts of Christian parents were in obedience to the will of Christ, they would obey the injunction of the heavenly Teacher: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” If those who profess to be followers of Christ would only do

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this, they would give, not only to their children, but to the unbelieving world, examples that would rightly represent the religion of the Bible. {FE 28.2}

If Christian parents lived in obedience to the requirements of the divine Teacher, they would preserve simplicity in eating and in dressing, and would live more in accordance with natural law. They would not then devote so much time to artificial life , in making for themselves cares and burdens that Christ has not laid upon them, but that He has positively bid them shun. If the kingdom of God and His righteousness were the first and all-important consideration with parents, but little precious time would be lost in needless outward ornamentation, while the minds of their children are almost entirely neglected. The precious time devoted by many parents to dressing their children for display in their scenes of amusement would better, far better, be spent in cultivating their own minds, in order that they may be competent to properly instruct their children. It is not essential to the salvation or happiness of these parents that they use the precious probationary time that God has lent them, in dressing, visiting, and gossiping. {FE 29.1}

Many parents plead that they have so much to do that they have no time to improve their minds, to educate their children for practical life, or to teach them how they may become lambs of Christ’s fold. Not until the final settlement, when the cases of all will be decided, and the acts of our entire lives will be laid open to our view in the presence of God and the Lamb and all the holy angels, will parents realize the almost infinite value of their misspent time. Very many will then see that their wrong course has determined the destiny of their children. Not only have they failed to secure for themselves the words of commendation from the King of glory, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord,” but they hear pron ounced upon their children the terrible denunciation, “Depart!” This

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separates their children forever from the joys and glories of Heaven, and from the presence of Christ. And they themselves also receive the denunciation, Depart, “thou wicked and slothful servant.” Jesus will never say, “Well done,” to those who have not earned the “well done” by their faithful lives of self-denial and self-sacrifice to do others good and to promote His glory. Those who live principally to please themselves instead of to do others good, will meet with infinite loss. {FE 29.2}

If parents could be aroused to a sense of the fearful responsibility which rests upon them in the work of educating their children, more of their time would be devoted to prayer, and less to needless display. They would reflect, and study, and pray ea rnestly to God for wisdom and divine aid, to so train their children that they may develop characters that God will approve. Their anxiety would not be to know how they can educate their children so that they will be praised and honored of the world, but h ow they can educate them to form beautiful characters that God can approve. {FE 30.1}

Much study and earnest prayer for heavenly wisdom are needed to know how to deal with youthful minds; for very much depends upon the direction parents give to the minds and wills of their children. To balance their minds in the right direction and at the right time, is a most important work; for their eternal destiny may depend on the decisions made at some critical moment. How important, then, that the minds of parents be as free as possible from perplexing, wearing care in temporal things, that they may think and act with calm consideration, wisdom, and love, and make the salvation of the souls of their children the first and highest consideration! The great object which parents should seek to attain for their dear children should be the inward adorning. Parents cannot afford to allow visitors and strangers to claim their attention, and by robbing them of time, which is life’s great capital, make it impossible for them to give their

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children each day that patient instruction which they must have to give right direction to their developing minds. {FE 30.2}

This lifetime is too short to be squandered in vain and trifling diversion, in unprofitable visiting, in needless dressing for display, or in exciting amusements. We cannot afford to squander the time given us of God in which to bless others, and in which to lay up for ourselves a treasure in heaven. We have none too much time for the discharge of necessary duties. We should give time to the culture of our own hearts and minds, in order that we may be qualified for our life work. By neglecting these essential duties, and conforming to the habits and customs of fashionable, worldly society, we do ourselves and our children a great wrong. {FE 31.1}

Mothers who have youthful minds to train, and the characters of children to form, should not seek the excitement of the world in order to be cheerful and happy. They have an important life work, and they and theirs cannot afford to spend time in an unprofitable manner. Time is one of the important talents which God has intrusted to us, and for which He will call us to account. A waste of time is a waste of intellect. The powers of the mind are susceptible of high cultivation. It is the duty of mothers to cultivate their minds, and keep their hearts pure. They should improve every means within their reach for their intellectual and moral improvement, that they may be qualified to improve the minds of their children. Those who indulge their disposition to be in company, will soon feel restless unless visiting or entertaining visitors. Such have not the power of adaptation to circumstances. The necessary, sacred home duties seem commonplace and uninteresting to them. They have no love for self-examination or self-discipline. The mind hungers for the varying, exciting scenes of worldly life; children are neglected for the indulgence of inclination; and the recording angel writes, “Unprofitable servants.” God

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designs that our minds should not be purposeless, but should accomplish good in this life. {FE 31.2}

If parents would feel that it is a solemn duty enjoined upon them of God to educate their children for usefulness in this life; if they would adorn the inner temple of the souls of their sons and daughters for the immortal life, we should see a great change in society for the better. There would not then be manifest so great indifference to practical godliness, and it would not be so difficult to arouse the moral sensibilities of children to understand the claims that God has upon them. But parents bec ome more and more careless in the education of their children in the useful branches. Many parents allow their children to form wrong habits and to follow their own inclination, and fail to impress upon their minds the danger of their doing this, and the n ecessity of their being controlled by principle. {FE 32.1}

Children frequently begin a piece of work with enthusiasm, but, becoming perplexed or wearied with it, they wish to change and take hold of something new. Thus they may take hold of several things, meet with a little discouragement, and give them up; and so they pass from one thing to another, perfecting nothing. Parents should not allow the love of change to control their children. They should not be so much engaged with other things that they will have no time to patiently discipline the developing minds. A few words of encouragement, or a little help at the right time, may carry them over their trouble and discouragement, and the satisfaction they will derive from seeing the task completed that they undertook, will stimulate them to greater exertion. {FE 32.2}

Many children, for want of words of encouragement, and a little assistance in their efforts, become disheartened, and change from one thing to another. And they carry this sad defect with them in mature life. They fail to make a success of anything th ey engage in, for they have not been taught to persevere under discouraging circumstances. Thus the entire

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lifetime of many proves a failure, because they did not have correct discipline when young. The education received in childhood and youth, affects their entire business career in mature life, and their religious experience bears a corresponding stamp. {FE 32.3}

Physical Labor for Students

With the present plan of education, a door of temptation is opened to the youth. Although they generally have too many hours of study, they have many hours without anything to do. These leisure hours are frequently spent in a reckless manner. The knowledge of bad habits is communicated from one to another, and vice is greatly increased. Very many young men who have been religiously instructed at home, and who go out to the schools comparatively innocent and virtuous, become corrupt by associating with vicious companions. They lose self-respect, and sacrifice noble principles. Then they are prepared to pursue the downward path; for they have so abused their consciences that sin does not appear so exceeding sinful. These evils, which exist in the schools that are conducted according to the present plan, might be remedied in a great degree if study and labor could be combined. The same evils exist in the higher schools, only in a greater degree; for many of the youth have educated themselves in vice, and their consciences are seared. {FE 33.1}

Many parents overrate the stability and good qualities of their children. They do not seem to consider that they will be exposed to the deceptive influences of vicious youth. Parents have their fears as they send them some distance away to school, but flatter themselves that as they have had good examples and religious instruction, they will be true to principle in their high school life. Many parents have but a faint idea to what extent licentiousness exists in these institutions of learning. In many cases the parents have labored hard and suffered many privations for the cherished object of

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having their children obtain a finished education. And after all their efforts, many have the bitter experience of receiving their children from their course of studies with dissolute habits and ruined constitutions. And frequently they are disrespectful to their parents, unthankful, and unholy. These abused parents, who are thus rewarded by ungrateful children, lament that they sent their children from them, to be exposed to temptations, and come back to them physical, mental, and moral wrecks. With disappointed hopes and almost broken hearts, they see their children, of whom they had high hopes, follow in a course of vice and drag out a miserable existence. {FE 33.2}

But there are those of firm principles, who answer the expectation of parents and teachers. They go through the course of schooling with clear consciences, and come forth with good constitutions, and morals unstained by corrupting influences. But the number is few. {FE 34.1}

Some students put their whole being into their studies, and concentrate their mind upon the object of obtaining an education. They work the brain, but allow the physical powers to remain inactive. The brain is overworked, and the muscles become weak because they are not exercised. When these students graduate, it is evident that they have obtained their education at the expense of life. They have studied day and night, year after year, keeping their minds continually upon the stretch, while they have f ailed to sufficiently exercise their muscles. They sacrifice all for a knowledge of the sciences, and pass to their graves. {FE 34.2}

Young ladies frequently give themselves up to study, to the neglect of other branches of education even more essential for practical life than the study of books. And after having obtained their education, they are often invalids for life. They neglected their health by remaining too much indoors, deprived of the pure air of heaven, and of the God-given sunlight. These young ladies might have come from their

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schools in health, had they combined with their studies household labor and exercise in the open air. {FE 34.3}

Health is a great treasure. It is the richest possession mortals can have. Wealth, honor, or learning is dearly purchased, if it be at the loss of the vigor of health. None of these attainments can secure happiness, if health is wanting. It is a terrible sin to abuse the health that God has given us; for every abuse of health enfeebles us for life, and makes us losers, even if we gain any amount of education. {FE 35.1}

In many cases parents who are wealthy do not feel the importance of giving their children an education in the practical duties of life as well as in the sciences. They do not see the necessity, for the good of their children’s minds and morals, and fo r their future usefulness, of giving them a thorough understanding of useful labor. This is due their children, that, should misfortune come, they could stand forth in noble independence, knowing how to use their hands. If they have a capital of strength, they cannot be poor, even if they have not a dollar. Many who in youth were in affluent circumstances, may be robbed of all their riches, and be left with parents and brothers and sisters dependent upon them for sustenance. Then how important that every yo uth be educated to labor, that they may be prepared for any emergency! Riches are indeed a curse when their possessors let them stand in the way of their sons and daughters obtaining a knowledge of useful labor, that they may be qualified for practical lif e. {FE 35.2}

Those who are not compelled to labor, frequently do not have sufficient active exercise for physical health. Young men, for want of having their minds and hands employed in active labor, acquire habits of indolence, and frequently obtain what is most to be dreaded, a street education, lounging about stores, smoking, drinking, and playing cards. {FE 35.3}

Young ladies will read novels, excusing themselves from active labor because they are in delicate health. Their feebleness

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is the result of their lack of exercising the muscles God has given them. They may think they are too feeble to do housework, but will work at crochet and tatting, and preserve the delicate paleness of their hands and faces, while their care-burdened mothers toil hard to wash and iron their garments. These ladies are not Christians, for they transgress the fifth commandment. They do not honor their parents. But the mother is the one who is most to blame. She has indulged her daughters and excused them from bearing their share of household duties, until work has become distasteful to them, and they love and enjoy delicate idleness. They eat, and sleep, and read novels, and talk of the fashions, while their lives are useless. {FE 35.4}

Poverty, in many cases, is a blessing; for it prevents youth and children from being ruined by inaction. The physical as well as the mental powers should be cultivated and properly developed. The first and constant care of parents should be to see tha t their children have firm constitutions, that they may be sound men and women. It is impossible to attain this object without physical exercise. For their own physical health and moral good, children should be taught to work, even if there is no necessity so far as want is concerned. If they would have pure and virtuous characters, they must have the discipline of well-regulated labor, which will bring into exercise all the muscles. The satisfaction that children will have in being useful, and in denying themselves to help others, will be the most healthful pleasure they ever enjoyed. Why should the wealthy rob themselves and their dear children of this great blessing? {FE 36.1}

Parents, inaction is the greatest curse that ever came upon youth. Your daughters should not be allowed to lie in bed late in the morning sleeping away the precious hours lent them of God to be used for the best purpose, and for which they will have t o give an account to Him. The mother does her daughters great injury by bearing the burdens that they

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should share with her for their own present and future good. The course tha t many parents pursue in allowing their children to be indolent, and to gratify their desire for reading romance, is unfitting them for real life. Novel and storybook reading are the greatest evils in which youth can indulge. Novel and love-story readers always fail to make good, practical mothers. They are air-castle builders, living in an unreal, an imaginary world. They become sentimental, and have sick fancies. Their artificial life spoils them for anything useful. They are dwarfed in intellect, although they may flatter themselves that they are superior in mind and manners. Exercise in household labor is of the greatest advantage to young girls. {FE 36.2}

Physical labor will not prevent the cultivation of the intellect. Far from it. The advantages gained by physical labor will balance a person and prevent the mind from being overworked. The toil will come upon the muscles, and relieve the wearied brain. There are many listless, useless girls who consider it unladylike to engage in active labor. But their characters are too transparent to deceive sensible persons in regard to their real worthlessness. They simper and giggle, and are all affectation. They appear as though they could not speak their words fairly and squarely, but torture all they say with lisping and simpering. Are these ladies? They were not born fools, but were educated such. It does not require a frail, helpless, overdressed, simpering t hing to make a lady. A sound body is required for a sound intellect. Physical soundness, and a practical knowledge of all the necessary household duties, will never be hindrances to a well-developed intellect; both are highly important for a lady. {FE 37.1}

All the powers of the mind should be called into use and developed, in order for men and women to have well-balanced minds. The world is full of one-sided men and women, who have become such because one set of their faculties was cultivated, while others were dwarfed from inaction. The education of most youth is a failure. They overstudy, while they

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neglect that which pertains to practical business life. Men and women become parents without considering their responsibilities, and their offspring sink lower in the scale of human deficiency than they themselves. Thus the race is fast degenerating. The constant application to study, as the schools are now conducted, is unfitting youth for practical life. The human mind will have action. If it is not active in the right direction, it will be active in the wrong. In order to preserve the balance of the mind, labor and study should be united in the schools. {FE 37.2}

Provision should have been made in past generations for education upon a larger scale. In connection with the schools should have been agricultural and manufacturing establishments. There should also have been teachers of household labor. And a portion of the time each day should have been devoted to labor, that the physical and mental powers might be equally exercised. If schools had been established upon the plan we have mentioned, there would not now be so many unbalanced minds. {FE 38.1}

God prepared for Adam and Eve a beautiful garden. He provided for them everything that their wants required. He planted for them fruit-bearing trees of every variety. With a liberal hand He surrounded them with His bounties. The trees for usefulness and beauty, and the lovely flowers, which sprung up spontaneously, and flourished in rich profusion around them, were to know nothing of decay. Adam and Eve were rich indeed. They possessed Eden. Adam was lord in his beautiful domain. None can question the fact that he was rich. But God knew that Adam could not be happy unless he had employment. Therefore He gave him something to do; he was to dress the garden. {FE 38.2}

If men and women of this degenerate age have a large amount of earthly treasure, which, in comparison with that paradise of beauty and wealth given the lordly Adam, is very insignificant, they feel themselves above labor, and educate

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their children to look upon it as degrading. Such rich parents, by precept and example, instruct their children that money makes the gentleman and the lady. But our idea of the gentleman and the lady is measured by the intellect and the moral worth. God estimates not by dress. The exhortation of the inspired apostle Peter is, “Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.” A meek and quiet spirit is exalted above worldly honor or riches. {FE 38.3}

The Lord illustrates how He estimates the worldly wealthy, who lift up their souls unto vanity because of their earthly possessions, by the rich man who tore down his barns and built greater, that he might have room to bestow his goods. Forgetful of G od, he failed to acknowledge whence all his possessions came. No grateful thanks ascended to his gracious Benefactor. He congratulated himself thus: “Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” The Master, who had intrusted to him earthly riches with which to bless his fellow men and glorify his Maker, was justly angry at his ingratitude, and said, “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” Here we have an illustration of how the infinite God estimates man. An extensive fortune, or any degree of wealth, will not secure the favor of God. All these bounties and blessings come from Him, to prove, test, and develop the character of man. {FE 39.1}

Men may have boundless wealth; yet if they are not rich toward God, if they have no interest to secure to themselves the heavenly treasure and divine wisdom, they are counted fools by their Creator, and we leave them just where God

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leaves them. Labor is a blessing. It is impossible for us to enjoy health without labor. All the faculties should be called into use that they may be properly developed, and that men and women may have well-balanced minds. If the young had been given a thorough education in the different branches of labor, if they had been taught labor as well as the sciences, their education would have been of greater advantage to them. {FE 39.2}

A constant strain upon the brain while the muscles are inactive, enfeebles the nerves, and students have an almost uncontrollable desire for change and exciting amusements. And when they are released, after being confined to study several hours each day, they are nearly wild. Many have never been controlled at home. They have been left to follow inclination, and they think that the restraint of the hours of study is a severe tax upon them; and not having anything to do after study hours, Satan suggests sport and mischief for a change. Their influence over other students is demoralizing. Those students who have had the benefits of religious teaching at home, and who are ignorant of the vices of society, frequently become the best acquainted with those whose minds have been cast in an inferior mold, and whose advantages for mental culture and religious training have been very limited. And they are in danger, by mingling in the society of this class, and by breathing an atmosphere that is not elevating, but that tends to lower and degrade the morals, of sinking to the same low level as their companions. It is the delight of a large class of students, in their unemployed hours, to have a high time. And very many of those who leave their homes innocent and pure, become corrupted by their associations at school. {FE 40.1}

I have been led to inquire, Must all that is valuable in our youth be sacrificed in order that they may obtain a school education? Had there been agricultural and manufacturing establishments connected with our schools, and had competent teachers been employed to educate the youth in the

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different branches of study and labor, devoting a portion of each day to mental improvement, and a portion to physical labor, there would now be a more elevated class of youth to come upon the stage of action to have influence in molding society. Many of the youth who would graduate at such institutions would come forth with stability of character. They would have perseverance, fortitude, and courage to surmount obstacles, and such principles that they would not be swayed by a wrong influence, however popular. There should have been experienced teachers to give lessons to young ladies in the cooking department. Young girls should have been instructed to manufacture wearing apparel, to cut, make, and mend garments, and thus become educated for the practical duties of life. {FE 40.2}

For young men, there should be establishments where they could learn different trades, which would bring into exercise their muscles as well as their mental powers. If the youth can have but a one-sided education, which is of the greater consequence, a knowledge of the sciences, with all the disadvantages to health and life, or a knowledge of labor for practical life? We unhesitatingly answer, The latter. If one must be neglected, let it be the study of books. {FE 41.1}

There are very many girls who have married and have families, who have but little practical knowledge of the duties devolving upon a wife and mother. They can read, and play upon an instrument of music; but they cannot cook. They cannot make good bread, which is very essential to the health of the family. They cannot cut and make
garments, for they never learned how. They considered these things unessential, and in their married life they are as dependent upon some one to do these things for them as are their own little children. It is this inexcusable ignorance in regard to the most needful duties of life which makes very many unhappy families. {FE 41.2}

The impression that work is degrading to fashionable life has laid thousands in the grave who might have lived. Those

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who perform only manual labor, frequently work to excess without giving themselves periods of rest; while the intellectual class overwork the brain, and suffer for want of the healthful vigor that physical labor gives. If the intellectual would to some extent share the burden of the laboring class, and thus strengthen the muscles, the laboring class might do less, and devote a portion of their time to mental and moral culture. Those of sedentary and literary habits should take physical exercise, even if they have no need
to labor so far as means are concerned. Health should be a sufficient inducement to lead them to unite physical with mental labor. {FE 41.3}

Moral, intellectual, and physical culture should be combined in order to have well-developed, well-balanced men and women. Some are qualified to exercise greater intellectual strength than others, while others are inclined to love and enjoy physical labor. Both of these classes should seek to improve where they are deficient, that they may present to God their entire being, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to Him, which is their reasonable service. The habits and customs of fashionable society s hould not gauge their course of action. The inspired apostle Paul adds, “And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.” {FE 42.1}

The minds of thinking men labor too hard. They frequently use their mental powers prodigally; while there is another class whose highest aim in life is physical labor. The latter class do not exercise the mind. Their muscles are exercised, while their brains are robbed of intellectual strength; just as the minds of thinking men are worked, while their bodies are robbed of strength and vigor by their neglect to exercise the muscles. Those who are content to devote their lives to physical labor, and leave others to do the thinking for them, while they simply carry out what other brains have planned, will have strength of muscle, but feeble intellects. Their

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influence for good is small in comparison to what it might be if they would use their brains as well as their muscles. This class fall more readily if attacked by disease, because the system is vitalized by the electrical force of the brain to resist disease. {FE 42.2}

Men who have good physical powers should educate themselves to think as well as to act, and not depend upon others to be brains for them. It is a popular error with a large class to regard work as degrading. Therefore young men are very anxious to educate themselves to become teachers, clerks, merchants, lawyers, and to occupy almost any position that does not require physical labor. Young women regard housework as demeaning. And although the physical exercise required to perform household labor, if not too severe, is calculated to promote health, yet they will seek for an education that will fit them to become teachers or clerks, or will learn some trade which will confine them indoors to sedentary employment. The bloom of health fades from their cheeks, and disease fastens upon them, because they are robbed of physical exercise, and their habits are perverted generally. All this because it is fashionable! They enjoy delicate life, which is feebleness and decay. {FE 43.1}

