Worldly Influences
Dear Sister G,
My heart is drawn out in love and sympathy for you. The present state of things in your family is the sure result of following out your mistaken ideas, and the end is not yet. You have not seen the danger of associating so freely with your relatives. They have had a far greater influence over you and yours than you have had over them. Their being your relatives makes them no less a hindrance to your spiritual welfare and no less transgressors of God’s holy law. Their course is fully as offensive to God as that of any others who refuse light and truth, and will not listen to any evidence in its favor. Injurious impressions have been made upon your mind and have influenced your course of action. God has made every provision to bring salvation within our reach, but He will not thrust it upon us against our will. He has laid down conditions in His word, and we should diligently, interestedly, with heart and mind, set about the task of learning these conditions, lest we make some mistake and fail to secure our title to the mansions above.
We cannot serve God and the world at the same time.
We must not center our affections on worldly relatives, who have no desire to learn the truth. We may seek in every way, while associated with them, to let our light shine; but our words, our deportment, our customs and practices, should not in any sense be molded by their ideas and customs. We are to show forth the truth in all our intercourse with them. If we cannot do this, the less association we have with them, the better it will be for our spirituality. If we place ourselves among associates whose influence has a tendency to make us forgetful of the high claims the Lord has upon us we invite temptation and become too weak in moral power to resist it. We come to partake of the spirit and cherish the ideas of our associates and to place sacred and eternal things lower than the ideas of our friends. We are, in short, leavened just as the enemy of all righteousness designed we should be.
The young, if brought under this influence, are more easily affected by it than those who are older. Everything leaves its impress upon their minds, the countenances they look upon, the voices they hear, the places they visit, the company they keep, and the books they read. It is impossible to overestimate the importance for this world and the next of the associations we choose for ourselves and, more especially, for our children.
The first years of life are more important than any other period. Decided progress will be made either in a right direction or a wrong one. On one hand, any amount of frivolous attainment may be gained; and on the other, any amount of solid, valuable knowledge for practical life, in becoming acquainted with God, and in learning how to strengthen every faculty that God has entrusted to us. Most important and essential for our present and eternal good is the knowledge of divine truth as revealed in the word of God.