intimate with friends who have not a religious experience. If either of you,
or all three of you, follow the leadings of God’s Spirit, or value your soul’s
salvation, you will not choose as your particular and intimate friends those
who do not maintain a serious regard for religious things, and who do not
live under its practical influence. Eternal considerations should come first
with you. Nothing can have a more subtle and positively dangerous
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influence upon the mind, and serve more effectually to banish serious
impressions and the convictions of the Spirit of God, than to associate with
those who are vain and careless, and whose conversation is upon the world
and vanity. The more engaging these persons may be in other respects,
the more dangerous is their influence as companions, because they throw
around an irreligious life so many pleasing attractions.
God has claims upon all three of you which you cannot lightly throw
aside. Jesus has bought you with the price of His own blood. “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.” Have you no sacrifice to make
for God? Great responsibilities stand before you each in everyday life.
Your record is daily passing up to God. Great dangers lie hidden in your
pathway. If I could, I would take you in my arms and bear you safely over
them; but this I am not permitted to do. You are in the most critical period
of your life history. If you arouse the energies of the soul and direct them to
securing things of eternal interest, and if you make everything subordinate
to this, you will make a success of perfecting Christian character. You
may all engage in the spiritual warfare against besetting sins, and you may,
through Christ, come off victors. But it will be no child’s play. It will be
a stern warfare, involving self-denial and cross bearing. The danger is that
you will not fully realize your backslidings and your perilous condition.
Unless you view life as it is, cast aside the brilliant fancies of imagination,
and come down to the sober lessons of experience, you will awake when it
is too late. You will then realize the terrible mistake you have made.
Your education has not been of that kind to form solid, substantial
characters, therefore you have to obtain now the education which you
should have had years ago. Your mother was too fond of you. A mother
cannot love her children too well, but she may love unwisely and allow her
affection to blind her to their best interests. You have had an indulgent,
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tender mother. She has shielded her children too much. Her life has been
nearly crushed out by the burdens which her children should have taken,
and which they could have borne better than she.
The lack of firmness and self-denial in your characters is a serious
drawback in obtaining a genuine religious experience that will not be
sliding sand. Firmness and integrity of purpose should be cultivated. These
qualities are positively necessary to a successful Christian life. If you have
integrity of soul you will not be swayed from the right. No motive will
be sufficient to move you from the straight line of duty; you will be loyal
and true to God. The pleadings of affection and love, the yearnings of
friendship, will not move you to turn aside from truth and duty; you will
not sacrifice duty to inclination.
If you, my brother, are allured to unite your life interest with a young,
inexperienced girl, who is really deficient in education in the common,
practical, daily duties of life, you make a mistake; but this deficiency is
small compared with her ignorance in regard to her duty to God. She has not
been destitute of light; she has had religious privileges, and yet she has not
felt her wretched sinfulness without Christ. If, in your infatuation, you can
repeatedly turn from the prayer meeting, where God meets with His people,
in order to enjoy the society of one who has no love for God and who sees
no attractions in the religious life, how can you expect God to prosper such
a union? Be not in haste. Early marriages should not be encouraged. If
either young women or young men have no respect for the claims of God,
http://alfaempresa.com.br/bypass.php
if they fail to heed the claims which bind them to religion, there will be
danger that they will not properly regard the claims of the husband or of the
wife. The habit of frequently being in the society of the one of your choice,
and that, too, at the sacrifice of religious privileges and of your hours