True, there is some excuse for young women not choosing housework for employment, because those who hire kitchen girls generally treat them as servants. Frequently their employers do not respect them, and treat them as though they were unworthy to be members of their families. They do not give them the privileges they do the seamstress, the copyist, and the teacher of music. But there can be no employment more important than that of housework. To cook well, to present healthful food upon the table in an inviting manner, requires intelligence and experience. The one who prepares the food that is to be placed in our stomachs, to be converted into blood to nourish the system, occupies a most important and elevated position. The position of copyist, dressmaker,

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or music teacher cannot equal in importance that of the cook. {FE 43.2}

The foregoing is a statement of what might have been done by a proper system of education. Time is too short now to accomplish that which might have been done in past generations; but we can do much, even in these last days, to correct the existing evils in the education of youth. And because time is short, we should be in earnest, and work zealously to give the young that education which is consistent with our faith. We are reformers. We desire that our children should study to the best advantage. In order to do this, employment should be given them which will call the muscles into exercise. Daily, systematic labor should constitute a part of the education of the youth, even at this late period. Much can now be gained by connecting labor with schools. In following this plan, the students will realize elasticity of spirit and vigor of thought, and will be able to accomplish more mental labor in a given time than they could by study alone. And they can leave school with their constitutions unimpaired, and with strength and courage to persevere in any position in which the providence of God may place them. {FE 44.1}

Because time is short, we should work with diligence and double energy. Our children may never enter college, but they can obtain an education in those essential branches which they can turn to a practical use, and which will give culture to the mind, and bring its powers into use. Very many youth who have gone through a college course have not obtained that true education that they can put to practical use. They may have the name of having a collegiate education, but in reality they are only educated dunces. {FE 44.2}

There are many young men whose services God would accept, if they would consecrate themselves to Him unreservedly. If they would exercise those powers of the mind in the service of God which they use in serving themselves and in acquiring property, they would make earnest, persevering, successful laborers in the vineyard of the Lord. Many of our

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young men should turn their attention to the study of the Scriptures, that God m ay use them in His cause. But they do not become as intelligent in spiritual knowledge as in temporal things; therefore they fail to do the work of God which they could do with acceptance. There are but few to warn sinners and win souls to Christ, when the re should be many. Our young men generally are wise in worldly matters, but not intelligent in regard to the things of the kingdom of God. They might turn their minds in a heavenly, divine channel, and walk in the light, going on from one degree of light and strength to another, until they could turn sinners to Christ, and point the unbelieving and desponding to a bright track heavenward. And when the warfare is ended, they might be welcomed to the joy of their Lord. {FE 44.3}

Young men should not enter upon the work of explaining the Scriptures and lecturing upon the prophecies, when they do not have a knowledge of the important Bible truths they try to explain to others. They may be deficient in the common branches of education, and therefore fail to do the amount of good they could do if they had had the advantages of a good school. Ignorance will not increase the humility or spirituality of any professed follower of Christ. The truths of the divine word can be best appre ciated by an intellectual Christian. Christ can be best glorified by those who serve Him intelligently. The great object of education is to enable us to use the powers which God has given us in such a manner as will best represent the religion of the Bible and promote the glory of God. {FE 45.1}

We are indebted to Him who gave us existence, for all the talents which have been intrusted to us; and it is a duty we owe to our Creator to cultivate and improve upon the talents He has committed to our trust. Education will discipline the mind, deve lop its powers, and understandingly direct them, that we may be useful in advancing the glory of God. We need a school where those who are just entering the ministry

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may be taught at least the common branches of education, and where they may also learn more perfectly the truths of God’s word for this time. In connection with these schools, lectures should be given upon the prophecies. Those who really have good abilities such as God will accept to labor in His vineyard, would be very much benefited by only a few months’ instruction at such a school.–Test., Vol. III, pages 131-160, 1872.{FE 45.2}

Chap. 6 – The Home and the School

It is the boast of the present age that never before did men possess so great facilities for the acquirement of knowledge, or manifest so general an interest in education. Yet despite this vaunted progress, there exists an unparalleled spirit of insubordination and recklessness in the rising generation; mental and moral degeneracy are well-nigh universal. Popular education does not remedy the evil. The lax discipline in many institutions of learning has nearly destroyed their usefulness, and in some cases rendered them a curse rather than a blessing. This fact has been seen and deplored, and earnest efforts have been made to remedy the defects in our educational system. There is urgent need of schools in which the youth may be trained to habits of self-control, application, and self-reliance, of respect for superiors and reverence for God. With such training, we might hope to see the young prepared to honor their Creator and to bless their fellow men. {FE 64.1}

It was to secure these objects that our own College at Battle Creek was founded. But those who endeavor to accomplish such a work, find that their undertaking is fraught with many and grave difficulties. The evil which underlies all others, and which often counteracts the efforts of the best instructors, is to be found in the home discipline. Parents do not see the importance of shielding their children from the gilded temptations of this age. They do not exercise proper control themselves, and hence d o not rightly appreciate its value. {FE 64.2}
Many fathers and mothers err in failing to second the efforts of the faithful teacher. Youth and children, with their imperfect comprehension and undeveloped judgment, are not always able to understand all the teacher’s plans and methods. Yet when the y bring home reports of what is said and done at school, these are discussed by the parents in the family circle, and the course of the teacher is criticised without restraint.

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Here the children learn lessons that are not easily unlearned. Whenever they are subjected to unaccustomed restraint, or required to apply themselves to hard study, they appeal to their injudicious parents for sympathy and indulgence. Thus a spirit of unrest and discontent is encouraged, the school as a whole suffers from the demoralizing influence, and the teacher’s burden is rendered much heavier. But the greatest loss is sustained by the victims of parental mismanagement. Defects of character which a right training would have corrected, are left to strengthen with years, to mar and perhaps destroy the usefulness of their possessor. {FE 64.3}

As a rule it will be found that the students most ready to complain of school discipline are those who have received a superficial education. Having never been taught the necessity of thoroughness, they regard it with dislike. Parents have neglected to train their sons and daughters to the faithful performance of domestic duties. Children are permitted to spend their hours in play, while father and mother toil on unceasingly. Few young persons feel that it is their duty to bear a part of the family burden. They are not taught that the indulgence of appetite, or the pursuit of ease or pleasure, is not the great aim of life. {FE 65.1}

The family circle is the school in which the child receives its first and most enduring lessons. Hence parents should be much at home. By precept and example, they should teach their children the love and the fear of God; teach them to be intelligent, social, affectionate, to cultivate habits of industry, economy, and self-denial. By giving their children love, sympathy, and encouragement at home, parents may provide for them a safe and welcome retreat from many of the world’s temptations. {FE 65.2}

“No time,” says the father, “I have no time to give to the training of my children, no time for social and domestic enjoyments.” Then you should not have taken upon yourself the responsibility of a family. By withholding from them the

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time which is justly theirs, you rob them of the education which they should have at your hands. If you have children, you have a work to do, in union with the mother, in the formation of their characters. Those who feel that they have an imperative call to labor for the improvement of society, while their own children grow up undisciplined, should inquire if they have not mistaken their duty. Their own household is the first missionary field in which parents are required to labor. Those who leave the home garden to grow up to thorns and briers, while they manifest great interest in the cultivation of their neighbor’s plot of ground, are disregarding the word of God. {FE 65.3}

I repeat, it is the lack of love and piety, and the neglect of proper discipline at home, that creates so much difficulty in schools and colleges. There is a fearful state of coldness and apathy among professed Christians. They are unfeeling, uncharitable, unforgiving. These evil traits, first indulged at home, exert their baleful influence in all the associations of daily life. If the spirit of kindness and courtesy were cherished by parents and children, it would be seen also in the intercourse between teacher and pupil. Christ should be an honored guest in the family circle, and His presence is no less needed in the class room. Would that the converting power of God might soften and subdue the hearts of parents and children, teachers and students, an d transform them into the likeness of Christ. {FE 66.1}

Fathers and mothers should carefully and prayerfully study the characters of their children. They should seek to repress and restrain those traits that are too prominent, and to encourage others which may be deficient, thus securing harmonious development. This is no light matter. The father may not consider it a great sin to neglect the training of his children; but thus does God regard it. Christian parents need a thorough conversion upon this subject. Guilt is accumulating upon them, and the consequences of their actions reach

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down from their own children to children’s children. The ill-balanced mind, the hasty temper, the fretfulness, envy, or jealousy, bear witness to parental neglect. These evil traits of character bring great unhappiness to their possessors. How many fail to receive from companions and friends the love which they might have, if they were more
amiable. How many create trouble wherever they go, and in whatever they are engaged! {FE 66.2}

Children have claims which their parents should acknowledge and respect. They have a right to such an education and training as will make them useful, respected, and beloved members of society here, and give them a moral fitness for the society of the pure and holy hereafter. The young should be taught that both their present and their future well-being depend to a great degree on the habits they form in childhood and youth. They should be early accustomed to submission, self-denial, and a regard for others’ happiness. They should be taught to subdue the hasty temper, to withhold the passionate word, to manifest unvarying kindness, courtesy, and self-control. Fathers and mothers should make it their life-study that their children may become as nearly perfect in character as human effort, combined with divine aid, can make them. This work, with all its importance and responsibility, they have accepted, in that they have brought children into the world. {FE 67.1}

Parents must see that their own hearts and lives are controlled by the divine precepts, if they would bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They are not authorized to fret and scold and ridicule. They should never taunt th eir children with perverse traits of character, which they themselves have transmitted to them. This mode of discipline will never cure the evil. Parents, bring the precepts of God’s word to admonish and reprove your wayward children. Show them a “thus saith the Lord” for your requirements. A reproof which comes as the word of

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God is far more effective than one falling in harsh, angry tones from the lips of parents. {FE 67.2}

Wherever it seems necessary to deny the wishes or oppose the will of a child, he should be seriously impressed with the thought that this is not done for the gratification of the parents, or to indulge arbitrary authority, but for his own good. He sho uld be taught that every fault uncorrected will bring unhappiness to himself, and will displease God. Under such discipline, children will find their greatest happiness in submitting their own will to the will of their Heavenly Father. {FE 68.1}

Some parents — and some teachers, as well — seem to forget that they themselves were once children. They are dignified, cold, and unsympathetic. Wherever they are brought in contact with the young,– at home, in the day school, the Sabbath school, o r the church,– they maintain the same air of authority, and their faces habitually wear a solemn, reproving expression. Childish mirth or waywardness, the restless activity of the young life, finds no excuse in their eyes. Trifling misdemeanors are treated as grave sins. Such discipline is not Christlike. Children thus trained fear their parents or teachers, but do not love them; they do not confide to them their childish experiences. Some of the most valuable qualities of mind and heart are chilled to death, as a tender plant before the wintry blast. {FE 68.2}

Smile, parents; smile, teachers. If your heart is sad, let not your face reveal the fact. Let the sunshine from a loving, grateful heart light up the countenance. Unbend from your iron dignity, adapt yourselves to the children’s needs, and make them love you. You must win their affection, if you would impress religious truth upon their heart. {FE 68.3}

Jesus loved the children. He remembered that He was once a child, and His benevolent countenance won the affections of the little ones. They loved to play around Him, and to stroke that loving face with their innocent hands. When the Hebrew mothers brought their babes to be blessed by the dear Saviour

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the disciples deemed the errand of too little importance to interrupt His teachings. But Jesus read the earnest longing of those mothers’ hearts, and checking His disciples, He said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” {FE 68.4}

Parents, you have a work to do for your children which no other can do. You cannot shift your responsibilities upon another. The father’s duty to his children cannot be transferred to the mother. If she performs her own duty, she has burden enough to bear. Only by working in unison, can the father and mother accomplish the work which God has committed to their hands. {FE 69.1}

That time is worse than lost to parents and children which is devoted to the acquirement of wealth, while mental improvement and moral culture are neglected. Earthly treasures must pass away; but nobility of character, moral worth, will endure forever. If the work of parents be well done, it will through eternity testify of their wisdom and faithfulness. Those who tax their purses and their ingenuity to the utmost to provide for their households costly apparel and dainty food, or to maintain them in ignorance of useful labor, will be repaid only by the pride, envy, willfulness, and disrespect of their spoiled children. {FE 69.2}

The young need to have a firm barrier built up from their infancy between them and the world, that its corrupting influence may not affect them. Parents must exercise increasing watchfulness, that their children be not lost to God. If it were consider ed as important that the young possess a beautiful character and amiable disposition as it is that they imitate the fashions of the world in dress and deportment, we would see hundreds where there is one today coming upon the stage of active life prepared to exert an ennobling influence upon society. {FE 69.3}

The parents’ work of education, instruction, and discipline underlies every other. The efforts of the best teachers must

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often bear little fruit, if fathers and mothers fail to act their part with faithfulness. God’s word must ever be their guide. We do not endeavor to present a new line of duty. We set before all the teachings of that word by which our work must be judged, and we inquire, Is this the standard which we as Christian parents are endeavoring to reach?–Review and Herald, March 21, 1882. {FE 69.4}

Chap. 11 – The Schools of the Ancient Hebrews

The institutions of human society find their best models in the word of God. For those of instruction, in particular, there is no lack of both precept and example. Lessons of great profit, even in this age of educational progress, may be found in the history of God’s ancient people. {FE 95.1}

The Lord reserved to Himself the education and instruction of Israel. His care was not restricted to their religious interests. Whatever affected their mental or physical  ell-being, became also an object of divine solicitude, and came within the province of  ivine law. {FE 95.2}

God commanded the Hebrews to teach their children His requirements, and to make them acquainted with all His dealings with their people. The home and the school were one. In the place of stranger lips, the loving hearts of the father and mother were t o give instruction to their children. Thoughts of God were associated with all the events of daily life in the home dwelling. The mighty works of God in the deliverance of His people were recounted with eloquence and reverential awe. The great truths of God’s providence and of the future life were impressed on the young mind. It became acquainted with the true, the good, the beautiful. {FE 95.3}
By the use of figures and symbols the lessons given were illustrated, and thus more firmly fixed in the memory. Through this animated imagery the child was, almost from infancy, initiated into the mysteries, the wisdom, and the hopes of his fathers, a nd guided in a way of thinking and feeling and anticipating, that reached beyond things seen and transitory, to the unseen and eternal. {FE 95.4}
From this education many a youth of Israel came forth vigorous in body and mind, quick to perceive and strong to act, the heart prepared like good ground for the growth of the

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precious seed, the mind trained to see God in the words of revelation and the scenes of nature. The stars of heaven, the trees and flowers of the field, the lofty mountains, the babbling brooks, all spoke to him, and the voices of the prophets, heard t hroughout the land, met a response in his heart. {FE 95.5}

Such was the training of Moses in the lowly cabin home in Goshen; of Samuel, by the faithful Hannah; of David, in the hill-dwelling at Bethlehem; of Daniel, before the scenes of the captivity separated him from the home of his fathers. Such, too, was the early life of Christ, in the humble home at Nazareth; such the training by which the child Timothy learned from the lips of his mother Eunice, and his grandmother Lois, the truths of Holy Writ. {FE 96.1}

Further provision was made for the instruction of the young, by the establishment of the “school of the prophets.” If a youth was eager to obtain a better knowledge of the Scriptures, to search deeper into the mysteries of the kingdom of God, and to s eek wisdom from above, that he might become a teacher in Israel, this school was open to him. {FE 96.2}

By Samuel the schools of the prophets were established to serve as a barrier against the widespread corruption resulting from the iniquitous course of Eli’s sons, and to promote the moral and spiritual welfare of the people. These schools proved a gre at blessing to Israel, promoting that righteousness which exalteth a nation, and furnishing it with men qualified to act, in the fear of God, as leaders and counselors. In the accomplishment of this object, Samuel gathered companies of young men who were pious, intelligent and studious. These were called the sons of the prophets. The instructors were men not only versed in divine truth, but those who had themselves enjoyed communion with God, and had received the special endowment of His Spirit. They enjoyed the respect and confidence of the people, both for learning and piety. {FE 96.3}

In Samuel’s day there were two of these schools,–one at Ramah, the home of the prophet, and the other at Kirjath-jearim,

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where the ark then was. Two were added in Elijah’s time, at Jericho and Bethel, and others were afterward established at Samaria and Gilgal. {FE 96.4}
The pupils of these schools sustained themselves by their own labor as husbandmen and mechanics. In Israel this was not considered strange or degrading; it was regarded a crime to allow children to grow up in ignorance of useful labor. In obedience to the command of God, every child was taught some trade, even though he was to be educated for holy office. Many of the religious teachers supported themselves by manual labor. Even so late as the time of Christ, it was not considered anything degrading that Paul and Aquila earned a livelihood by their labor as tentmakers. {FE 97.1}
The chief subjects of study were the law of God with the instructions given to Moses, sacred history, sacred music, and poetry. It was the grand object of all study to learn the will of God and the duties of His people. In the records of sacred histor y were traced the footsteps of Jehovah. From the events of the past were drawn lessons of instruction for the future. The great truths set forth by the types and shadows of the Mosaic law were brought to view, and faith grasped the central object of all that system, the Lamb of God that was to take away the sins of the world. {FE 97.2}
The Hebrew language was cultivated as the most sacred tongue in the world. A spirit of devotion was cherished. Not only were students taught the duty of prayer, but they were taught how to pray, how to approach their Creator, how to exercise faith in Him, and how to understand and obey the teachings of His Spirit. Sanctified intellects brought forth from the treasure house of God things new and old. {FE 97.3}
The art of sacred melody was diligently cultivated. No frivolous waltz was heard, nor flippant song that should extol man and divert the attention from God; but sacred, solemn psalms of praise to the Creator, exalting His name and recounting His wondrous works. Thus music was made to

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serve a holy purpose, to lift the thoughts to that which was pure and noble and elevating, and to awaken in the soul devotion and gratitude to God. {FE 97.4}
How wide the difference between the schools of ancient times, under the supervision of God himself, and our modern institutions of learning. Even from theological schools many students graduate with less real knowledge of God and of religious truth than when they entered. Few schools are to be found that are not governed by the maxims and customs of the world. There are few in which a Christian parent’s love for his children will not meet with bitter disappointment. {FE 98.1}
In what consists the superior excellence of our systems of education? Is it in the classical literature which is crowded into our sons? Is it in the ornamental accomplishments which our daughters obtain at the sacrifice of health or mental strength? Is it in the fact that modern instruction is so generally separated from the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation? Does the chief excellence of popular education consist in treating the individual branches of study, apart from that deeper investigation which involves the searching of the Scriptures, and a knowledge of God and the future life? Does it consist in imbuing the minds of the young with heathenish conceptions of liberty, morality, and justice? Is it safe to trust our youth to the guidance of those blind leaders who study the sacred oracles with far less interest than they manifest in the classical authors of ancient Greece and Rome? {FE 98.2}

“Education,” remarks a writer, “is becoming a system of seduction.” There is deplorable lack of proper restraint and judicious discipline. The most bitter feelings, the most ungovernable passions, are excited by the course of unwise and ungodly teachers. The minds of the young are easily excited, and drink in insubordination like water. {FE 98.3}
The existing ignorance of God’s word, among the people professedly Christian, is alarming. The youth in our public schools have been robbed of the blessings of holy things.

