p. 15 | Importance of Training the Youth in Habits of Self-Control

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 22, 1914

Importance of Training the Youth in Habits of Self-Control

YOUTH is the period of mighty impulses that move the world. Now is the time for danger signals. The appetite for drink, and other perverted appetites, must not be permitted to sweep away the foundations of character. In youth all the feelings are intensely active. Shall we leave our youth to throw conscience and duty to the winds and sow their wild oats?

After a few gay and giddy years of lawless gratification of their appetites and passions, will they return to a life of duty and purity? Survey yonder battle field of the mad passions after the battle. Where, O where are the armies of the glorious youth you saw enter? Alas! alas! most of them have fallen to rise no more.

Those stragglers you see are individuals called back to the path of duty by mother love and the early education of conscience. The vast proportion of these prodigal sons and daughters will never return to their father's house. There is absolutely no safety but in self-control. Early and often foster self-control from a conviction of duty.—Baldwin's Psychology.