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Make Your Mark in the World, September 12
Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the
believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in
purity.
1 Timothy 4:12
.
The period of childhood and youth—how much is bound up in these
years of probation! God desires that you shall improve this time, dear
youth, by obtaining a fitness for the work. If you need an education,
set yourselves to work with a determination to get one. Do not wait for
an opening; make one for yourselves. Take hold in any small way that
opens before you. Be thorough and faithful in whatever you take in hand,
however small it may be.
Some of our youth are so vacillating that they accomplish nothing for
themselves; their lifetime is often half spent before they decide what they
shall do, and what they will be. They bury their talents beneath a mass
of rubbish. To these I would say, Practice economy. Do not spend your
means for the gratification of appetite or for pleasure seeking. Make your
mark in the world. Have before you the object of becoming as useful
and efficient as God calls you to be. As you improve the knowledge you
gain, you will be able to gather increased knowledge. Application to your
books and useful manual labor, combined with earnest Christian devotion
and loyalty to God, will make you men and women in the highest sense.
True devotion to God, combined with the study of the sciences, will give
the youth an education that will make them gentle, humble lovers of God,
full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.
Such souls, fragrant with love for God and for their fellow men, God can
use as vessels unto honor.
Jesus died, dear youth, not to save you in your sins, but from your sins.
He wants you to follow the example which He has set before you—to deny
self, take up your cross daily, and follow Him. He claims your service,
your heart’s best and holiest affections. If you will walk in obedience to
His will, learning cheerfully and diligently the lessons of His providence,
by and by He will say, “Child, come up higher to the heavenly mansions
which I have prepared for you.”
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