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Superficial talk, mere sentimentalism, passes for instruction in morals and religion; but it lacks the vital characteristics of real godliness. The justice and mercy of God, the
beauty of holiness, and the sure reward of rightdoing, the heinous character of sin, and the certainty of punishment, are not impressed upon the minds of the young. {FE 98.4}
Skepticism and infidelity, under some pleasing disguise, or as a covert insinuation, too often find their way into schoolbooks. In some instances, the most pernicious principles have been inculcated by teachers. Evil associates are teaching the youth lessons of crime, dissipation, and licentiousness that are horrible to contemplate. Many of our public schools are hotbeds of vice. {FE 99.1}
How can our youth be shielded from these contaminating influences? There must be schools established upon the principles, and controlled by the precepts, of God’s word. Another spirit must be in our schools, to animate and sanctify every branch of education. Divine co-operation must be fervently sought. And we shall not seek in vain. The promises of God’s word are ours. We may expect the presence of the heavenly teacher. We may see the Spirit of the Lord diffused as in the schools of the prophets, and every object partake of a divine consecration. Science will then be, as she was to Daniel, the handmaid of religion; and every effort, from first to last, will tend to the salvation of man, soul, body, and spirit, and the glory of God through Christ. –Signs of the Times, August 13, 1885. {FE 99.2}

Chap. 13 – Importance of Training in the Work of God

The work of the laborer is not small or unimportant. If he gives himself to any branch of the work, his first business is to take heed to himself, afterward to the doctrine. He is to search his own heart and to put away sin; then he is to keep the Pat tern, Christ Jesus, ever before him as his example. He is not to feel at liberty to shape his course as best pleases his own inclination. He is the property of Jesus. He has chosen a high vocation, and from it his whole future life must take its coloring and mold. He has entered the school of Christ, and he may obtain a knowledge of Christ and His mission, and of the work he has to perform. All his powers must be brought under control of the great Teacher. Every faculty of mind, every organ of the body, must be kept in as healthy a condition as possible, so that the work of God shall not bear the marks of his defective character. {FE 107.1}
Before a person is prepared to become a teacher of the truth to those who are in darkness, he must become a learner. He must be willing to be counseled. He cannot place his foot on the third, fourth, or fifth round of the ladder of progress before he has begun at the first round. Many feel that they are fitted for the work when they know scarcely anything about it. If such are allowed to start out to labor in self-confidence, they will fail to receive that knowledge which it is their privilege to obtain, and will be doomed to struggle with many difficulties for which they are entirely unprepared. {FE 107.2}
Now, to every worker is granted the privilege of improvement, and he should make everything bend to that object. Whenever a special effort is to be made in an important place, a well arranged system of labor should be established, so that those who wi sh to become colporteurs and canvassers, and those who are adapted to give Bible readings in families, may

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receive the necessary instruction. Those who are workers should also be learners, and while the minister is laboring in word and doctrine they should not be wandering listlessly about, as though there was nothing in the discourse which they needed to hear. They should not regard the speaker simply as an orator, but as a messenger from God to men. Personal preferences and prejudices must not be allowed to influence them in hearing. If all would imitate the example of Cornelius, and say, “Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded t hee of God,” they would receive much more profit from the sermons which they hear. {FE 107.3}
There should be connected with our missions training-schools for those who are about to enter the fields as laborers. They should feel that they must become as apprentices to learn the trade of laboring for the conversion of souls. The labor in these schools should be varied. The study of the Bible should be made of primary importance, and at the same time there should be a systematic training of the mind and manners that they may learn to approach people in the best possible way. All should learn how to labor with tact and with courtesy, and with the Spirit of Christ. They should never cease to become learners, but should ever continue to dig for truth and for the best ways of working, as they would dig for buried gold. {FE 108.1}

Let all who are commencing in the work decide that they will not rest short of becoming first-class workers. In order to do this, their minds must not be allowed to drift with circumstances and to follow impulse, but they must be chained to the point, tasked to the utmost to comprehend the truth in all its bearings. {FE 108.2}
Men of ability have labored at a great disadvantage because their minds were not disciplined for the work. Seeing the need of laborers, they stepped into the gap, and although they may have accomplished much good, it is in many cases

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not a tithe of what they could have accomplished, had they had the proper training at the start. {FE 108.3}
Many who contemplate giving themselves to the service of God, do not feel the need of any special training. But those who feel thus are the very ones who stand in greatest need of a thorough drill. It is when they have little knowledge of themselves a nd of the work that they feel best qualified. When they know more, then they feel their ignorance and inefficiency. When they subject their hearts to close examination, they will see so much in them unlike the character of Christ, that they will cry out, “Who is sufficient for these things?” and in deep humility they will strive daily to put themselves in close connection with Christ. By crucifying self they are placing their feet in the path in which He can lead them. {FE 109.1}
There is danger that the inexperienced worker, while seeking to qualify himself for the work, will feel competent to place himself in any kind of a position, where various winds of doctrines are blowing about him. This he cannot do without peril to his own soul. If trials and temptations come upon him, the Lord will give strength to overcome them; but when one places himself in the way of temptation, it often happens that Satan through his agents advances his sentiments in such a manner as to confuse a nd unsettle the mind. By communion with God and close searching of the Scriptures, the worker should become thoroughly established himself before he enters regularly upon the work of teaching others. John, the beloved disciple, was exiled to lonely Patmos, that he might be separated from all strife, and even from the work he loved, and that the Lord might commune with him and open before him the closing scenes in this earth’s history. It was in the wilderness that John the Baptist learned the message that h e was to bear, to prepare the way for the coming One. {FE 109.2}
But above everything else it should be impressed upon the individuals who have decided to become God’s servants, that they must be converted men. The heart must be pure.

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Godliness is essential for this life and the life which is to come. The man without a solid, virtuous character will surely be no honor to the cause of truth. The youth who contemplates laboring together with God, should be pure in heart. In his lips, in hi s mouth, should be no guile. The thoughts should be pure. Holiness of life and character is a rare thing, but this the worker must have or he cannot yoke up with Christ. Christ says, “Without Me ye can do nothing.” If those who purpose to work for others’ good and for the salvation of their fellow men rely on their own wisdom, they will fail. If they are entertaining humble views of themselves, then they are simple enough to believe in God and expect His help. “Lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.” Then we have the privilege of being directed by a wise counselor, and increased understanding is given to the true, sincere seeker for truth and for knowledge. {FE 109.3}

The reason why we have no more men of great breadth and extended knowledge, is because they trust to their own finite wisdom, and seek to place their own mold upon the work, in the place of having the mold of God. They do not earnestly pray and keep the communication open between God and their souls, that they can recognize His voice. Messengers of light will come to the help of those who feel that they are weakness itself, without the guardianship of Heaven. The word of God must be studied more, and be brought into the life and character, fashioned after the standard of righteousness God has laid down in His word. Then the mind will expand and strengthen, and be ennobled by grasping the things that are eternal. While the world are careless and indifferent to the message of warning and mercy given them in the Bible, God’s people, who see the end near, should be more decided and more devoted, and work more earnestly, that they may show forth the praises of Him who hath called them out of darkness into His marvelous light. {FE 110.1}

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Knowledge is power, either for good or for evil. Bible religion is the only safeguard for human beings. Much attention is given to the youth in this age, that they may enter a room gracefully, dance, and play on instruments of music. But this educatio n is denied them, to know God and to answer to His claims. The education that is lasting as eternity, is almost wholly neglected as old-fashioned and undesirable. The educating of the children to take hold of the work of character building in reference to their present good, their present peace and happiness, and to guide their feet in the path cast up for the ransomed of the Lord to walk in, is considered not fashionable, and, therefore, not essential. In order to have your children enter the gates of the city of God as conquerors, they must be educated to fear God and keep His commandments in the present life. It is these that Jesus has pronounced blessed: “Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may ent er in through the gates into the city.” {FE 111.1}
The blessing is pronounced upon those who are familiar with the revealed will of God in His word. The Bible is the great agent in the hands of its Author to strengthen the intellect. It opens the garden of the mind to the cultivation of the heavenly Husbandman. It is because there is so little attention given to what God says and to that which God requires, that there are so few who have any burden to do missionary work, so few who have been passing under drill, calling into service every power to be trained and strengthened to do higher service for God. {FE 111.2}
Altogether too feeble efforts are being made to connect those with our schools of different nationalities who ought to be connected with them, that they may receive an education and become fitted for the work so noble, so elevated, and far-reaching in its influence. The days of ignorance God winked at. But increased light is shining; the light and privileges of understanding Bible truth are abundant, if workers will only

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pen the eyes of their understanding. The truth must be diffusive. Foreign and home missions call for thorough Christian characters to engage in missionary enterprises. The missions in our cities at home and abroad call for men who are imbued with the Spirit of Christ, who will work as Christ worked.–Review and Herald, June 14, 1887. {FE 111.3}

Chap. 14 – Proper Education of the Young

The third angel is represented as flying in the midst of the heavens, showing that the message is to go forth throughout the length and breadth of the earth. It is the most solemn message ever given to mortals, and all who connect with the work should first feel their need of an education, and a most thorough training process for the work, in reference to their future usefulness; and there should be plans made and efforts adopted for the improvement of that class who anticipate connecting with any bran ch of the work. Ministerial labor cannot and should not be intrusted to boys, neither should the work of giving Bible readings be intrusted to inexperienced girls, because they offer their services, and are willing to take responsible positions, but who are wanting in religious experience, without a thorough education and training. They must be proved to see if they will bear the test; and unless there is developed a firm, conscientious principle to be all that God would have them to be, they will not correctly represent our cause and work for this time. There must be with our sisters engaged in the work in every mission, a depth of experience, gained from those who have had an experience, and who understand the manners and ways of working. The missionary operations are constantly embarrassed for the want of workers of the right class of minds, and the devotion and piety that will correctly represent our faith. {FE 113.1}

There are numbers that ought to become missionaries who never enter the field, because those who are united with them in church capacity or in our colleges, do not feel the burden to labor with them, to open before them the claims that God has upon all the powers, and do not pray with them and for them; and the eventful period which decides the plans and course of life passes, convictions with them are stifled; other influences and inducements attract them, and the temptations to seek

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worldly positions that will, they think, bring them money, take them into the worldly current. These young men might have been saved to the ministry through well-organized plans. If the churches in the different places do their duty, God will work with their efforts by His Spirit, and will supply faithful men to the ministry. {FE 113.2}

Our schools are to be educating schools and training schools; and if men and women come forth from them fitted in any sense for the missionary field, they must have impressed upon them the greatness of the work, and that practical godliness must be brought into their daily experience, to be fitted for any place of usefulness in our world, or in the church, or in God’s great moral vineyard, now calling for laborers in foreign lands. {FE 114.1}

The youth must be impressed with the idea that they are trusted. They have a sense of honor, and they want to be respected, and it is their right. If pupils receive the impression that they cannot go out or come in, sit at the table, or be anywhere, even in their rooms, except they are watched, a critical eye is upon them to criticize and report, it will have the influence to demoralize, and pastime will have no pleasure in it. This knowledge of a continual oversight is more than a parental guardianship, and far worse; for wise parents can, through tact, often discern beneath the surface and see the working of the restless mind under the longings of youth, or under the forces of temptations, and set their plans to work to counteract evils. But this constant watchfulness is not natural, and produces evils that it is seeking to avoid. The healthfulness of youth requires exercise, cheerfulness, and a happy, pleasant atmosphere surrounding them for the development of physical health and symmetrical, character. {FE 114.2}

God’s word must be opened to the youth, but a youth should not be placed in the position to do this. Those who must have an eye upon them constantly to insure their good behavior, will require to be watched in any position where

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they may be. Therefore the mold given the character in youth by such a system of training, is wholly deleterious. Aim for mental discipline and the formation of right moral sentiments and habits. {FE 114.3}

Studies should generally be few and well chosen, and those who attend our colleges are to have a different training from that of the common schools of the day. They have been generally taught upon Christian principles, if they have wise and God-fearing parents. The word of God has been respected in their homes, and its teachings made the law of the home. They have been brought up in the nurture and admonition of the gospel, and when they come to the schools, this same education and training is to go on. The world’s maxims, the world’s customs and practices, are not the teaching they need; but they are to see that the teachers in the schools care for their souls, that they will take a decided interest in their spiritual welfare, and religion is to be the great principle inculcated; for the love and fear of God are the beginning of wisdom. Youth removed from the domestic atmosphere, from the home rule and guardianship of parents, if left to themselves to pick and choose their companions, meet with a crisis in their history not generally favorable to piety or principle. {FE 115.1}

Then, wherever a school is established, there should be warm hearts to take a lively interest in our youth. Fathers and mothers are needed with warm sympathy, and with kindly admonitions, and all the pleasantness possible should be brought into the religious exercises. If there are those who prolong religious exercises to weariness, they are leaving impressions upon the mind of the youth, that would associate religion with all that is dry, unsocial, and uninteresting. And these youth make their own standard not the highest, but weak principles and a low standard spoil those who if properly taught, would be not only qualified to be a blessing to the cause, but to the church and to the world. Ardent, active

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piety in the teacher is essential. Morning and evening service in the chapel, and the Sabbath meetings, may be, without constant care and unless vitalized by the Spirit of God, the most formal, dry, and bitter mixture, and, to the youth, the most burdensome and the least pleasant and attractive of all the school exercises. The social meetings should be managed with plans and devices to make them not only seasons of pleasantness, but positively attractive. {FE 115.2}

Let those who are competent to teach youth, study themselves in the school of Christ, and learn lessons to communicate to youth. Sincere, earnest, heartfelt devotion is needed. All narrowness should be avoided. Let teachers so far unbend from their dignity as to be one with the children in their exercises and amusements, without leaving the impression that you are watching them, and without going round and round in stately dignity, as though you were like a uniformed soldier on guard over them. Your very presence gives a mold to their course of action. Your unity with them causes your heart to throb with new affection. The youth need sympathy, affection, and love, else they will become discouraged. A spirit of “I care for nobody and nobody cares for me” takes possession of them, and although they profess to be followers of Christ, they have a tempting devil on their track, and they are in danger of becoming disheartened, and lukewarm, and backslidden from God. Then some feel it a duty to blame them, and to treat them coldly, as if they were a great deal worse than they really are, and but few, and perhaps none, feel it a special duty to make personal effort to reform them, and to remove the baleful impressions that have been made upon them. {FE 116.1}

The teacher’s obligations are weighty and sacred, but no part of the work is more important than to look after the youth with tender, loving solicitude, that they may feel that we have a friend in them. Once gain their confidence, and you can lead the m, control them, and train them easily. The holy

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motives of our Christian principles must be brought into our life. The salvation of our pupils is the highest interest intrusted to the God-fearing teacher. He is Christ’s worker, and his special and determined effort should be to save souls from perdition and win them to Jesus Christ. God will require this at the hands of teachers. Every one should lead a life of piety, of purity, of painstaking effort in the discharge of every duty. If the heart is glowing with the love of God, there will be pure affection, which is essential; prayers will be fervent, and faithful warnings will be given. Neglect these, and the souls under your charge are endangered. Better spend less time in long speeches, or in absorbing study, and attend to these neglected duties. {FE 116.2}

After all these efforts, teachers may find that some under their charge will develop unprincipled characters. They are lax in morals as the result, in many cases, of vicious example and neglected parental discipline. And teachers doing all they can will fail to bring these youth to a life of purity and holiness; and after patient discipline, affectionate labor, and fervent prayer, they will be disappointed by those from whom they have hoped so much. And in addition to this, the reproaches of the parent s will come to them, because they did not have power to counteract the influence of their own example and unwise training. The teacher will have these discouragements after doing his duty. But he must work on, trusting in God to work with him, standing at his post manfully, and laboring on in faith. Others will be saved to God, and their influence will be exerted in saving others. Let the minister, the Sabbath school teacher, and the teachers in our colleges unite heart and soul and purpose in the work of saving our youth from ruin. {FE 117.1}

Many have felt, “Well, it doesn’t matter if we are not so particular to become thoroughly educated,” and a lower standard of knowledge has been accepted. And now when suitable men are wanted to fill various positions of trust, they

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are rare; when women are wanted with well-balanced minds, with not a cheap style of education, but with an education fitting them for any position of trust, they are not easily found. What is worth doing at all, is worth doing well. While religion should be the pervading element in every school, it will not lead to a cheapening of the literary attainments. While a religious atmosphere should pervade the school, diffusing its influence, it will make all who are truly Christians feel more deeply their need of thorough knowledge, that they may make the best use of the faculties that God has bestowed upon them. While growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, they will groan under a sense of their imperfections, and will seek constantly to put to the stretch their powers of mind, that they may become intelligent Christians. {FE 117.2}

The Lord Jesus is dishonored by low ideas or designs on our part. He who does not feel the binding claims of God’s law, and neglects to keep every requirement, violates the whole law. He who is content to partially meet the standard of righteousness, and who does not triumph over every spiritual foe, will not meet the designs of Christ. He cheapens the whole plan of his religious life, and weakens his religious character, and under the force of temptation his defects of character gain the supremacy, an d evil triumphs. We need to be persevering and determined, to meet the highest standard possible. Pre-established habits and ideas must be overcome in many cases, before we can make advancement in religious life. The faithful Christian will bear much fruit; he is a worker; he will not lazily drift, but will put on the whole armor to fight the battles of the Lord. The essential work is to conform the tastes, the appetite, the passions, the motives, the desires, to the great moral standard of righteousness. T he work must begin at the heart. That must be pure, wholly conformed to Christ’s will, else some master passion, or some

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habit or defect, will become a power to destroy. God will accept of nothing short of the whole heart. {FE 118.1}

God wants the teachers in our schools to be efficient. If they are advanced in spiritual understanding, they will feel that it is important that they should not be deficient in the knowledge of the sciences. Piety and a religious experience lie at the very foundation of true education. But let none feel that having an earnestness in religious matters is all that is essential in order to become educators. While they need no less of piety, they also need a thorough knowledge of the sciences. This will make them not only good, practical Christians, but will enable them to educate the youth, and at the same time they will have heavenly wisdom to lead them to the fountain of living waters. He is a Christian who aims to reach the highest attainments for the purpose of doing others good. Knowledge harmoniously blended with a Christlike character will make a person truly a light to the world. God works with human efforts. All those who give all diligence to make their calling and election sure, will feel that a superficial knowledge will not fit them for positions of usefulness. Education balanced by a solid religious experience, fits the child of God to do his appointed work steadily, firmly, understandingly. If one is learning of Jesus, the greatest educator the world ever knew, he will not only have a symmetrical Christian character, but a mind trained to effectual labor. Minds that are quick to discern will go deep beneath the surface. {FE 119.1}

God does not want us to be content with lazy, undisciplined minds, dull thoughts, and loose memories. He wants every teacher to be efficient, not to feel satisfied with some measure of success, but to feel his need of perpetual diligence in acquiring knowledge. Our bodies and souls belong to God, for He has bought them. He has given us talents, and has made it possible for us to acquire more, in order that we may be able to help ourselves and others onward in the way to life.

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It is the work of each individual to develop and strengthen the gifts which God has lent him, with which to do most earnest, practical work, both in temporal and religious things. If all realized this, what a vast difference we should see in our schools, in our churches, and in our missions! But the larger number are content with a meager knowledge, a few attainments, just to be passable; and the necessity of being men like Daniel and Moses, men of influence, men whose characters have become harmonious by their working to bless humanity and glorify God, — such an experience but few have had, and the result is, there are but few now fitted for the great want of the times. {FE 119.2}

God does not ignore ignorant men, but if they are connected with Christ, if they are sanctified through the truth, they will be constantly gathering knowledge. By exerting every power to glorify God, they will have increased power with which to glorify Him. But those who are willing to remain in a narrow channel because God condescended to accept them when they were there, are very foolish; and yet there are hundreds and thousands who are doing this very thing. God has given them the living machinery, and this needs to be used daily in order for the mind to reach higher and still higher attainments. It is a shame that many link ignorance with humility, and that with all the qualities God has given us for education, so great a number are willing to remain in the same low position that they were in when the truth first reached them. They do not grow mentally; they are no better fitted and prepared to do great and good works than when they first heard the truth. {FE 120.1}

Many who are teachers of the truth cease to be students, digging, ever digging for truth as for hidden treasures. Their minds reach a common, low standard; but they do not seek to become men of influence, — not for the sake of selfish ambition, but f or Christ’s sake, that they may reveal the power of the truth upon the intellect. It is no sin to appreciate literary

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talent, if it is not idolized; but no one is to strive for vainglory to exalt self. When this is the case, there is an absence of the wisdom that cometh from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of love and of good fruits. {FE 120.2}

The established missions in our cities, if conducted by men who have ability to wisely manage such missions, will be steady lights, shining amid the moral darkness. The opening of the Scriptures by means of Bible readings is an essential part of the work connected with these missions; but workers cannot take hold of this work unless they are prepared for it. Many ought to be trained in school before they even know how to study to bring their minds and thoughts under the control of the will, and how to use wisely their mental powers. {FE 121.1}

There is much to be learned by us as a people before we are qualified to engage in the great work of preparing a people to stand in the day of the Lord. Our Sabbath schools which are to instruct the children and youth are too superficial. The managers of these need to plow deeper. They need to put more thought and more hard work upon the work they are doing. They need to be more thorough students of the Bible, and to have a deeper religious experience, in order to know how to conduct Sabbath schools after the Lord’s order, and how to lead children and youth to their Saviour. This is one of the branches of the work that is crippling along for the want of efficient, discerning men and women who feel their accountability to God to use their powers, not to exhibit self, not for vainglory, but to do good. {FE 121.2}

How broad and extended the command is, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world”! What honor is here conferred upon man, and yet how large a number hug the shore! How few will launch out into the deep, and let down their nets for a draught! Now, if this is

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done, if men are laborers together with God, if men are called to act in city missions, and to meet all classes of minds, there should be special preparations for this kind of work.–Review and Herald, June 21, 1887. {FE 121.3}

Chap. 24 – The Science of Salvation the First of Sciences

The schools established among us are matters of grave responsibility; for important interests are involved. In a special manner our schools are a spectacle unto angels and to men. A knowledge of science of all kinds is power, and it is in the purpose of God that advanced science shall be taught in our schools as a preparation for the work that is to precede the closing scenes of earth’s history. The truth is to go to the remotest bounds of the earth, through agents trained for the work. But while the knowledge of science is a power, the knowledge which Jesus in person came to impart to the world was the knowledge of the gospel. The light of truth was to flash its bright rays into the uttermost parts of the earth, and the acceptance or rejection of the message of God involved the eternal destiny of souls. {FE 186.1}

The plan of salvation had its place in the counsels of the Infinite from all eternity. The gospel is the revelation of God’s love to men, and means everything that is essential to the happiness and well-being of humanity. The work of God in the earth is of immeasurable importance, and it is Satan’s special object to crowd it out of sight and mind, that he may make his specious devices effectual in the destruction of those for whom Christ died. It is his purpose to cause the discoveries of men to be exalted above the wisdom of God. When the mind is engrossed with the conceptions and theories of men to the exclusion of the wisdom of God, it is stamped with idolatry. Science, falsely so called, has been exalted above God, nature above its Maker, and how ca n God look upon such wisdom? {FE 186.2}

In the Bible the whole duty of man is defined. Solomon says, “Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” The will of God is revealed in His

