p. 16 | Stop! Look! Listen!

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 24, 1910

Stop! Look! Listen!

THIS is good advice to one about to cross a railroad track; but it is also well that we do the same when we discover a way leading to a good school. Don’t fail to grasp the opportunity to attend if it is within your power. But look out for the mogul of indolence, for if you should be run over by it, you might be injured so severely as to be of no use to God’s cause.

The better you cultivate an acre of ground, the larger the returns. The same principle holds good in school life. In one year, under the tutorship of godly teachers, you may increase the productiveness of your life a hundredfold. Farmers delight in exhibiting their big pumpkins, melons, and corn at the county fair. Should you appear in your home after a year in college, with a good exhibition of manliness, wisdom, and knowledge, do you not think that your influence would be more valuable than before you attended school?

While passing a business college a short time ago, I was impressed with the words which I saw hung out on a sign: “A position secured for every student.” It means more than mere words to the school that carries out this promise. It means hard and thorough work on the part of its teachers. To attend classes and to secure a recommendation from the principal, carries weight as to the student’s proficiency in commercial lines. So with our schools. It means something to you to have been an attendant at any of them for a time. If nothing more, it speaks volumes in favor of your influence, because it shows that you have made a start. There is always hope for the one who makes a start for something better. Don’t delay.

God uses man to teach man. For this reason it is necessary that growing youth be placed in the midst of the healthiest environments. Our schools are founded for this very purpose—to give students the opportunity of association with those of high ideals and pure characters, and the benefits of pure, wholesome spiritual training. Let a young person attend a school radiating waves of missionary zeal, and the chances are that he will, like the apostle Paul, be led to exclaim, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” The school will be a force to send him to those who, in their seeking after God, cry, “Come over and help us.”

Should you visit the legations of the different nations of the world in Washington, you would find the representatives of these nations highly educated, polished, and far-sighted men. They select only wise men—those who have a knowledge of their affairs—to thus represent them. And do you think that the King of the universe wants his representatives to be a class of ignorant, careless individuals?—No, indeed, but rather, as men are well schooled in law and diplomacy for representative service in earthly matters, so much more does the King of heaven want his representatives schooled in his law and love for his service here. Young man, young woman, what is your duty? Stop! Look! Listen!