Worldly Talk

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 17, 1866

WORLDLY TALK.—I fell into a mistake when a young man in thinking that I could talk with men of the world on their own ground and could thus win them over to mine. I was fond of painting, and so talked with them on that subject. This pleased them; but I did not consider that I gave a consequence to their pursuits which does not belong to them; whereas I ought to have endeavored to raise them above these, that they might engage in higher. I did not see it at the time; but I now see it to have been a great error. A wealthy man builds a fine house, and opens to himself fine prospects; he wants you to see them, for he is sick of them himself. They thus draw you into their schemes. A man has got ten thousand pounds; you congratulate him upon it, and that without any intimation of his danger or his responsibility. Now you may tell him in the pulpit that riches are worth nothing; but you will tell him this is vain, while you tell him out of it that they are.