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written word, and this is the essential knowledge. Human wisdom, familiarity with the languages of different nations, is a help in the missionary work. An understanding of the customs of the people, of the location and time of events, is practical knowledge ; for it aids in making the figures of the Bible clear, in bringing out the force of Christ’s lessons; but it is not positively necessary to know these things. The wayfaring man may find the pathway cast up for the ransomed to walk in, and there will be no excuse found for any one who perishes through misapprehension of the Scriptures. {FE 186.3}

In the Bible every vital principle is declared, every duty made plain, every obligation made evident. The whole duty of man is summed up by the Saviour. He says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. . . . Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” In the word the plan of salvation is plainly delineated. The gift of eternal life is promised on condition of saving faith in Christ. The drawing power of the Holy Spirit is pointed out as an agent in the work of man’s salvation. The rewards of the faithful, the punishment of the guilty, are all laid out in clear lines. The Bible contains the science of salvation for all those who will hear and do the words of Christ. {FE 187.1}

The apostle says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” The Bible is its own expositor. One passage will prove to be a key that will unlock other passages, and in this way light will be shed upon the hidden meaning of the word. By comparing different texts treating on the same subject, viewing their bearing on every side, the true meaning of the Scriptures will be made evident. {FE 187.2}

Many think that they must consult commentaries on the Scriptures in order to understand the meaning of the word of

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God, and we would not take the position that commentaries should not be studied; but it will take much discernment to discover the truth of God under the mass of the words of men. How little has been done by the church as a body professing to believe the Bible, to gather up the scattered jewels of God’s word into one perfect chain of truth! The jewels of truth do not lie upon the surface, as many suppose. The master mind in the confederacy of evil is ever at work to keep the truth out of sight, and to bring into full view the opinions of great men. The enemy is doing all in his power to obscure heaven’s light through educational processes; for he does not mean that men shall hear the voice of the Lord, saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” {FE 187.3}

The jewels of truth lie scattered over the field of revelation; but they have been buried beneath human traditions, beneath the sayings and commandments of men, and the wisdom from heaven has been practically ignored; for Satan has succeeded in making the world believe that the words and achievements of men are of great consequence. The Lord God, the Creator of the worlds, at infinite cost has given the gospel to the world. Through this divine agent, glad, refreshing springs of heavenly comfort and abiding consolation have been opened for those who will come to the fountain of life. There are veins of truth yet to be discovered; but spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Minds beclouded with evil cannot appreciate the value of the truth as it is in Jesus. When iniquity is cherished, men do not feel the necessity of making diligent effort, with prayer and reflection, to understand what they must know or lose heaven. They have so long been under the shadow of the enemy, that they view the truth as men behold objects through a smoked and imperfect glass; for all things are dark and perverted in their eyes. Their spiritual vision is feeble and untrustworthy; for they look upon the shadow, and turn away from the light. {FE 188.1}

But those who profess to believe in Jesus, should ever press

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to the light. They should daily pray for the light of the Holy Spirit to shine upon the pages of the sacred book, that they may be enabled to comprehend the things of the Spirit of God. We must have implicit trust in God’s word, or we are lost. The words of men, however great they may be, are not able to make us perfect, to thoroughly furnish unto all good works. “God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.” In this text the two agencies in the salvation of man are revealed,–the divine influence, the strong, living faith of those who follow Christ. It is through the sanctification of the Spirit and the belief of the truth, that we become laborers together with God. God waits for the co-operation of His church. He does not design to add a new element of efficiency to His word; He has done His great work in giving His inspiration to the world. The blood of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the divine word, are ours. The object of all this provision of heaven is before us,–the souls for whom Christ died,– and it depends upon us to lay hold of the promises Go d has given, and become laborers together with Him; for divine and human agencies must co-operate in this work. {FE 188.2}

The reason that many professed Christians do not have a clear, well-defined experience, is that they do not think it is their privilege to understand what God has spoken through His word. After the resurrection of Jesus, two of His disciples were journeying toward Emmaus, and Jesus joined them. But they did not recognize their Lord, and thought He was some stranger, although “beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and He made as though He would have gone further. But they constrained Him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And He went in to tarry with them. And it came to pass, as He sat at meat with them, He took bread, and blessed it,

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and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew Him; and He vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, Did not our hearts burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the Scriptures? . . . Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures.” This is the work that we may look to Christ to do for us; for what the Lord has revealed, is for us and our children forever. {FE 189.1}

Jesus knew that whatever was presented that was out of harmony with what He came to earth to unfold, was false and delusive. But He said, “Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice.” Having stood in the counsels of God, having dwelt in the everlasting heights of the sanctuary, all elements of truth were in Him, and of Him; for He was one with God. “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak what we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.” “Every word of God is pure: He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him. Add thou not unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”–Review and Herald, Dec. 1, 1891. {FE 190.1}

Chap. 29 – To Teachers and Students

To the Teachers and Students in Our College at Battle Creek, and in All Our Educational Institutions In the night seasons messages have been given to me to give to you in Battle Creek, and to all our schools. While it is in the order of God that the physical powers shall be trained as well as the mental, yet the physical exercise should in character be in complete harmony with the lessons given by Jesus Christ to His disciples. That which is given to the world should be seen in the lives of Christians, so that in education and in self-training the heavenly intelligences should not record in the books that the students and the teachers in our schools are “lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” This is the record now being made of a large number. “Lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.” Thus Satan and his angels are laying their snares for your souls, and he is working in a certain way upon teachers and pupils to induce them to engage in exercises and amusements which become intensely absorbing, but which are of a character to strengthen the lower powers, and create appetites and passions that will take the lead, and counteract most decidedly the operations and working of the Holy Spirit of God upon the human heart. {FE 220.1}

What saith the Holy Spirit to you? What was its power and influence upon your hearts during the General Conference, and the Conferences in other states? Have you taken special heed to yourselves? Have the teachers in the school felt that they must take heed? If God has appointed them as educators of the youth, they are also “overseers of the flock.” They are not in the school work to invent plans for exercises and games to educate pugilists; not there to bring down sacred things on a level with the common. {FE 220.2}

I was speaking to the teachers in messages of reproof. All

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the teachers need exercise, a change of employment. God has pointed out that this should be useful, practical work; but you have turned away from God’s plan, to follow human inventions, and that to the detriment of spiritual life. Not a jot or tittle of the after-influence of an education in that line will fit you to meet the severe conflicts in these last days. What kind of education are our teachers and students receiving? Has God devised and planned this kind of exercise for you, or is it brought in by the human inventions and human imaginations? How is the mind prepared for contemplation and meditation, and serious thoughts, and the earnest, contrite prayer, coming from hearts subdued by the Holy Spirit of God? “As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man.” “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” {FE 220.3}

The Lord opened before me the necessity of establishing a school at Battle Creek that should not pattern after any school in existence. We were to have teachers who would keep their souls in the love and fear of God. Teachers were to educate in spiritual things, to prepare a people to stand in the trying crisis before us; but there has been a departure from God’s plan in many ways. The amusements are doing more to counteract the working of the Holy Spirit than anything else, and the Lord is grieved. {FE 221.1}

“Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil [but do not rest here; move onward in following the Light of the world]; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be  as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Here is your field in which to exercise your intellect and give you change of exercise. “If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.” {FE 221.2}

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“How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers. Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water: thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.” {FE 222.1}

“O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.” “Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?” “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.” “O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy path s.” {FE 222.2}

I am alarmed for you at Battle Creek. Teachers are very exact in visiting with denunciation and punishments those students who violate the slight rules, not from any vicious purpose, but heedlessly; or circumstances occur which make it no sin for them to deviate from rules which have been made, and which should not be held with inflexibility if transgressed, and yet the person in fault is treated as if he had grievously sinned. Now I want you to consider, teachers, where you stand, and deal with yourselves and pronounce judgment against yourselves; for you have not only infringed the rules, but you have been so sharp, so severe upon students; and more than this, there is a controversy between you and God. You have not made straight paths for your feet lest the lame be turned out of the way. You have departed from safe paths. I say “teachers”; I do not specify names. I leave that to your own consciences to appropriate. The Lord God of Israel has wrought in your midst again and again. You have had great evidences of the stately steppings of the Most High. But a period of great light, of the wonderful revealings of the Spirit

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and power of God, is a period of great peril, lest the light shall not be improved. Will you consider Jeremiah 17:5-10; 18:12-15? For you are most surely coming under the rebuke of God. Light has been shining in clear and steady rays upon you. What has this light done for you? Christ, the Chief Shepherd, is looking upon you with displeasure, and is inquiring, “Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?” “Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood.” “Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind.” {FE 222.3}

Those teachers who have not a progressive religious experience, who are not learning daily lessons in the school of Christ, that they may be ensamples to the flock, but who accept their wages as the main thing, are not fit for the solemn, awfully sole mn, position they occupy. For this scripture is appropriate to all our schools established as God designed they should be, after the order or example of the schools of the prophets, imparting a higher class of knowledge –mingling not dross with the silver, and wine with water — which is a representation of precious principles. False ideas and unsound practices are leavening the pure, and corrupting that which should ever be kept pure, and looked upon by the world, by angels, and by men, as the Lord’s institution — schools where the education to love and fear God is made first. “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” “Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.” {FE 223.1}

Let the teachers who claim to be Christians be learning daily in the school of Christ His lessons. “Take my yoke

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upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” I ask you, Is every educator in the school wearing the yoke of Christ, or manufacturing yokes of his own to place upon the necks of others, yokes which they themselves will not wear, sharp, severe, exacting; and this, too, while they are carrying themselves very loosely toward God, offending every day in little and larger matters, and making it evident in words, in spirit, and in actions, that they are not a proper example for the students, and are not having a sense that they are under discipline to the greatest Teacher the world ever knew? There needs to be a higher, holier mold on the school in Battle Creek, and on other schools which have taken their mold from it. The customs and practices of the Battle Creek school go forth to all the churches, and the pulse heartbeats of that school are felt throughout the body of believers. {FE 223.2}

It is not in God’s order that thousands of dollars shall be expended in enlargements and additions in institutions in Battle Creek. There is altogether too much there now. Take that extra means and establish the work in suffering portions of other fields, to give character to the work. I have spoken the word of God upon this point. There are reasons many do not see, that I have no liberty to open before you now; but I tell you in the name of the Lord, you will make a mistake in your adding building to building; for there are being centered in Battle Creek responsibilities that are altogether too much for one location. If these responsibilities were divided and placed in other localities, it would be far better than crowding so much into Battle Creek, robbing other destitute fields of the advantages God would have them privileged with. {FE 224.1}

There are too many lords in the school who love to rule over God’s heritage. There is altogether too little of Christ and too much of self. But those who are under the dictation of the Spirit of God, who are under rule to Christ, are

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ensamples to the flock; and when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, they shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. {FE 224.2}

“Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.” All your self-uplifting works out the natural result, and makes you in character such as God will not for a moment approve. “Without Me,” says Christ, “ye can do nothing.” Work and teach, work in Christ’s lines, and then you will never work in your own weak ability, but will have the co-operation of the divine, combined with the God-given human ability. “Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant” [not in kicking football and in educating yourselves in the objectionable games which ought to make every Christian blush with mortification at the afterthoughts] “be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” Yes, he is on your playground watching your amusements, catching every soul that he finds off his guard, sowing his seeds in human minds, and controlling the human intellect. For Christ’s sake call a halt at the Battle Creek College, and consider the after-workings upon the heart and the character and principles, of these amusements copied after the fashion of other schools. You have been steadily progressing in the ways of the Gentiles, and not after the example of Jesus Christ. Satan is on the schoolground; he is present in every exercise in the schoolroom. The students that have had their minds deeply excited in their games, are not in the best condition to receive the instruction, the counsel, the reproof, most essential for them in this life and for the future immortal life. {FE 225.1}

Of Daniel and his fellows the Scripture states: “As for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom: and Daniel had understanding in all visions

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and dreams.” In what manner are you fitting yourselves to co-operate with God? “Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.” “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” Let the diet be carefully studied; it is not healthful. The various little dishes concocted for desserts are injurious instead of helpful and healthful, and from the light given me, there should be a decided change in the preparation of food. There should be a skillful, thorough cook, that will give ample supplies of substantial dishes to the hungry students. The education in this line of table supplies is not correct, healthful, or satisfying, and a decided reform is essential. These students are God’s inheritance, and the most sound and healthful principles are to be brought into the boarding-school in regard to diet. The dishes of soft foods, the soups and liquid foods, or the free use of meat, are not the best to give healthful muscles, sound digestive organs, or clear brains. O how slow we are to learn! And of all institutions in our world the school is the most important! Here the diet question is to be studied; no one person’s appetite, or tastes, or fancy or notion is to be followed; but there is need of great reform; for lifelong injury will surely be the result of the present manner of cooking. Of all the positions of importance in that college, the first is that of the one who is employed to direct in the preparation of the dishes to be placed before the hungry students; for if this work is neglected, the mind will not be prepared to do its work, because the stomach has been treated unwisely and cannot do its work properly. Strong minds are needed. The human intellect must gain expansion and vigor and acuteness and activity. It must be taxed to do hard work, or it will become weak and inefficient. Brain power is required to think most earnestly; it must be put to the stretch to solve hard problems and master them, else the mind decreases in power and aptitude to think. The mind must invent, work, and wrestle, in order to give hardness and vigor to the intellect; and if the physical organs are not kept

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in the most healthful condition by substantial, nourishing food, the brain does not receive its portion of nutrition to work. Daniel understood this, and he brought himself to a plain, simple, nutritious diet, and refused the luxuries of the king’s table. The desserts which take so much time to prepare, are, many of them, detrimental to health. Solid foods requiring mastication will be far better than mush or liquid foods. I dwell upon this as essential. I send my warning to the College at Battle Creek, to go from there to all our institutions of learning. Study up on these subjects, and let the students obtain a proper education in the preparation of wholesome, appetizing, solid foods that nourish the system. They do not have now, and have not had in the past, the right kind of training and education as to the most healthful food to make healthful sinews and muscle, and give nourishment to the brain and nerve powers. {FE 225.2}

The intellect is to be kept thoroughly awake with new, earnest, whole-hearted work. How is it to be done? The power of the Holy Spirit must purify the thoughts and cleanse the soul of its moral defilement. Defiling habits not only abase the soul, but debase the intellect. Memory suffers, laid on the altar of base, hurtful practices. “He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” When teachers and learners shall consecrate soul, body, and spirit of God, and purify their thoughts by obedience to the laws of God, they will continually receive a new endowment of physical and mental power. Then will there be heart-yearnings after God, and earnest prayer for clear perception to discern. The office and work of the Holy Spirit is not for them to use it, as many suppose, but for the Holy Spirit to use them, molding, fashioning, and sanctifying every power. The giving of the faculties to lustful practices disorders the brain and nerve power, and though professing religion, they are not now and never will be agents whom God can use; for He despises

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the practices of impurity, which destroy the vital nerve energies. This sin of impurity is lessening physical vigor and mental capabilities, so that everything like mental taxation will after a short time become irksome. Memory is fitful; and, O what a loathsome offering is thus presented to God! {FE 227.1}

Then when I look upon the scenes presented before me; when I consider the schools established in different places, and see them falling so far below anything like the schools of the prophets, I am distressed beyond measure. The physical exercise was marked out by the God of wisdom. Some hours each day should be devoted to useful education in lines of work that will help the students in learning the duties of practical life, which are essential for all our youth. But this has been dropped out, and amusements introduced, which simply give exercise, without being any special blessing in doing good and righteous actions, which is the education and training essential. {FE 228.1}

The students, every one, need a most thorough education in practical duties. The time employed in physical exercise, which, step by step, leads on to excess, to intensity in the games and the exercise of the faculties, ought to be used in Christ’s lines, and the blessing of God would rest upon them in so doing. All should go forth from the schools with educated efficiency, so that when thrown upon their own resources, they would have a knowledge they could use which is essential to practical life. The seeking out of many inventions to employ the God-given faculties most earnestly in doing nothing good, nothing you can take with you in future life, no record of good deeds, of merciful actions, stands registered in the book of heaven,–“Weighed in the balances and found wanting.” {FE 228.2}

Diligent study is essential, and diligent hard work. Play is not essential. The influence has been growing among students in their devotion to amusements, to a fascinating, bewitching power, to the counteracting of the influence of the

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truth upon the human mind and character. A well-balanced mind is not usually obtained in the devotion of the physical powers to amusements. Physical labor that is combined with mental taxation for usefulness, is a discipline in practical life, sweetened always by the reflection that it is qualifying and educating the mind and body better to perform the work God designs men shall do in various lines. The more perfectly youth understand how to perform the duties of practical life, the more keen and the more healthful will be their enjoyment day by day in being of use to others. {FE 228.3}

The mind thus educated to enjoy physical taxation in practical life becomes enlarged, and through culture and training, well disciplined and richly furnished for usefulness, and acquires a knowledge essential to be a help and blessing to themselves and to others. Let every student consider, and be able to say, I study, I work, for eternity. They can learn to be patiently industrious and persevering in their combined efforts of physical and mental labor. What force of powers is put into your games of football and your other inventions after the way of the Gentiles — exercises which bless no one! Just put the same powers into exercise in doing useful labor, and would not your record be more pleasing to meet in the great day of God? {FE 229.1}

Whatever is done under the sanctified stimulus of Christian obligation, because you are stewards in trust of talents to use to be a blessing to yourself and to others, gives you substantial satisfaction; for all is done to the glory of God. I cannot f ind an instance in the life of Christ where He devoted time to play and amusement. He was the great Educator for the present and the future life. I have not been able to find one instance where He educated His disciples to engage in amusement of football or pugilistic games, to obtain physical exercise, or in theatrical performances; and yet Christ was our pattern in all things. Christ, the world’s Redeemer, gave to every man his work and bids them “occupy till I come.”

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And in doing His work, the heart warms to such an enterprise, and all the powers of the soul are enlisted in a work assigned of the Lord and Master. It is a high and important work. The Christian teacher and student are enabled to become stewards of the grace of Christ, and be always in earnest. {FE 229.2}

All they can do for Jesus is to be in earnest, having a burning desire to show their gratitude to God in the most diligent discharge of every obligation that is laid upon them, that, by their fidelity to God, they may respond to the great and wonderful gift of the only-begotten Son of God, that through faith in Him they should not perish, but have everlasting life. {FE 230.1}

There is need of each one in every school and in every institution, being, as was Daniel, in such close connection with the Source of all wisdom, that his prayers will enable him to reach the highest standard of his duties in every line, that he may b e able to fulfill his scholastic requirements not only under able teachers, but also under the supervision of heavenly intelligences, knowing that the All-seeing, the Ever-sleepless Eye was upon him. The love and fear of God was before Daniel, and he educa ted and trained all his powers to respond as far as possible to the loving care of the Great Teacher, conscious of his amenability to God. The four Hebrew children would not allow selfish motives and love of amusements to occupy the golden moments of this life. They worked with a willing heart and ready mind. This is no higher standard than every Christian may attain. God requires of every Christian scholar more than has been given him. Ye are “a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.”–” Special Testimonies on Education,” October, 1893. {FE 230.2}

Chap. 35 – To Teachers

Everyone who has to do with educating the younger class of students, should consider that these children are affected by, and feel the impressions of, the atmosphere, whether it be pleasant or unpleasant. {FE 260.1}

If the teacher is connected with God, if he has Christ abiding in his heart, the spirit that is cherished by him is felt by the children. When a teacher manifests impatience or fretfulness toward a child, the fault may not be with the child one half a s much as with the teacher. Teachers become tired with their work, then something the children say or do does not accord with their feelings, but will they let Satan’s spirit enter into them, and lead them to create feelings in the children very unpleasant and disagreeable, through their own lack of tact and wisdom from God? There should not be a teacher employed, unless you have evidence by test and trial, that he loves, and fears to offend God. If teachers are taught of God, if their lessons are daily learned in the school of Christ, they will work in Christ’s lines. They will win and draw with Christ; for every child and youth is precious. {FE 260.2}

Every teacher needs Christ abiding in his heart by faith, and to possess a true, self-denying, self-sacrificing spirit for Christ’s sake. One may have sufficient education and knowledge in science to instruct; but has it been ascertained that he has t act and wisdom to deal with human minds? If instructors have not the love of Christ abiding in the heart, they are not fit to be brought into connection with children, and to bear the grave responsibilities placed upon them, of educating these children and youth. They lack the higher education and training in themselves, and they know not how to deal with human minds. There is the spirit of their own insubordinate, natural hearts that is striving for the control, and to subject the plastic minds and characters of children to such a discipline,

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is to leave scars and bruises upon the mind that will never be effaced. {FE 260.3}

If a teacher cannot be made to feel the responsibility and the carefulness he should ever reveal in dealing with human minds, his education has in some cases been very defective. In the home life the training has been harmful to the character, and it is a sad thing to reproduce this defective character and management in the children brought under his control. We are standing before God on test and trial to see if we can individually be trusted to be of the number of the family who shall compose the redeemed in heaven. “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” {FE 261.1}

Here are represented the great white throne and He that sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away. Let every teacher consider that he is doing his work in the sight of the universe of heaven. Every child with whom the teacher is brough t in contact has been purchased by the blood of God’s only-begotten Son, and He who has died for these children would have them treated as His property. Be sure that your contact, teachers, with every one of these children shall be of that character that w ill not make you ashamed when you meet them in that great day when every word and action is brought in review before God, and with its burden of results laid open before you individually. “Bought with a price,”– O what a price, eternity alone will reveal! {FE 261.2}

The Lord Jesus Christ has infinite tenderness for those whom He has purchased at the cost of His own sufferings in the flesh, that they should not perish with the devil and his angels, but that He may claim them as His chosen ones. They are the claim of His love, of His own property; and He looks upon them with unutterable affection, and the fragrance of His own righteousness He gives to His loved ones who

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believe in Him. It requires tact and wisdom and human love, and sanctified affection for the precious lambs of the flock, to lead them to see and appreciate their privilege in yielding themselves up to the tender guidance of the faithful shepherds. The children of God will exercise the gentleness of Jesus Christ. {FE 261.3}

Teachers, Jesus is in your school every day. His great heart of infinite love is drawn out, not only for the best-behaved children, who have the most favorable surroundings, but for children who have by inheritance objectionable traits of character. Even parents have not understood how much they are responsible for the traits of character developed in their children, and have not had the tenderness and wisdom to deal with these poor children, whom they have made what they are. They fail to trace back t he cause of these discouraging developments which are a trial to them. But Jesus looks upon these children with pity and with love, for He sees, He understands from cause to effect. {FE 262.1}

The teacher may bind these children to his or her heart by the love of Christ abiding in the soul-temple as a sweet fragrance, a savor of life unto life. The teachers may, through the grace of Christ imparted to them, be the living human agency — be laborers together with God — to enlighten, lift up, encourage, and help to purify the soul from its moral defilement; and the image of God shall be revealed in the soul of the child, and the character become transformed by the grace of Christ. {FE 262.2}

The gospel is the power and wisdom of God, if it is correctly represented by those who claim to be Christians. Christ crucified for our sins should humble every soul before God in his own estimation. Christ risen from the dead, ascended on high, our living Intercessor in the presence of God, is the science of salvation which we need to learn and teach to children and youth. Said Christ, “I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified.” This is the work

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that ever devolves upon every teacher. There must not be any haphazard work in this matter, for even the work of educating the children in the day schools requires very much of the grace of Christ and the subduing of self. Those who naturally are fretful, easily provoked, and have cherished the habit of criticism, of thinking evil, should find some other kind of work that will not reproduce any of their unlovely traits of character in the children and youth, for they have cost too much. Heaven sees in the child, the undeveloped man or woman, with capabilities and powers that, if correctly guided and developed with heavenly wisdom, will become the human agencies through whom the divine influences can co-operate to be laborers together with God. Sharp words, and continual censure bewilder the child, but never reform him. Keep back that pettish word; keep your own spirit under discipline to Jesus Christ; then will you learn how to pity and sympathize with those brought under your influence. Do not exhibit impatience and harshness, for if these children did not need educating, they would not need the advantages of the school. They are to be patiently, kindly, and in love brought up the ladder of progress, climbing step by step in obtaining knowledge. {FE 262.3}

It is a daily working agency that is to be brought into exercise, a faith that works by love, and purifies the soul of the educator. Is the revealed will of God placed as your highest authority? If Christ is formed within, the hope of glory, then the truth of God will so act upon your natural temperament, that its transforming agency will be revealed in a changed character, and you will not by your influence through the revealings of an unsanctified heart and temper, turn the truth of God into a lie be fore any of your pupils; nor in your presentation of a selfish, impatient, unchristlike temper in dealing with any human mind, reveal that the grace of Christ is not sufficient for you at all times and in all places. Thus you will show that the authority of God over you is not merely

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in name but in reality and truth. There must be a separation from all that is objectionable or unchristlike, however difficult it may be to the true believer. {FE 263.1}

Inquire, teachers, you who are doing your work not only for time but eternity, Does the love of Christ constrain my heart and my soul, in dealing with the precious souls for whom Jesus has given His own life? Under His constraining discipline, do old traits of character, not in conformity to the will of God, pass away and the opposite take their place? “A new heart also will I give you.” Have all things become new through your conversion to the Lord Jesus Christ? In words and by painstaking effort are you sowing such seed in these young hearts that you can ask the Lord to water it, that it shall, with His imputed righteousness, ripen into a rich harvest? Ask yourselves, Am I by my own unsanctified words and impatience and want of that wisdom that is from above, confirming these youth in their own perverse spirit, because they see that their teacher has a spirit unlike Christ? If they should die in their sins, shall I not be accountable for their souls? The soul who loves Jesus, who appreciates the saving power of His grace, will feel such a drawing near to Christ, that he will desire to work in His lines. He cannot, dare not, let Satan control his spirit and poisonous miasma surround his soul. Everything will be placed one side that will corrupt his influence, because it opposes the will of God and endangers the souls of the precious sheep and lambs; and he is required to watch for souls as they that must give an account. Wherever God has, in providence, placed us, He will keep us; as our day our strength shall be. {FE 264.1}

Whoever shall give way to his natural feelings and impulses makes himself weak and untrustworthy, for he is a channel through which Satan can communicate to taint and corrupt many souls, and these unholy fits that control the person unnerve him, and shame and confusion are the sure result. The spirit of Jesus Christ ever has a renewing, restoring power

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upon the soul that has felt its own weakness and fled to the unchanging One who can give grace and power to resist evil. Our Redeemer had a broad comprehensive humanity. His heart was ever touched with the known helplessness of the little child that is subject to rough usage; for He loved children. The feeblest cry of human su ffering never reached His ear in vain. And everyone who assumes the responsibility of instructing the youth will meet obdurate hearts, perverse dispositions, and his work is to co-operate with God in restoring the moral image of God in every child. Jesus, precious Jesus,– a whole fountain of love was in His soul. Those who instruct the children should be men and women of principle. {FE 264.2}

The religious life of a large number who profess to be Christians is such as to show that they are not Christians. They are constantly misrepresenting Christ, falsifying His character. They do not feel the importance of this transformation of characte r, and that they must be conformed to His divine likeness; and at times they will exhibit a false phase of Christianity to the world, which will work ruin to the souls of those who are brought into association with them, for the very reason that they are, while professing to be Christians, not under the control of Jesus Christ. Their own hereditary and cultivated traits of character are indulged as precious qualifications when they are death-dealing in their influence over other minds. In plain, simple words, they walk in the sparks of their own kindling. They have a religion subject to, and controlled by, circumstances. If everything happens to move in a way that pleases them, and there are no irritating circumstances that call to the surface their unsubdued, unchristlike natures, they are condescending and pleasant, and will be very attractive. When there are things that occur in the family or in their association with others which ruffle their peace and provoke their tempers, if they lay every circumstance before God, and continue their request, supplicating His grace before they shall engage in their daily work

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as teachers, and know for themselves the power and grace and love of Christ abiding in their own hearts before entering upon their labors, angels of God are brought with them into the schoolroom. But if they go in a provoked, irritated spirit into the schoolroom, the moral atmosphere surrounding their souls is leaving its impression upon the children who are under their care, and in the place of being fitted to instruct the children, they need one to teach them the lessons of Jesus Christ. {FE 265.1}

Let every teacher who accepts the responsibility of educating the children and youth, examine himself, and study critically from cause to effect. Has the truth of God taken possession of my soul? Has the wisdom which cometh from Jesus Christ, which is first “pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy” been brought into my character? While I stand in the responsible position of an educator, do I cherish the principle that “the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace”? The truth is not to be kept to be practiced when we feel just like it, but at all times and in all places. {FE 266.1}

Well balanced minds and symmetrical characters are required as teachers in every line. Give not this work into the hands of young women and young men who know not how to deal with human minds. They know so little of the controlling power of grace upon their own hearts and characters that they have to unlearn, and learn entirely new lessons in Christian experience. They have never learned to keep their own soul and character under discipline to Jesus Christ, and bring even the thoughts into captivity to Jesus Christ. There are all kinds of characters to deal with in the children and youth. Their minds are impressible. Any thing like a hasty, passionate exhibition on the part of the teacher may cut off her influence for good over the students whom she is having the name of educating. And will this education be for the

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present and future eternal good of the children and youth? There is the correct influence to be exerted upon them for their spiritual good. Instruction is to be constantly given to encourage the children in the formation of correct habits in speech, in voice, in deportment. {FE 266.2}

Many of those children have not had proper training at home. They have been sadly neglected. Some have been left to do as they pleased; others have been found fault with and discouraged. But little pleasantness and cheerfulness have been shown toward them, and but few words of approval have been spoken to them. The defective characters of the parents have been inherited, and the discipline given by these defective characters has been objectionable in the formation of characters. Solid timbers have not been brought into the character building. There is no more important work that can be done than the educating and training of these youth and children. The teachers who work in this part of the Lord’s vineyard need to learn first how to be self-possessed, keeping their own temper and feelings under control, in subjection to the Holy Spirit of God. They should give evidence of having not a one-sided experience, but a well balanced mind, a symmetrical character so that they can be trusted because they are conscientious Christians, themselves under the chief Teacher, who has said, “Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” Then learning in Christ’s school daily they can educate children and youth. {FE 267.1}

Self-cultured, self-controlled, under discipline in the school of Christ, having a living connection with the great Teacher, they will have an intelligent knowledge of practical religion; and keeping their own souls in the love of God, they will know how to exercise the grace of patience and Christlike forbearance. The patience, love, long forbearance, and tender sympathies are called into activity. They will discern that they have a most important field in the Lord’s vineyard to cultivate.

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They must lift up their hearts unto God in sincere prayer, Be Thou my pattern, and then by beholding Jesus they will do the work of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do.” So with the sons and daughters of God; they steadfastly and teachably look to Jesus, doing nothing in their own way and after their own will and pleasure; but that which they have, in the lessons of Christ, seen Him, their Pattern, do, they do also. Thus they represent to the students under their instruction at all times and upon all occasions the character of Jesus Christ. They catch the bright rays of the Sun of Righteousness and reflect these precious beams upon the children and youth whom they are educating. The formation of correct habits is to leave its impress upon the mind and characters of the children, that they may practice the right way. It means much to bring these children under the direct influence of the Spirit of God, training and disciplining them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. The formation of correct habits, the exhibition of a right spirit, will call for earnest efforts in the name and strength of Jesus. The instructor must persevere, giving line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, in all long-suffering and patience, sympathy and love, binding these children to his heart by the love of Christ revealed in himself. {FE 267.2}

This truth can in the highest sense be acted, and exemplified before the children. “Who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity. And by reason hereof he ought, as f or the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins.” {FE 268.1}

Let teachers bear this in mind, and never lose sight of it when they are inclined to have their feelings stirred against the children and youth for any misbehavior; let them remember that the angels of God are looking upon them sorrowfully; for if the children do err and misbehave, then it is all the

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more essential that those who are placed over them as teachers should be able to teach them by precept and example. In no case are they to lose self-control, to manifest impatience and harshness, and want of sympathy and love; for these children are the property of Jesus Christ, and teachers must be very careful and God-fearing in regard to the spirit they cherish and the words they utter, for the children will catch the spirit manifested, be it good or evil. It is a heavy and a sacred responsibility. {FE 268.2}

There need to be teachers who are thoughtful, considerate of their own weakness and infirmities and sins, and who will not be oppressive and discourage the children and youth. There needs to be much praying, much faith, much forbearance and courage, which the Lord is ready to bestow. For God sees every trial, and a wonderful influence can be exerted by teachers, if they will practice the lessons which Christ has given them. But will these teachers consider their own wayward course, that they make very feeble efforts to learn in the school of Christ and practice Christlike meekness and lowliness of heart? The teachers should be themselves in obedience to Jesus Christ, and ever practicing His words, that they may exemplify the character of Jesus Christ to the students. Let your light shine in good works, in faithful watching and caring for the lambs of the flock, with patience, with tenderness, and the love of Jesus in your own hearts. {FE 269.1}

To place young men and young women in such a field, who have not developed a deep, earnest love for God and the souls for whom Christ died, is making a mistake which will result in the loss of many precious souls. The teacher needs to be susceptible to the influences of the Spirit of God. Not one who will become impatient and irritated, should be an educator. Teachers must consider that they are dealing with children, not men and women. They are children who have everything to learn, and it is much more difficult for some to learn than others. The dull scholar needs much more

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encouragement than he receives. If teachers are placed over these varied minds, who naturally love to order and dictate and magnify themselves in their authority, who will deal with partiality, having favorites to whom they will show preferences, while others are treated with exactitude and severity, it will create a state of confusion and insubordination. Teachers who have not been blessed with a pleasant and well balanced experience may be placed to take charge of children and youth, but a great wrong is done to those whom they instruct. Parents must come to view this matter in a different light. They must feel it their duty to co-operate with the teacher, to encourage wise discipline, and to pray much for the one who is teaching their children. You will not help the children by fretting, censuring, or discouraging them; neither will you act a good part to help them to rebel, and to be disobedient and unkind and unlovable, because of the spirit you develop. If you are Christians indeed, you will have an abiding Christ, and the spirit of Him who gave His life for sinners; and the wisdom of God will teach you in every emergency the course to pursue. {FE 269.2}

Children are in need of having a steady, firm, living principle of righteousness exercised over them and practiced before them. Be sure you let the true light shine before your pupils. The light of heaven is wanted. Never let the world have the impression that your spirit and taste and longings are of no higher and purer order than that of worldlings. If you in your actions leave this impression upon them, you let a false, deceptive light lead them to ruin. The trumpet must give a certain sound. There is a broad, clear, and deep line drawn by the eternal God between the righteous and unrighteous, the godly and the ungodly; between those who are obedient to God’s commandments and those who are disobedient. {FE 270.1}

The ladder which Jacob saw in the night vision, the base of it resting upon the earth and the topmost round reaching unto

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the highest heavens; God himself above the ladder, and His glory shining upon every round; angels ascending and descending upon this ladder of shining brightness, is a symbol of constant communication kept up between this world and heavenly places. God accomplishes His will through the instrumentality of heavenly angels in continual intercourse with humanity. This ladder reveals a direct and important channel of communication with the inhabitants of this earth. The ladder represented to Jacob the world’s Redeemer, who links earth and heaven together. Everyone who has seen the evidence and light of truth and accepts the truth, professing his faith in Jesus Christ, is a missionary in the highest sense of the word. He is the receiver of heavenly treasures, and it is his duty to impart them, to diffuse that which he has received. {FE 270.2}

Then to those who are accepted as teachers in our schools is opened a field for labor and cultivation, for the sowing of the seed and for the harvesting of the ripening grain. What can give greater satisfaction than to be laborers together with God in educating and training the children and youth to love God and keep His commandments? Lead the children whom you are instructing in the day school and the Sabbath school to Jesus. What can give you greater joy than to see children and youth following Christ, the great Shepherd, who calls, and the sheep and lambs hear His voice and follow Him? What can spread more sunshine through the soul of the interested, devoted worker than to know that his persevering patient labor is not in vain in the Lord, and to see his pupils have the sunshine of joy in their souls because Christ has forgiven their sins? What can be more satisfying to the worker together with God, than to see children and youth receiving the impressions of the Spirit of God in true nobility of character and in the restoration of the moral image of God — the children seeking the peace coming from the Prince of peace? The truth a bondage? Yes, in one sense; it binds the willing souls in captivity to Jesus Christ, bowing their hearts to the

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gentleness of Jesus Christ. O it means so much more than finite minds can comprehend, to present in every missionary effort Jesus Christ and Him crucified. “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed.” “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” This is to be the burden of our work. If any one thinks he is capable of teaching in the Sabbath school or in the day school the science of education, he needs first to learn the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom, that he may teach this the highest of all sciences. {FE 271.1}

“And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” “I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst send Me.” Here is the work laid before us, to be representatives of Christ, as He in our world was the representative of the Father. We are to teach the words given us in the lessons of Christ. “I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest Me.” We have our work, and every instructor of the youth in any capacity is to receive in a good and honest heart what God has unfolded and recorded in His holy word in the lessons of Christ, meekly to accept the words of life. We are in the antitypical day of atonement, and not only are we to humble our hearts before God and confess our sins but we are, by all our educating talent, to seek to instruct those with whom we are brought in contact, and to bring them by precept and example to know God and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent. {FE 272.1}

O I so much wish that the Lord of heaven would open many eyes that are now blind, that they might see themselves as God sees them, and give to them a sense of the work to be done in the fields of labor. But I have no hope that all the appeals

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I make will avail, unless the Lord speaks to the soul and writes His requirements upon the tablets of the heart. Cannot every living human agent have a high and elevated sense of what it means to have a large and important field of home missionary work appointed to him, without the necessity of going to far-off lands? And while some must proclaim the message of mercy to them that are afar off, there are many who have to proclaim the message to those who are nigh. Our schools are to be educating schools to qualify youth to become missionaries both by precept and example. Let the one who is acting in the capacity of teacher ever bear in mind that these children and youth are the purchase of the blood of the Son of God. They must be led to believe in Christ as their personal Saviour. The name of each separate believer is graven on the palms of His hands. The Chief Shepherd is looking down from the heavenly sanctuary upon the sheep of His pasture. “He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.” “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” O precious, blessed truth! He does not treat one case with indifference. {FE 272.2}

His impressive parable of the good shepherd represents the responsibility of every minister and of every Christian who has accepted a position as teacher of children and youth and a teacher of old and young, in opening to them the Scriptures. If one s trays from the fold, he is not followed with harsh words and with a whip, but with winning invitations to return. The ninety and nine that had not strayed do not call for the sympathy and tender, pitying love of the shepherd. But the shepherd follows the s heep and lambs that have caused him the greatest anxiety and have engrossed his sympathies. The disinterested, faithful shepherd leaves all the rest of the sheep, and his whole heart and soul and energies are taxed to seek the one that is lost. And then the figure– praise God–the shepherd returns with the sheep, carrying him in his arms, rejoicing at every step; he says,”Rejoice

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with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.” I am so thankful we have in the parable, the sheep found. And this is the very lesson the shepherd is to learn,–success in bringing the sheep and lambs back. {FE 273.1}

There is no picture presented before our imagination of a sorrowful shepherd returning without the sheep. And the Lord Jesus declares the pleasure of the shepherd and his joy in finding the sheep causes pleasure and rejoicing in heaven among the angels. The wisdom of God, His power and His love, are without a parallel. It is the divine guarantee that not one, even, of the straying sheep and lambs is overlooked and not one left unsuccored. A golden chain–the mercy and compassion of divine power–is passed around everyone of these imperiled souls. Then shall not the human agent cooperate with God? Shall he be sinful, failing, defective in character himself, regardless of the soul ready to perish? Christ has linked him to His eternal throne by offering His own life. {FE 274.1}

Zechariah’s description of Joshua, the high priest, is a striking representation of the sinner for whom Christ is mediating that he may be brought to repentance. Satan is standing at the right hand of the Advocate, resisting the work of Christ, and pleading against Him that man is his property, since he has chosen him as his ruler. But the Defender of man, the Restorer, mightier than the mightiest, hears the demands and claims of Satan, and answers him: “The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and stood before the angel. And He answered and spake unto those that stood before Him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him He said, Behold I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment. And I said, Let them set a fair miter upon his

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head. So they set a fair miter upon his head, and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord stood by.” {FE 274.2}

Bear in mind, every teacher who takes the responsibility of dealing with human minds, that every soul who is inclined to err and is easily tempted, is the special object for whom Christ is solicitor. They that are whole need not a physician, but those that are sick. The compassionate Intercessor is pleading, and will sinful, finite men and women repulse a single soul? {FE 275.1}

Shall any man or woman be indifferent to the very souls for whom Christ is pleading in the courts of heaven? Shall you in your course of action, imitate the Pharisees, who would be merciless, and Satan, who would accuse and destroy? O will you individually humble your own souls before God, and let that stern nerve and iron will be subdued and broken? {FE 275.2}

Step away from Satan’s voice and from acting his will, and stand by the side of Jesus, possessing His attributes, the possessor of keen and tender sensibilities, who can make the cause of afflicted, suffering ones His own. The man who has had much forgiven will love much. Jesus is a compassionate intercessor, a merciful and faithful high priest. He, the Majesty of heaven–the King of glory–can look upon finite man, subject to the temptations of Satan, knowing that He has felt the power of Satan’s wile s. “Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren [clothing His divinity with humanity], that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that He himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted.” {FE 275.3}

Then I call upon you, my brethren, to practice working in lines in which Christ worked. You must never put on the cloak of severity and condemn and denounce and drive away from the fold poor, tempted mortals; but as laborers together with God, heal the spiritually diseased. This you will do if

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you have the mind of Christ. “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” “Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of His understanding.”–“Christian Education,” 1893. {FE 275.4}

Chap. 41 – Work and Education

Our minds have been much exercised day and night in regard to our schools. How shall they be conducted? And what shall be the education and training of the youth? Where shall our Australian Bible School be located? I was awakened this morning at one o’clock with a heavy burden upon my soul. The subject of education has been presented before me in different lines, in varied aspects, by many illustrations, and with direct specification, now upon one point, and again upon another. I feel, indeed, that we have much to learn. We are ignorant in regard to many things. {FE 310.1}

In writing and speaking upon the life of John the Baptist and the life of Christ, I have tried to present that which has been presented to me in regard to the education of our youth. We are under obligation to God to study this subject candidly; for it is worthy of close, critical examination upon every side. Of John the Baptist, Christ declared, “Of them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater.” That prophet was led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness, away from the contaminating influences of the city, to obtain an education that would qualify him to receive instruction from God rather than from any of the learned scribes. He was not to connect himself with the rabbis; the less he became acquainted with their teachings, their maxims, and traditions, the more easily could the Lord impress his mind and heart, and give him the pure mold of truth that was to be given to the people to prepare the way of the Lord. The teachings of the scribes and Pharisees were of a character to turn the people away from the unadulterated truth that was to be presented by the Great Teacher when He should enter upon His mission. The only hope of the people was to open their hearts and minds to the light sent from heaven by His prophet, the forerunner of Christ. {FE 310.2}

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These lessons are for us. Those who claim to know the truth and understand the great work to be done for this time are to consecrate themselves to God, soul, body, and spirit. In heart, in dress, in language, in every respect they are to be separate from the fashions and practices of the world. They are to be a peculiar and holy people. It is not their dress that makes them peculiar, but because they are a peculiar and holy people, they cannot carry the marks of likeness to the world. {FE 311.1}

As a people we are to prepare the way of the Lord. Every iota of ability God has given us must be put to use in preparing the people after God’s fashion, after His spiritual mold, to stand in this great day of God’s preparation; and the serious question may be awakened in world-loving hearts, “What is eternity to us? How will my case stand in the investigative judgment? What will be my lot and place?” Many who suppose they are going to heaven are blindfolded by the world. Their ideas of what constitutes a religious education and religious discipline are vague, resting only on probabilities; there are many who have no intelligent hope, and are running great risk in practicing the very things which Jesus has taught that they should not do, in eating, drinking, and dressing, binding themselves up with the world in a variety of ways. They have yet to learn the serious lessons so essential to growth in spirituality, to come out from the world and be separate. The heart is divided, the carnal mind craves conformity, similarity to the world in so many ways that the mark of distinction from the world is scarcely distinguishable. Money, God’s money, is expended in order to make an appearance after the world’s customs; the religious experience is contaminated with worldliness, and the evidence of discipleship — Christ’s likeness in self-denial and cross-bearing — is not discernible by the world or by the universe of heaven. {FE 311.2}

In this country, Satan has in a most striking manner enthroned himself to control the leading men in the government

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of the nation. The education which they have received from childhood is erroneous. Many things are regarded as essential which have a most injurious effect upon the people. The many holidays have had a baleful influence upon the minds of the youth; their effect is demoralizing to the government, and they are entirely contrary to the will of God. They have a tendency to encourage an artificial excitement, a desire for amusement. The people are led to squander precious time which should be employed in useful labor to sustain their families honestly and keep clear of debt. The passion for amusements and the squandering of money in horse racing, in betting, and various similar lines, is increasing the poverty of the country, and deepening the misery that is the sure result of this kind of education. {FE 311.3}

Never can the proper education be given to the youth in this country, or any other country, unless they are separated a wide distance from the cities. The customs and practices in the cities unfit the minds of the youth for the entrance of truth. The liquor-drinking, the smoking and gambling, the horse racing, the theater going, the great importance placed upon holidays,– are all a species of idolatry, a sacrifice upon idol altars. If people conscientiously attend to their lawful business upon the holidays, they are regarded as mean-spirited and unpatriotic. The Lord cannot be served in this way. Those who multiply the days for pleasure and amusement are really giving patronage to liquor-sellers, and are taking from the poor the very means that should purchase food and clothing for their children, the very means that, used economically, would soon provide a dwelling place for their families. These evils we can only touch upon. {FE 312.1}

It is not the correct plan to locate school buildings where the students will have constantly before their eyes the erroneous practices that have molded their education during their lifetime, be it longer or shorter. These holidays, with all their train of evil, result in twentyfold more misery than good.

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In a large degree the observance of these days is really compulsory. Even persons who have been truly converted find it difficult to break away from these customs and practices. Should schools be located in the cities or within a few miles from them, it would be most difficult to counteract the influence of the former education which students have received in regard to these holidays and the practices connected with them, such as horse racing, betting, and the offering of prizes. The very atmosphere of these cities is full of poisonous malaria. The freedom of individual action is not respected; a man’s time is not regarded as really his own; he is expected to do as others do. Should our school be located in one of these cities, or within a few miles of it, there would be a counterworking influence constantly in active exercise to be met and overcome. The devotion to amusements and the observance of so many holidays, give a large business to the courts, to officers and judges, and increase the poverty and squalor that need no increasing. {FE 312.2}

All this is a false education. We shall find it necessary to establish our schools out of, and away from, the cities, and yet not so far away that they cannot be in touch with them, to do them good, to let light shine amid the moral darkness. Students need to be placed under the most favorable circumstances to counteract very much of the education they have received. {FE 313.1}

Entire families are in need of thorough transformation in their habits and ideas before they can be true representatives of Jesus Christ. And to a great extent children who are to receive an education in our schools, will make far more advancement if separated from the family circle where they have received an erroneous education. It may be necessary for some families to locate where they can board their children and save expense, but in many cases it would prove a hindrance rather than a blessing to their children. The people of this country have so little appreciation of the importance

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of industrious habits that the children are not educated to do real, earnest work. This must be a part of the education given to the youth. {FE 313.2}

God gave Adam and Eve employment. Eden was the school for our first parents, and God was their instructor. They learned how to till the soil and to care for the things which the Lord had planted. They did not regard labor as degrading, but as a great blessing. Industry was a pleasure to Adam and Eve. The fall of Adam changed the order of things; the earth was cursed: but the decree that man should earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, was not given as a curse. Through faith and hope, labor was to be a blessing to the descendants of Adam and Eve. God never meant that man should have nothing to do. But the more and deeper the curse of sin, the more the order of God is changed. The burden of toil rests heavily upon a certain class, but the curse of idleness is upon many who are in possession of God’s money, and all because of the false idea that money increases the moral worth of men. Labor is to human beings what they make it. To delve in constant toil, seeking momentary relief in liquor-drinking and exciting amusements, will make men little better than the brutes. {FE 314.1}

We need schools in this country to educate children and youth that they may be masters of labor, and not slaves of labor. Ignorance and idleness will not elevate one member of the human family. Ignorance will not lighten the lot of the hard toiler. Le t the worker see what advantage he may gain in the humblest occupation, by using the ability God has given him as an endowment. Thus he can become an educator, teaching others the art of doing work intelligently. He may understand what it means to love God with the heart, the soul, the mind, and the strength. The physical powers are to be brought into service from love to God. The Lord wants the physical strength, and you can reveal your love for Him by the right use of your physical powers, doing the very work

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which needs to be done. There is no respect of persons with God. {FE 314.2}

When the tabernacle was built in the wilderness for the service of God, the work was done under divine direction. God was the designer, the workmen were educated by Him, and they put heart and soul and strength into the work. There was hard labor to b e done, and the sturdy mechanic taxed muscle and sinew, manifesting his love to God in the toil for His honor. {FE 315.1}

There is in the world a great deal of hard, taxing work to be done, and he who labors without exercising the God-given powers of mind and heart and soul, he who employs the physical strength alone, makes the work a wearisome tax and burden. There are men with mind, heart, and soul who regard work as a drudgery, and settle down to it with self-complacent ignorance, delving without thought, without taxing the mental capabilities in order to do the work better. {FE 315.2}

There is science in the humblest kind of work, and if all would thus regard it, they would see nobility in labor. Heart and soul are to be put into work of any kind; then there is cheerfulness and efficiency. In agricultural or mechanical occupations men may give evidence to God that they appreciate His gift in the physical powers, and the mental faculties as well. Let the educated ability be employed in devising improved methods of work. This is what the Lord wants. There is honor in any class of work that is essential to be done. Let the law of God be made the standard of action, and it ennobles and sanctifies all labor. Faithfulness in the discharge of every duty makes the work noble, and reveals a character that God can approve. {FE 315.3}

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” God desires the love that is expressed in heart-service, in soul-service, in the service of the physical powers. We are not to be dwarfed in any kind of service for God

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Whatever He has lent us is to be used intelligently for Him. The man who exercises his faculties will surely strengthen them, but he must seek to do his best. There is need of intelligence and educated ability to devise the best methods in farming, in building, and in every other department, that the worker may not labor in vain. {FE 315.4}

It is not a virtue for men or women to excuse slow bungling at work of any character. The slow habits must be overcome. The man who is slow, and does his work at a disadvantage, is an unprofitable workman. His slowness is a defect that needs to be seen and corrected. He needs to exercise his intellect in planning how to use his time so as to secure the best results. When one is forever at work, and the work is never done, it is because mind and heart are not put into the work. It takes some persons ten hours to do that which another accomplishes readily in five. Such workmen do not bring tact and method into their labor. There is something to be learned every day as to how to improve in the manner of labor so as to get through the work, and have time for something else. It is the duty of every worker not merely to give his strength but his mind and intellect to that which he undertakes to do. Some who are engaged in domestic labor are always at work; it is not because they have so much to do, but they do not plan in such a way as to have time. They should give themselves a certain time to accomplish their task, and make every move tell. Dullness and ignorance are no virtue. You can choose to become stereotyped in a wrong course of action because you have not the determination to take yourselves in hand and to reform, or you may cultivate your powers to do the very best kind of service, and then you will find yourselves in demand anywhere and everywhere. You will be appreciated for all that you are worth. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” “Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.” {FE 316.1}

Australia needs the leaven of sound, solid, common sense

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to be freely introduced into all her cities and towns. There is need of proper education. Schools should be established for the purpose of obtaining not only knowledge from books, but knowledge of practical industry. Men are needed in different communities to show the people how riches are to be obtained from the soil. The cultivation of land will bring its return. {FE 316.2}

Through the observance of holidays the people both of the world and of the churches have been educated to believe that these lazy days are essential to health and happiness; but the results reveal that they are full of evil, which is ruining the country. The youth generally are not educated to diligent habits. Cities and even country towns are becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah, and like the world in the days of Noah. The training of the youth in those days was after the same order as children are being educated and trained in this age, to love excitement, to glorify themselves, to follow the imagination of their own evil hearts. Now as then, depravity, cruelty, violence, and crime are the result. {FE 317.1}

All these things are lessons for us. Few now are really industrious and economical. Poverty and distress are on every hand. There are men who work hard, and obtain very little for their labor. There is need of much more extensive knowledge in regard to the preparation of the soil. There is not sufficient breadth of view as to what can be realized from the earth. A narrow and unvarying routine is followed with discouraging results. The land boom has cursed this country, extravagant prices have been paid for lands bought on credit; then the land must be cleared, and more money is hired; a house to be built calls for more money, and then interest with open mouth swallows up all the profits. Debts accumulate, and then come the closing and failure of banks, and then the foreclosure of mortgages. Thousands have been turned out of employment; families lose their little all, they borrow and borrow, and then have to give up their property and come out penniless. Much money and hard labor have been put into

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farms bought on credit, or inherited with an incumbrance. The occupants lived in hope of becoming real owners, and it might have been so, but for the failure of banks throughout the country. {FE 317.2}

Now the case where a man owns his place clear is a happy exception to the rule. Merchants are failing, families are suffering for food and clothing. No work presents itself. But the holidays are just as numerous. Their amusements are entered into as eagerly. All who can do so will spend their hard-earned pence and shillings and pounds for a taste of pleasure, for strong drink, or some other indulgence. The papers that report the poverty of the people, have regular standing notices of the horse races, and of the prizes presented for different kinds of exciting sports. The shows, the theaters, and all such demoralizing amusements, are taking the money from the country, and poverty is continually increasing. Poor men will invest their last shilling in a lottery, hoping to secure a prize, and then they have to beg for food to sustain life, or go hungry. Many die of hunger, and many put an end to their existence. The end is not yet. Men take you to their orchards of oranges and lemons, and other fruits, and t ell you that the produce does not pay for the work done in them. It is next to impossible to make ends meet, and parents decide that the children shall not be farmers; they have not the courage and hope to educate them to till the soil. {FE 318.1}

What is needed is schools to educate and train the youth so that they will know how to overcome this condition of things. There must be education in the sciences, and education in plans and methods of working the soil. There is hope in the soil, but b rain and heart and strength must be brought into the work of tilling it. The money devoted to horse racing, theater going, gambling and lotteries; the money spent in the public houses for beer and strong drink,–let it be expended in making the land productive, and we shall see a different state of things. {FE 318.2}

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This country needs educated farmers. The Lord gives the showers of rain and the blessed sunshine. He gives to men all their powers; let them devote heart and mind and strength to doing His will in obedience to His commandments. Let them cut off every pernicious habit, never expending a penny for beer or liquor of any kind, nor for tobacco, having nothing to do with horse racing or similar sports, and then commit themselves to God, working with their endowment of physical strength, and their labor will not be in vain. That God who has made the world for the benefit of man, will provide means from the earth to sustain the diligent worker. The seed placed in thoroughly prepared soil, will produce its harvest. God can spread a table for His people in the wilderness. {FE 319.1}

The various trades and occupations have to be learned, and they call into exercise a great variety of mental and physical capabilities; the occupations requiring sedentary habits are the most dangerous, for they take men away from the open air and sun shine, and train one set of faculties, while other organs are becoming weak from inaction. Men carry on their work, perfect their business, and soon lie down in the grave. Much more favorable is the condition of one whose occupation keeps him in the open air, exercising his muscles, while the brain is equally taxed, and all the organs have the privilege of doing their work. To those who can live outside of the cities, and labor in the open air, beholding the works of the great Master Artist, new scenes are continually unfolding. As they make the book of nature their study, a softening, subduing influence comes over them; for they realize that God’s care is over all, from the glorious sun in the heavens to the little brown sparrow or the tiniest insect that has life. The Majesty of heaven has pointed us to these things of God’s creation as an evidence of His love. He who fashioned the flowers has said: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like

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one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” The Lord is our teacher, and under His instruction we may learn the most precious lessons from nature. {FE 319.2}

The world is under the curse of sin, and yet even in its decay it is very beautiful. If it were not defiled by the wicked, corrupt deeds of the men who tread the soil, we could, with the blessing of God, enjoy our world as it is. But ignorance, pleasure loving, and sinful habits, corrupting soul, body, and spirit, make the world full of moral leprosy; a deadly moral malaria is destroying thousands and tens of thousands. What shall be done to save our youth? We can do little, but God lives and reigns, and He can do much. The youth are our hope for missionary labor. {FE 320.1}

Schools should be established where there is as much as possible to be found in nature to delight the senses and give variety to the scenery. While we shun the false and artificial, discarding horse racing, card playing, lotteries, prize fights, liquor drinking, and tobacco using, we must supply sources of pleasure that are pure and noble and elevating. We should choose a location for our school apart from the cities, where the eye will not rest continually upon the dwellings of men, but upon the works of God; where there shall be places of interest for them to visit, other than what the city affords. Let our students be placed where nature can speak to the senses, and in her voice they may hear the voice of God. Let them be where they can look upon His wondrous works, and through nature behold her Creator. {FE 320.2}

The youth in this country require more earnest spiritual labor than in any other country we have yet visited. Temptations are strong and numerous; the many holidays and the habits of idleness are most unfavorable for the young. Satan makes the idle man a partaker and co-worker in his schemes, and the Lord Jesus does not abide in the heart by faith. The

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children and youth are not educated to realize that their influence is a power for good or for evil. It should ever be kept before them how much they can accomplish; they should be encouraged to reach the highest standard of rectitude. But from their youth up they have been educated to the popular idea that the appointed holidays must be treated with respect and be observed. From the light that the Lord has given me, these days have no more influence for good than would the worship of heathen deities; for this is really nothing less. These days are Satan’s special harvest seasons. The money drawn from men and women is expended for that which is not bread. The youth are educated to love those things which are demoralizing, things which the word of God condemns. The influence is evil and only evil continually. {FE 320.3}

Manual occupation for the youth is essential. The mind is not to be constantly taxed to the neglect of the physical powers. The ignorance of physiology, and a neglect to observe the laws of health, have brought many to the grave who might have lived t o labor and study intelligently. The proper exercise of mind and body will develop and strengthen all the powers. Both mind and body will be preserved, and will be capable of doing a variety of work. Ministers and teachers need to learn in regard to these things, and they need to practice as well. The proper use of their physical strength, as well as of the mental powers, will equalize the circulation of the blood, and keep every organ of the living machinery in running order. Minds are often abused; they are goaded on to madness by pursuing one line of thought; the excessive employment of the brain power and the neglect of the physical organs create a diseased condition of things in the system. Every faculty of the mind may be exercised with comparative safety if the physical powers are equally taxed, and the subject of thought varied. We need a change of employment, and nature is a living, healthful teacher. {FE 321.1}

When students enter the school to obtain an education, the

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instructors should endeavor to surround them with objects of the most pleasing, interesting character, that the mind may not be confined to the dead study of books. The school should not be in or near a city, where its extravagance, its wicked pleasures, its wicked customs and practices, will require constant work to counteract the prevailing iniquity, that it may not poison the very atmosphere which the students breathe. All schools should be located, as far as possible, where the eye will rest upon the things of nature instead of clusters of houses. The ever-shifting scenery will gratify the taste, and control the imagination. Here is a living teacher, instructing constantly. {FE 321.2}

I have been troubled over many things in regard to our school. In their work the young men are associated with the young women, and are doing the work which belongs to women. This is nearly all that can be found for them to do as they are now situated; but from the light given me, this is not the kind of education that the young men need. It does not give them the knowledge they need to take with them to their homes. There should be a different kind of labor opened before them, that would give opportunity to keep the physical powers taxed equally with the mental. There should be land for cultivation. The time is not far distant when the laws against Sunday labor will be more stringent, and an effort should be made to secure grounds away from the cities, where fruits and vegetables can be raised. Agriculture will open resources for self-support, and various other trades also could be learned. This real, earnest work calls for strength of intellect as well as of muscle. Method and tact are required even to raise fruits and vegetables successfully. And habits of industry will be found an important aid to the youth in resisting temptation. {FE 322.1}

Here is opened a field to give vent to their pent-up energies, that, if not expended in useful employment, will be a continual source of trial to themselves and to their teachers.

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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 capability for study, because the action of brain and muscle is equalized. We should so train the youth that they will love to work 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. {FE 322.2}

False witness has been borne in condemning land which, if properly worked, would yield rich returns. The narrow plans, the little strength put forth, the little study as to the best methods, call loudly for reform. The people need to learn that patient labor will do wonders. There is much mourning over unproductive soil, when if men would read the Old Testament Scriptures they would see that the Lord knew much better than they in regard to the proper treatment of land. After being cultivated for several years, and giving her treasure to the possession of man, portions of the land should be allowed to rest, and then the crops should be changed. We might learn much also from the Old Testament in regard to the labor problem. If men would follow the directions of Christ in regard to remembering the poor and supplying their necessities, what a different place this world would be! {FE 323.1}

Let God’s glory be kept ever in view; and if the crop is a failure, be not discouraged; try again; but remember that you can have no harvest unless the ground is properly prepared for the seed; failure may be wholly due to neglect on this point. {FE 323.2}

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

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that His blessing will attend it. The schools established by those who teach and practice 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. Their influence will tend to correct the false idea that ignorance is the mark of a gentleman. {FE 323.3}

God would be glorified if men from other countries who have acquired an intelligent knowledge of agriculture, would come to this land, and by precept and example teach the people how to cultivate the soil, that it may yield rich treasures. Men are wan ted to educate others how to plow, and how to use the implements of agriculture. Who will be missionaries to do this work, to teach proper methods to the youth, and to all who feel willing and humble enough to learn? If any do not want you to give them improved ideas, let the lessons be given silently, showing what can be done in setting out orchards and planting corn; let the harvest be eloquent in favor of right methods of labor. Drop a word to your neighbors when you can, keep up the culture of your own land, and that will educate. {FE 324.1}

It may be urged by some that our school must be in the city in order to give influence to our work, and that if it is in the country, the influence is lost to the cities; but this is not necessarily the case. {FE 324.2}

The youth who attend our school for the first time, are not prepared to exert a correct influence in any city as lights shining amid the darkness. They will not be prepared to reflect light until the darkness of their own erroneous education is dispelled. In the future our school will not be the same as it

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has been in the past. Among the students there have been reliable, experienced men who have taken advantage of the opportunity to gain more knowledge in order to do intelligent work in the cause of God. These have been a help in the school, for they have been as a balance wheel; but in the future the school will consist mostly of those who need to be transformed in character, and who will need to have much patient labor bestowed upon them; they have to unlearn, and learn again. It will take time to develop the true missionary spirit, and the farther they are removed from the cities and the temptations that are flooding them, the more favorable will it be for them to obtain the true knowledge and develop well-balanced characters. {FE 324.3}

Farmers need far more intelligence in their work. In most cases it is their own fault if they do not see the land yielding its harvest. They should be constantly learning how to secure a variety of treasures from the earth. The people should learn as far as possible to depend upon the products that they can obtain from the soil. In every phase of this kind of labor they can be educating the mind to work for the saving of souls for whom Christ has died. “Ye are God’s husbandry; ye are God’s building.” Let the teachers in our schools take their students with them into the gardens and fields, and teach them how to work the soil in the very best manner. It would be well if ministers who labor in word or doctrine could enter the fields and spend some portion of the day in physical exercise with the students. They could do as Christ did in giving lessons from nature to illustrate Bible truth. Both teachers and students would have much more healthful experience in spiritual things, and much stronger minds and purer hearts to interpret eternal mysteries, than they can have while studying books so constantly, and working the brain without taxing the muscles. God has given men and women reasoning powers, and He would have men employ their reason in regard to the use of their physical machinery. The question may be asked,

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How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plow, and driveth 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.” {FE 325.1}

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, but is put into the till of the publican, to obtain that which destroys the reason of man formed in the image of God. Those who will take their families into the country, place them where they have fewer temptations. The children who are with parents that love and fear God, are in every way much better situated to learn of the Great Teacher, who is the source and fountain of wisdom. They have a much more favorable opportunity to gain a fitness for the kingdom of heaven. Send the children to schools located in the city, where every phase of temptation is waiting to attract and demoralize them, and the work of character building is tenfold harder for both parents and children. {FE 326.1}

The earth is to be made to give forth its strength; but without the blessing of God it could do nothing. In the beginning, God looked upon all that He had made, and pronounced it very good. The curse was brought upon the earth in consequence of sin. But shall this curse be multiplied by increasing sin? Ignorance is doing its baleful work. Slothful servants are increasing the evil by their lazy habits. Many are unwilling to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, and they refuse to till the soil. But the earth has blessings hidden in her depths for those who have courage and will and

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perseverance to gather her treasures. Fathers and mothers who possess a piece of land and a comfortable home are kings and queens. {FE 326.2}

Many farmers have failed to secure adequate returns from their land because they have undertaken the work as though it was a degrading employment; they do not see that there is a blessing in it for themselves and their families. All they can discern i s the brand of servitude. Their orchards are neglected, the crops are not put in at the right season, and a mere surface work is done in cultivating the soil. Many neglect their farms in order to keep holidays and to attend horse races and betting clubs; t heir money is expended in shows and lotteries and idleness, and then they plead that they cannot obtain money to cultivate the soil and improve their farms; but had they more money, the result would still be the same–“Special Testimonies on Education,” February, 1894. {FE 327.1}

Chap. 50 – The Divine Teacher

Those who are daily learning of Jesus Christ are fitted to take their position as laborers together with God, and whatever their trade or business may be, they may exert their God-given powers after the similitude of Christ’s character while He tabernacled in the flesh. The young will carry with them just the influence they received in their home life and school education. God holds teachers responsible for their work as educators. They must learn daily in the school of Christ, in order to uplift the youth who have had a lax training at home, who have not formed studious habits, who have little knowledge of the future immortal life, for which the highest price was paid by the God of heaven in giving His only-begotten Son to live a life of humiliation and die a most shameful death, “that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” {FE 397.1}

God has given us a probation in which we may prepare for the higher school. For this school the youth are to be educated, disciplined, and trained by forming such characters, moral and intellectual, as God will approve. They are to receive a training, not in the customs and amusements and games of this worldly polluted society, but in Christ’s lines, a training which will fit them to be colaborers with the heavenly intelligences. But what a farce is that education obtained in literary lines, if it must be stripped from the learner if he is accounted worthy to enter upon that life which measures with the life of God, he himself saved as by fire. {FE 397.2}

In the past, education has consisted in laboriously loading the minds of the students with material which cannot be of the least value to them, and which will not be recognized in the higher school. The teachers of the Jewish nation professed to educate the youth to understand the purity and excellence of the laws of that kingdom which is to stand forever and

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ever, but they perverted truth and purity. Though they said of themselves, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we,” yet they crucified the Originator of all the Jewish economy, Him to whom all their ordinances pointed. They failed to discern the veiled mystery of godliness; Christ Jesus remained veiled to them. The truth, the life, the heart of all their service, was discarded. They held, and still hold, the mere husks, the shadows, the figures symbolizing the true. A figure for the time appointed, that they might discern the true, became so perverted by their own inventions, that their eyes were blinded. They did not realize that type met antitype in the death of Jesus Christ. The greater their perversion of figures and symbols, the more confused their minds became, so that they could not see the perfect fulfillment of the Jewish economy, instituted and established by Christ, and pointing to Him as the substance. Meats and drinks and divers ordinances were multiplied until ceremonial religion constituted their only worship. {FE 397.3}

In His teaching, Christ sought to educate and train the Jews to see the object of that which was to be abolished by the true offering of Himself, the living Sacrifice. “Go ye,” said He, “and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice.” He presented a pure character as of supreme importance. He dispensed with all pomp, demanding that faith that works by love and purifies the soul, as the only qualification required for the kingdom of heaven. He taught that true religion does not consis t in forms or ceremonies, outward attractions or outward display. Christ would have taken these to Himself if they had been essential in the formation of a character after the divine similitude. But His citizenship, His divine authority, rested upon His own intrinsic merits. He, the Majesty of heaven, walked the earth, shrouded in the robe of humanity. All His attractions and triumphs were to be revealed in behalf of man, and were to testify to His living connection with God. {FE 398.1}

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Christ’s prediction regarding the destruction of the temple was a lesson on the purification of religion, by making of none effect forms and ceremonies. He announced Himself greater than the temple, and stood forth proclaiming, “I am the way, the trut h, and the life.” He was the one in whom all the Jewish ceremony and typical service was to find its fulfillment. He stood forth in the place of the temple; all the offices of the church centered in Himself alone. {FE 399.1}

In the past, Christ had been approached through forms and ceremonies, but now He was upon the earth, calling attention directly to Himself, presenting a spiritual priesthood, and placing the sinful human agent at the footstool of mercy. “Ask, and it shall be given you,” He promised; “seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” “If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it. If ye love Me, keep My commandments.” “He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: . . . and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.” “As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you: continue ye in My love. If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love; even as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.” {FE 399.2}

These lessons Christ gave in His teaching, showing that the ritual service was passing away, and possessed no virtue. “The hour cometh,” He said, “and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” True circumcision is the worship of Christ in spirit and truth, not in forms and ceremonies, with hypocritical pretense. {FE 399.3}

The deep necessity of man for a divine teacher was known in heaven. The pity and sympathy of God were exercised in behalf of man, fallen and bound to Satan’s chariot-car; and when the fullness of time was come, He sent forth His Son.

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The One appointed in the counsels of heaven came to the earth as an instructor. He was no less a being than the Creator of the world, the Son of the Infinite God. The rich benevolence of God gave Him to our world; and to meet the necessities of humanity, He took on Him human nature. To the astonishment of the heavenly host, He walked this earth as the Eternal Word. Fully prepared, He left the royal courts to come to a world marred and polluted with sin. Mysteriously He allied Himself to human nature. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” God’s excess of goodness, benevolence, and love was a surprise to the world, of grace which could be realized, but not told. {FE 399.4}

That Christ, during His childhood, should grow in wisdom, and in favor with God and man, was not a matter of astonishment; for it was according to the laws of His divine appointment that His talents should develop, and His faculties strengthen by exercise. He sought neither the schools of the prophets nor the learning received from the rabbinical teachers; He needed not the education gained in these schools; for God was His instructor. When in the presence of the teachers and rulers, His questions were instructive lessons, and He astonished the great men with His wisdom and deep penetration. His answers to their queries opened up fields of thought on subjects in reference to the mission of Christ, which had never before entered their minds. {FE 400.1}

The stores of wisdom and the scientific knowledge Christ displayed in the presence of the wise men, were a subject of surprise to His parents and brothers; for they knew He had never received from the great teachers instruction in human science. His brothers were annoyed at His questions and answers; for they could discern that He was an instructor to the learned teachers. They could not comprehend Him; for they knew not that He had access to the tree of life, a source of knowledge of which they knew nothing. He ever possessed a peculiar dignity and individuality distinct from earthly

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pride or assumption; for He did not strive after greatness. {FE 400.2}

After Christ had condescended to leave His high command, step down from an infinite height and assume humanity, He could have taken upon Him any condition of humanity He might choose. But greatness and rank were nothing to Him, and He selected the lowest and most humble walk of life. The place of His birth was Bethlehem, and on one side His parentage was poor, but God, the Owner of the world, was His Father. No trace of luxury, ease, selfish gratification, or indulgence was brought into his life, which was a continual round of self-denial and self-sacrifice. In accordance with His humble birth, he had apparently no greatness or riches, in order that the humblest believer need not say that Christ never knew the stress of pinching poverty. Had he possessed the semblance of outward show, of riches, of grandeur, the poorest class of humanity would have shunned His society; therefore He chose the lowly condition of the far greater number of the people. The truth of heavenly origin was to be His theme: He was to sow the earth with truth; and He came in such a way as to be accessible to all, that the truth alone might make an impression upon human hearts. {FE 401.1}

Christ’s contentment in any position provoked His brethren. They could not explain the reason of His peace and serenity; and no persuasion of theirs could lead Him to enter into any plans or arrangements which bore the impression of commonness or of guilt. On every occasion He would turn from them, plainly stating that they would mislead others, and were unworthy of the sons of Abraham. He must set such an example that little children, the younger members of the Lord’s family, would see nothing in His life or character to justify any evil deed. You are altogether too particular and peculiar, said the members of his own family. Why not be as other children? But this could not be; for Christ was to be a sign and a wonder from His youth, as far as strict obedience and integrity were concerned. {FE 401.2}

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Always kind, courteous, ever taking the part of the oppressed, whether Jew or Gentile, Christ was beloved by all. By His perfect life and character, He answered the question asked in the fifteenth Psalm: “Lord, who shall abide in Thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in Thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.” In childhood and youth His course was such that when engaged in work as a teacher, He could say to His disciples, “If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love: even as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.” {FE 402.1}

As Christ grew older, the work begun in His childhood went on, and He continued to increase in wisdom, and in favor with God and man. He did not take the part of His own family merely because they were related to Him by natural ties; He would not vindicate their case in a single instance where they had been guilty of injustice or wrong; but He ever vindicated that which He knew to be truth. {FE 402.2}

Christ applied Himself diligently to a study of the Scriptures; for He knew them to be full of precious instruction to all who will make it the man of their counsel. He was faithful in the discharge of His home duties, and the early morning hours, instead of being wasted in bed, often found Him in a retired place, meditating and searching the Scriptures and in prayer. Every prophecy concerning His work and mediation was familiar to Him, especially those having reference to His humiliation, atonement, and intercession. In childhood and youth the object of His life was ever before Him, an inducement for His undertaking the work of mediating in behalf of fallen man. He would see seed which should prolong their days, and the gracious purpose of the Lord should prosper in His hands. {FE 402.3}

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with

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patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” These subjects, Christ studied in His youth, and the universe of heaven looked with interest upon the One who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame. By offering Himself to make intercession for the transgression of the human race, Christ executed the office of priest. As a reward, He was to see of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied. His seed should prolong their days on the earth forever. “Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” By His obedience to His father and mother, Christ was an example to all children and youth; but today children are not following the example He has given and the sure result will be the shortening of their days. {FE 402.4}

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love: having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.” Before the foundations of the earth were laid, the covenant was made that all who were obedient, all who should through the abundant grace provided, become holy in character, and without blame before God, by appropriating that grace, should be children of God. This covenant, made from eternity, was given to Abraham hundreds of years before Christ came. With what interest and what intensity did Christ in humanity study the human race to see if they would avail themselves of the provision offered. {FE 403.1}

“This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” These

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words are an eye opener to all who will see. The knowledge of God is a knowledge which will not need to be left behind when our probation closes, a knowledge which is of the most lasting benefit to the world and to us individually. Why, then, should we put the word of God in the background when it is wisdom unto salvation. “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation.” We are neglecting our salvation if we give authors who have but a confused idea of what religion means, the most conspicuous place and devoted respect, and make the Bible secondary. Those who have been enlightened in reference to the truth for these last days will not find instruction in the books generally studied today, in regard to the things which are coming upon our world; but the Bible is full of the knowledge of God, and is competent to educate the student for usefulness in this life and for the eternal life. {FE 403.2}

Study carefully the first chapter of Hebrews. Become interested in the Scriptures. Read and study them diligently. “In them ye think ye have eternal life,” Christ said, “and they are they which testify of Me.” It means everything to us to have an experimental and individual knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ, “whom He hath sent.” “For this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.”–“Special Testimonies on Education,” March 23, 1896. {FE 404.1}

Chap. 63 – The Work of Our Training Schools

The work of our colleges and training schools should be strengthened year by year. {FE 488.1}

No Time For Delay

Time is short. Workers for Christ are needed everywhere. There should be one hundred earnest, faithful laborers in home and foreign mission fields where now there is one. The highways and the byways are yet unworked. Urgent inducements should be held out to those who ought now to be engaged in missionary work for the Master. {FE 488.2}

The signs which show that Christ’s coming is near are fast fulfilling. The Lord calls upon our youth to labor as canvassers and evangelists, to do house-to-house work in places that have not yet heard the truth. He speaks to our young men, saying, “Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” Those who will go forth to the work under God’s direction will be wonderfully blessed. Those who in this life do their best will obtain a fitness for the future, immortal life. {FE 488.3}

The Lord calls for volunteers who will take their stand firmly on His side, and will pledge themselves to unite with Jesus of Nazareth in doing the very work that needs to be done now, just now. {FE 488.4}

There are among us many young men and women who, if inducements are held out, would naturally be inclined to take several years’ course of study at Battle Creek. But will it pay? The talents of God’s people are to be employed in giving the last message of mercy to the world. The Lord calls upon those connected with our sanitariums, publishing houses, and other institutions to teach the youth to do evangelistic work. Our time and money must not be so

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largely employed in establishing sanitariums, food factories, food stores, and restaurants, that other lines of work shall be neglected. Young men and young women who should be engaged in the ministry, in Bible work, and in the canvassing work, should not be bound down to mechanical employment. {FE 488.5}

The youth are to be encouraged to attend our schools, which should become more and more like the schools of the prophets. Our schools have been established by the Lord; and if they are conducted in harmony with His purpose, the youth sent to them will quickly be prepared to engage in various branches of missionary work. Some will be trained to enter the field as missionary nurses, some as canvassers, some as evangelists, some as teachers, and some as gospel ministers. {FE 489.1}

The Lord has plainly instructed me that our young people should not be encouraged to devote so much of their time and strength to medical missionary work as it has been carried forward of late. The instruction they receive regarding Bible doctrines is not such as to fit them to perform properly the work that God has intrusted to His people. {FE 489.2}

Satan is earnestly striving to lead souls away from right principles. Multitudes who profess to belong to God’s true church are falling under the enemy’s deceptions. They are being led to swerve from their allegiance to the blessed and only Potentate. {FE 489.3}

A Present Duty

All our denominational colleges and training schools should make provision to give their students the education essential for evangelists and for Christian business men. The youth and those more advanced in years who feel it their duty to fit themselves for work requiring the passing of certain legal tests should be able to secure at our Union Conference training-schools all that is essential, without having to go to Battle Creek for their preparatory education. {FE 489.4}

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Prayer will accomplish wonders for those who give themselves to prayer, watching thereunto. God desires us all to be in a waiting, hopeful position. What He has promised He will do, and if there are legal requirements making it necessary that medical students shall take a certain preparatory course of study, let our colleges teach the required additional studies in a manner consistent with Christian education. The Lord has signified His displeasure that so many of our people are drifting into Battle Creek; and since He does not want so many to go there, we should understand that He wants our schools in other places to have efficient teachers, and to do well the work that must be done. They should arrange to carry their students to the point of literary and scientific training that is necessary. Many of these requirements have been made because so much of the preparatory work  done in ordinary schools is superficial. Let all our work be thorough, faithful, and true. {FE 490.1}
In our training-schools the Bible is to be made the basis of all education. And in the required studies, it is not necessary for our teachers to bring in the objectionable books that the Lord has instructed us not to use in our schools. From the light that the Lord has given me, I know that our training-schools in various parts of the field should be placed in the most favorable position possible for qualifying our youth to meet the tests specified by state laws regarding medical students. To this end the very best teaching talent should be secured, that our schools may be brought up to the required standard. {FE 490.2}
But let not the young men and young women in our churches be advised to go to Battle Creek in order to obtain a preparatory education. There is a congested state of things at Battle Creek that makes it an unfavorable place for the proper education of Christian workers. Because the warnings in regard to the work in that congested center have not been heeded, the Lord permitted two of our institutions to

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be consumed by fire. Even after this revealing of His signal displeasure His warnings were not heeded. The Sanitarium is still there. If it had been divided into several plants, and its work and influence given to several different places, how much more God would have been glorified! But now that the Sanitarium has been rebuilt, we must do our very best to help those who are there struggling with many difficulties. {FE 490.3}
Let me repeat: It is not necessary for so many of our youth to study medicine. But for those who should take medical studies our Union Conference training-schools should make ample provision in facilities for preparatory education. Thus the youth of each Union Conference can be trained nearer home, and be spared the special temptations that attend the work in Battle Creek.–Review and Herald, October 15, 1903. {FE 491.1}

Chap. 66 – Teachers as Examples of Christian Integrity

I have a message for those standing at the head of our educational institutions. I am instructed to call the attention of every one occupying a position of responsibility, to the divine law as the basis of all right conduct. I am to begin by calling attention to the law given in Eden, and to the reward of obedience and the penalty of disobedience. {FE 504.1}

In consequence of Adam’s transgression, sin was introduced into the fair world that God had created, and men and women became more and still more bold in disobeying His law. The Lord looked down upon the impenitent world, and decided that He must give transgressors an exhibition of His power. He caused Noah to know His purpose, and instructed him to warn the people while building an ark in which the obedient could find shelter until God’s indignation was overpast. For one hundred and twenty years Noah proclaimed the message of warning to the antediluvian world; but only a few repented. Some of the carpenters he employed in building the ark, believed the message, but died before the flood; others of Noah’s converts backslid. The righteous on the earth were but few, and only eight lived to enter the ark. These were Noah and his family. {FE 504.2}

The rebellious race was swept away by the flood. Death was their portion. By the fulfillment of the prophetic warning that all who would not keep the commandments of heaven should drink the waters of the flood, the truth of God’s word was exemplified. {FE 504.3}

After the flood the people once more increased on the earth, and wickedness also increased. Idolatry became well-nigh universal, and the Lord finally left the hardened transgressors to follow their evil ways, while He chose Abraham, of the line of She m, and made him the keeper of His law for future

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generations. To him the message came, “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee.” And by faith Abraham obeyed. “He went out, not knowing whither he went.” {FE 504.4}

Abraham’s seed multiplied, and at length Jacob and his sons and their families went down into Egypt. Here they and their descendants sojourned for many years, till at last the Lord called them out, to lead them into the land of Canaan. It was His purpose to make of this nation of slaves a people who would reveal His character to the idolatrous nations of the world. Had they been obedient to His word, they would soon have entered the promised land. But they were disobedient and rebellious, and for forty years they journeyed in the wilderness. Only two of the adults who left Egypt entered Canaan. {FE 505.1}

It was during the wilderness wandering of the Israelites that God gave them His law. He led them to Sinai, and there, amid scenes of awful grandeur, proclaimed the ten commandments. {FE 505.2}

We may with profit study the record of the preparation made by the congregation of Israel for the hearing of the law. “In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness: and there Israel camped before the mount. And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto Myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people: for all the earth is Mine.” {FE 505.3}

Who, then, is to be regarded as the Ruler of the nations?– The Lord God Omnipotent. All kings, all rulers, all nations, are His under His rule and government. {FE 505.4}

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“And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him.” {FE 506.1}
What was the response of the congregation, numbering more than a million people? {FE 506.2}

“And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord.” {FE 506.3}

Thus the children of Israel were denominated as a special people. By a most solemn covenant they were pledged to be true to God. {FE 506.4}

Then the people were bidden to prepare themselves to hear the law. On the morning of the third day the voice of God was heard. Speaking out of the thick darkness that enshrouded Him, as He stood upon the mount, surrounded by a retinue of angels, the Lord made known His law. {FE 506.5}

God accompanied the proclamation of His law with manifestations of His power and glory, that His people might be impressed with a profound veneration for the Author of the law, the Creator of heaven and earth. He would also show to all men the sacredness, the importance, and the permanence of His law. {FE 506.6}

The people of Israel were overwhelmed with terror. They shrank away from the mountain in fear and awe. The multitude cried out to Moses, “Speak thou with us, but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” {FE 506.7}

The minds of the people, blinded and debased by slavery, were not prepared to appreciate fully the far-reaching principles of God’s ten precepts. That the obligations of the decalogue might be more fully understood and enforced, additional precepts we re given, illustrating and applying the precepts of the ten commandments. Unlike the decalogue, these were delivered privately to Moses, who was to communicate them to the people. {FE 506.8}

Upon descending from the mountain, Moses “came and

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told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the Lord hath said will we do. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord. And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.” {FE 506.9}

Thus by a most solemn service the children of Israel were once more set apart as a peculiar people. The sprinkling of the blood represented the shedding of the blood of Jesus, by which human beings are cleansed from sin. {FE 507.1}

Once more the Lord has special words to speak to His people. In the thirty-first chapter of Exodus we read: {FE 507.2}

“The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily My Sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. . . . Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested, and was refreshed. And He gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon Mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” {FE 507.3}

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Many other scriptures on the sacredness of God’s law have been presented before me. Scene after scene, reaching down to the present time, passed before me. The word spoken by God to Israel was verified. The people disobeyed, and only two of the adults who left Egypt entered Canaan. The rest died in the wilderness. Will not the Lord today vindicate His word if the leaders of His people depart from His commandments? {FE 508.1}

I was referred to the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy. The whole of this chapter is to be studied. Notice particularly the statement: “Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine heart, that the Lord He is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath: there is none else. Thou shalt keep therefore His statutes, and His commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the Lord thy God giveth thee, forever.” {FE 508.2}

The eighth and eleventh chapters of Deuteronomy also mean much to us. The lessons that they contain are of the greatest importance, and are given to us as verily as to the Israelites. In the eleventh chapter God says: {FE 508.3}

“Behold I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; a blessing if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day: and a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.” {FE 508.4}

I have been instructed, as God’s messenger, to dwell particularly upon the record of Moses’ sin and its sad result, as a solemn lesson to those in positions of responsibility in our schools, and especially to those acting as presidents of these institutions. {FE 508.5}

Of Moses God’s word declares, “Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.” Long had he borne with the rebellion and obstinacy

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of Israel. But at last his patience gave way. They were on the borders of the promised land. But before they entered Canaan, they must show that they believed God’s promise. The supply of water ceased. Here was an opportunity for them to walk by faith instead of by sight. But they forgot the hand that for so many years had supplied their wants, and instead of turning to God for help, they murmured against Him. {FE 508.6}

Their cries were directed against Moses and Aaron: “Why have ye brought up the congregation of the Lord into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die there? And wherefore have ye made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in unto this evil place? It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink.” {FE 509.1}

The two brothers went before the multitude. But instead of speaking to the rock, as God had directed, Moses smote the rock angrily, crying, “Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?” {FE 509.2}

Bitter and deeply humiliating was the judgment immediately pronounced. “The Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed Me not, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.” With rebellious Israel they must die before crossing the Jordan. {FE 509.3}

From the experience of Moses the Lord would have His people learn that when they do that which gives prominence to self, His work is neglected, and He is dishonored. The Lord will work counter to those who work counter to Him. His name, and His alone, is to be magnified on the earth. {FE 509.4}

For more than twenty years strange things have at different times been coming in among us. Those who have become unfaithful, who have not exalted the principles of righteousness, need now to seek the Lord with deep humiliation of soul, and be converted, that God may heal their transgressions. {FE 509.5}

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The one standing at the head of a school is to put his undivided interests into the work of making the school just what the Lord designed it to be. If he is ambitious to climb higher and still higher, if he gets above the real virtues of his work, and above its simplicity, and disregards the holy principles of heaven, let him learn from the experience of Moses that the Lord will surely manifest His displeasure because of his failure to reach the standard set before him. {FE 510.1}

Especially should the president of a school look carefully after the finances of the institution. He should understand the underlying principles of bookkeeping. He is faithfully to report the use of all moneys passing through his hand for the use of t he school. The funds of the school are not to be overdrawn, but every effort is to be made to increase the usefulness of the school. Those intrusted with the financial management of our educational institutions, must allow no carelessness in the expenditure of means. Everything connected with the finances of our schools should be perfectly straight. The Lord’s way must be strictly followed, though this may not be in harmony with the ways of man. {FE 510.2}
To those in charge of our schools I would say, Are you making God and His law your delight? Are the principles that you follow, sound and pure and unadulterated? Are you keeping yourselves, in the life practice, under the control of God? Do you see the necessity of obeying Him in every particular? If you are tempted to appropriate the money coming into the school, in ways that bring no special benefit to the school, your standard of principle needs to be carefully criticized, that the time may not come when you will have to be criticized and found wanting. Who is your bookkeeper? Who is your treasurer? Who is your business manager? Are they careful and competent? Look to this. It is possible for money to be misappropriated without anyone’s understanding clearly how it came about; and it is possible for a school to be losing continually because of unwise expenditures. Those in

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charge may feel this loss keenly, and yet suppose they have done their best. But why do they permit debts to accumulate? Let those in charge of a school find out each month the true financial standing of the school. {FE 510.3}

My brethren in responsibility, exalt the law of Christ’s kingdom by giving to it willing obedience. If you are not yourselves under the control of the Ruler of the universe, how can you obey His law, as required in His word? Those who are placed in positions of authority are the very ones who need most fully to realize their amenability to God’s law and the importance of obeying all His requirements. {FE 511.1}

In some respects, many of those connected with our schools should be standing on a higher platform. We know that it is the determined purpose of some to be obedient to every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Such men and women will be given power of intellect to discern the difference between righteousness and unrighteousness. They have the faith that works by love and purifies the soul, and they reveal God to the world. {FE 511.2}

We all need to gain a much deeper experience in the things of God than we have gained. Self is to die, and Christ is to take possession of the soul temple. Physicians, ministers, teachers, and all others in responsible positions, must learn the humility of Christ before He can be revealed in them. Too often self is so important an agency in the life of a man that the Lord is not able to mold and fashion him. Self rules on the right hand and on the left, and the man presses his way forward as he pleases . Christ says to self, “Stand out of My path. Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. Then I can accept him as My disciple. In order to serve Me acceptably, he must do the work I have given him in harmony with My instructions.”– Review and Herald, August 16, 23, 1906. {FE 511.3}

Chap. 68 – A Message to Teachers

A message has been given me for the teachers in all our schools. Those who accept the sacred responsibility resting upon teachers need to be constantly advancing in their experience. They should not be content to remain upon the lowlands, but should ever be climbing heavenward. With the word of God in their hands, and the love of souls pointing them to diligence, they should advance step by step in efficiency. {FE 516.1}

A deep Christian experience will be combined with the work of true education. Our schools are to advance steadily in Christian development; and in order to do this, the words and example of the teacher should be a constant help. “Ye also, as lively stones,” the apostle declares, “are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” It would be well for every teacher and student to study carefully these words, asking himself the question, Am I, through the abundant grace given, obtaining the very experience that as a child of God I must have in order to advance constantly step by step to the higher grade? {FE 516.2}

In every line of instruction, teachers are to seek to impart light from the word of God, and to show the importance of obedience to a “Thus saith the Lord.” The education should be such that the students will make right principles the guide of every action: This is the education that will abide through the eternal ages. {FE 516.3}

I am given words of caution to the teachers in all our established schools. The work of our schools must bear a different stamp from that borne by some of our most popular schools. The mere study of the ordinary textbook is not sufficient; and many of the books that are used are unnecessary for those schools that are established to prepare students

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for the school above. As a result, the students in these schools are not receiving the most perfect Christian education. The very points of study are neglected that are most needed to prepare the students to stand the last great examination, and to fit them for missionary work in home and foreign fields. The education that is needed now is one that will qualify the students for practical missionary work, by teaching them to bring every faculty under the control of the Spirit of God. The study book which is of the highest value is that which contains the instruction of Christ, the Teacher of teachers. {FE 516.4}

The Lord expects our teachers to expel from our schools those books that teach sentiments which are not in accordance with His word, and to give place to those books that are of the highest value. The Lord designs that the teachers in our schools shall excel in wisdom the wisdom of the world, because they study His wisdom. God will be honored when the teachers in our schools, from the highest grades to the lowest, show to the world that a more than human wisdom is theirs, because the Master Teacher is standing at their head. {FE 517.1}

Our teachers need to be constant learners. All reformers need to place themselves under discipline to God. Their own lives need to be reformed, their own hearts subdued by the grace of Christ. Every worldly habit and idea that is not in harmony with the mind of God should be renounced. {FE 517.2}

When Nicodemus, a learned teacher in Israel, came to Jesus to inquire of Him, Christ laid before him the first principles. Nicodemus, though holding an honorable position in Israel, had not a true conception of what a teacher in Israel should be. He needed instruction in the very first principles of the divine life, for he had not learned the alphabet of true Christian experience. {FE 517.3}

In response to Christ’s instruction Nicodemus said, “How can these things be?” Christ answered, “Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?” The same question might be asked of many who are holding responsible positions

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as teachers, physicians, and ministers of the gospel, but who have neglected the most essential part of their education, that which would fit them to deal in a Christlike manner with human minds. {FE 517.4}

In the instruction that Christ gave to His disciples, and to the people of all classes who came to hear His words, there was that which lifted them to a high plane of thought and action. If the words of Christ, instead of the words of men, were given to the learner today, we would see evidences of higher intelligence, a clearer comprehension of heavenly things, a deeper knowledge of God, a purer and more vigorous Christian life. “Verily, verily, I say unto you,” Christ said, “he that believeth on Me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.” {FE 518.1}

“When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples murmured at it, He said unto them, Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where He was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” {FE 518.2}

We are slow to understand how much we need to study the words of Christ and His methods of labor. If His teachings were better understood, much of the instruction that is now given in our schools would be valued at its true worth. It would be seen that much that is now taught does not develop the simplicity of godliness in the life of the student. Then finite wisdom would receive less honor, and the word of God would have a more honored place. {FE 518.3}

When our teachers are truly converted, they will experience a soul hunger for the knowledge of God, and as humble learners in the school of Christ, they will study to know His

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righteousness. Righteous principles will rule the life, and will be taught as the principles

that rule in the education of heaven. When teachers seek with all their heart to bring true principles into the work of education, angels of God will be present to make impressions upon the heart and mind. –Review and Herald, November 7, 1907. {FE 518.4}

Chap. 70 – Teacher, Know Thyself

To know one’s self is great knowledge. True self-knowledge will lead to a humility that will allow the Lord to train the mind, and mold and discipline the character. The grace of humility is greatly needed by the workers for Christ in this period of the world’s history. No teacher can do acceptable work who does not bear in mind his own deficiencies and who does not drop out from his reckoning all plans that will weaken his spiritual life. When teachers are willing to drop out from their work everything that is unessential for the life eternal, then they can be said indeed to be working out their salvation with fear and trembling, and to be building wisely for eternity. {FE 525.1}
I am instructed to say that some of our teachers are far behind in an understanding of the kind of education needed for this period of earth’s history. This is not a time for students to be gathering up a mass of knowledge that they cannot take with t hem to the school above. Let us carefully weed out from our course of study all that can be spared, that we may have room in the minds of the students in which to plant the seeds of righteousness. This instruction will bear fruit unto eternal life. {FE 525.2}
Every teacher should be a daily learner in the school of Christ, lest he lose the sense of what constitutes true physical, mental, and moral excellence. No one should place himself as a teacher of others who is not constantly working out his own salvation by receiving and imparting an all-round education. The true teacher will educate himself in moral excellence, that by precept and example he may lead souls to understand the lessons of the Great Teacher. No one should be encouraged to do the work of teaching who will be satisfied with a low standard. No one is fitted to teach the grand mysteries of godliness till Christ is formed within, the hope of glory. {FE 525.3}

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Every teacher needs to receive the truth in the love of its sacred principles; then he cannot fail of exerting an influence that is purifying and uplifting. The teacher whose soul is stayed upon Christ will speak and act like a Christian. Such a one will not be satisfied until the truth cleanses his life from every unessential thing. He will not be satisfied unless his mind is day by day molded by the holy influences of the Spirit of God. Then Christ can speak to the heart, and His voice, saying, “This is the way; walk ye in it,” will be heard and obeyed. {FE 526.1}
The teacher who has a right understanding of the work of true education, will not think it sufficient now and then to make casual reference to Christ. With his own heart warm with the love of God, he will constantly uplift the Man of Calvary. His own soul imbued with the Spirit of God, he will seek to fasten the attention of the students upon the pattern, Christ Jesus, the chiefest among ten thousand, the One altogether lovely.{FE 526.2}
The Holy Spirit is greatly needed in our schools. This divine agency comes to the world as Christ’s representative. It is not only the faithful and true witness of the Word of God, but it is the searcher of the thoughts and purposes of the heart. It i s the source to which we must look for efficiency in the restoration of the moral image of God in man. The Holy Spirit was eagerly sought for in the schools of the prophets; its transforming influence was to bring even the thoughts into harmony with the will of God, and establish a living connection between earth and heaven. {FE 526.3}
Teachers, if you will open your hearts to the indwelling of the Spirit of God, if you will welcome the heavenly Guest, God will make you laborers together with Him. In co-operation with the Master Teacher, the spirit of selfishness will be expelled, and wonderful transformations will take place. {FE 526.4}
In the night season these words were spoken to me: “Charge the teachers in our schools to prepare the students for what

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is coming upon the world.” The Lord has been waiting long for our teachers to walk in the light He has sent them. There is need of a humbling of self, that Christ may restore the moral image of God in man. The character of the education given must be greatly changed before it can give the right mold to our institutions. It is only when intellectual and moral powers are combined for the attainment of education, that the standard of the word of God is reached. {FE 526.5}
These words were clearly and forcibly spoken: “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. Press together; press together, and love as brethren. Pray together.” The Lord has paid the price of His own blood for the salvation of the world. He suffered every indignity that men could devise and Satan could invent, in order to carry out the plan of salvation. Let not the teacher seek to exalt self, but let him see the necessity of learning of Christ daily, and making Him the pattern. For teachers and students our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ should be the only example. {FE 527.1}
Bear in mind that the Lord will accept as teachers only those who will be gospel teachers. A great responsibility rests upon those who attempt to teach the last gospel message. They are to be laborers together with God in the training of human minds. The teacher who fails to keep the Bible standard always before him, misses an opportunity of being a laborer together with God in giving to the mind the mold that is essential for a place in the heavenly courts.–Review and Herald, September 3, 1908. {FE 527.2}

Chap. 73 – The True Ideal for Our Youth

By a misconception of the true nature and object of education many have been led into serious and even fatal errors. Such a mistake is made when the regulation of the heart or the establishment of right principles is neglected in an effort to secure intellectual culture, or when eternal interests are overlooked in the eager desire for temporal advantage. {FE 541.1}
It is right for the youth to feel that they must reach the highest development of their natural powers. We would not restrict the education to which God has set no limit. But our attainments will avail nothing if not put to use for the honor of God an d the good of humanity. Unless our knowledge is a stepping-stone to the accomplishment of the highest purposes, it is worthless. {FE 541.2}
The necessity of establishing Christian schools is urged upon me very strongly. In the schools of today many things are taught that are a hindrance rather than a blessing. Schools are needed where the word of God is made the basis of education. Satan is the great enemy of God, and it is his constant aim to lead souls away from their allegiance to the King of heaven. He would have minds so trained that men and women will exert their influence on the side of error and moral corruption, instead of using t heir talents in the service of God. His object is effectually gained, when, by perverting their ideas of education, he succeeds in enlisting parents and teachers on his side; for a wrong education often starts the mind on the road to infidelity. {FE 541.3}
In many of the schools and colleges of today, the conclusions which learned men have reached as the result of their scientific investigations are carefully taught and fully explained; while the impression is distinctly made that if these learned men are correct, the Bible cannot be. The thorns of skepticism are disguised; they are concealed by the bloom

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and verdure of science and philosophy. Skepticism is attractive to the human mind. The young see in it an independence that captivates the imagination, and they are deceived. Satan triumphs; it is as he meant it should be. He nourishes every seed of doubt that is sown in young hearts, and soon a plentiful harvest of infidelity is reaped. {FE 541.4}
We cannot afford to allow the minds of our youth to be thus leavened; for it is on these youth we must depend to carry forward the work of the future. We desire for them something more than the opportunity for education in the sciences. The science of true education is the truth, which is to be so deeply impressed on the soul that it cannot be obliterated by the error that everywhere abounds. {FE 542.1}
The word of God should have a place–the first place– in every system of education. As an educating power, it is of more value than the writings of all the philosophers of all ages. In its wide range of style and subjects there is something to interest and instruct every mind, to ennoble every interest. The light of revelation shines undimmed into the distant past where human annals cast not a ray of light. There is poetry which has called forth the wonder and admiration of the world. In glowing beauty, in sublime and solemn majesty, in touching pathos, it is unequaled by the most brilliant productions of human genius. There is sound logic and impassioned eloquence. There are portrayed the noble deeds of noble men, examples of private virtue and public honor, lessons of piety and purity. {FE 542.2}
There is no position in life, no phase of human experience, for which the Bible does not contain valuable instruction. Ruler and subject, master and servant, buyer and seller, borrower and lender, parent and child, teacher and student,– all may here find lessons of priceless worth. {FE 542.3}
But above all else, the word of God sets forth the plan of salvation: shows how sinful man may be reconciled to God, lays down the great principles of truth and duty which should

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govern our lives, and promises us divine aid in their observance. It reaches beyond this fleeting life, beyond the brief and troubled history of our race. It opens to our view the long vista of eternal ages,–ages undarkened by sin, undimmed by sorrow. It teaches us how we may share the habitations of the blessed, and bids us anchor our hopes and fix our affections there. {FE 542.4}
The true motives of service are to be kept before old and young. The students are to be taught in such a way that they will develop into useful men and women. Every means that will elevate and ennoble them is to be employed. They are to be taught to put their powers to the best use. Physical and mental powers are to be equally taxed. Habits of order and discipline are to be cultivated. The power that is exerted by a pure, true life is to be kept before the students. This will aid them in the preparation for useful service. Daily they will grow purer and stronger, better prepared through His grace and a study of His word, to put forth aggressive efforts against evil. {FE 543.1}
True education is the inculcation of those ideas that will impress the mind and heart with the knowledge of God the Creator and Jesus Christ the Redeemer. Such an education will renew the mind and transform the character. It will strengthen and fortify the mind against the deceptive whisperings of the adversary of souls, and enable us to understand the voice of God. It will fit the learned to become a co-worker with Christ. {FE 543.2}
If our youth gain this knowledge, they will be able to gain all the rest that is essential; but if not, all the knowledge they may acquire from the world will not place them in the ranks of the Lord. They may gather all the knowledge that books can give, and yet be ignorant of the first principles of that righteousness which could give them a character approved of God. {FE 543.3}
Those who are seeking to acquire knowledge in the schools of earth should remember that another school also claims

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them as students,–the school of Christ. From this school the students are never graduated. Among the pupils are both old and young. Those who give heed to the instructions of the divine Teacher are constantly gaining more wisdom and nobility of soul, and thus they are prepared to enter that higher school, where advancement will continue throughout eternity. {FE 543.4}
Infinite Wisdom sets before us the great lessons of life,– the lessons of duty and happiness. These are often hard to learn, but without them we can make no real progress. They may cost us effort, tears, and even agony; but we must not falter nor grow weary. It is in this world, amid its trials and temptations, that we are to gain a fitness for the society of the pure and holy angels. Those who become so absorbed in less important studies that they cease to learn in the school of Christ, are meeting with infinite loss. {FE 544.1}

Every faculty, every attribute, with which the Creator has endowed the children of men, is to be employed for His glory; and in this employment is found its purest, noblest, happiest exercise. The principles of heaven should be made paramount in the life, and every advance step taken in the acquirement of knowledge or in the culture of the intellect should be a step toward the assimilation of the human to the divine. {FE 544.2}
To many who place their children in our schools strong temptations will come because they desire them to secure what the world regards as the most essential education. But what constitutes the most essential education, unless it be the education to be obtained from that Book which is the foundation of all true knowledge? Those who regard as essential the knowledge to be gained along the line of worldly education are making a great mistake, one which will cause them to be swayed by opinions that are human and erring. {FE 544.3}
Those who seek the education that the world esteems so highly are gradually led farther and farther from the principles of truth until they become educated worldlings. At

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what a price have they gained their education! They have parted with the Holy Spirit of God. They have chosen to accept what the world calls knowledge in place of the truths that God has committed to men through His ministers and prophets and apostles. {FE 544.4}
Upon fathers and mothers devolves the responsibility of giving a Christian education to the children intrusted to them. In no case are they to let any line of business so absorb mind and time and talents that their children are allowed to drift until they are separated far from God. They are not to allow their children to slip out of their grasp into the hands of unbelievers. They are to do all in their power to keep them from imbibing the spirit of the world. They are to train them to become workers together with God. They are to be God’s human hand, fitting themselves and their children for an endless life. {FE 545.1}
There is earnest work to be done for the children. Before the overflowing scourge shall come upon all the dwellers on the earth, the Lord calls on those who are Israelites indeed to serve Him. Gather your children into your own houses; gather them in from the classes who are voicing the words of Satan, who are disobeying the commandments of God. Let us in our educational work embrace far more of the children and youth, and there will be a whole army of missionaries raised up to work for God. {FE 545.2}
Our educational institutions are to do much toward meeting the demands for trained workers for the mission fields. Workers are needed all over the world. The truth of God is to be carried to foreign lands, that those who are in darkness may be enlightened. Cultivated talents are needed in every part of the work of God. God has designed that our schools shall be an instrumentality for developing workers for Him, –workers of whom He will not be ashamed. He calls upon our young people to enter our schools, and quickly fit themselves for service.–Review and Herald, August 22, 1912. {FE 545.3}