The Hope of Israel's Triumph by C. S. Longacre

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 5, 1907

The Hope of Israel's Triumph

By C. S. Longacre

THE hope of Israel's triumph to-day lies largely in our boys and girls who are to furnish the brain and muscle and consecration to turn the wheels of aggressive warfare in the battle of truth. If the Lord can have the young men for war and the old men as counselors, his cause will be safe. In the final conflict he is calling, as he did in the opening of the conflict, for the young men because they are strong.

How cheering it is to see so many of our youth obeying the call of the Master and flocking into our schools with the sole purpose of preparing themselves to carry this message to the front! The clarion call is still sounding in our ears for more warriors to come to the front and join those already in the field and help press the battle to the very gates.

Why can not the Lord have all our youth? What a powerful army of workers the Lord would have in his cause to-day if all the youth had been saved and consecrated to the service of the cause since this message began. It is estimated that in past years more than sixty per cent of our youth were lost to this message. What a waste of talents, and what a loss of souls, that might have been saved and utilized, but for some one's neglect and lack of interest in our youth! I am glad to see the scene shifting, and our youth coming to the front everywhere.

But still there is room for improvement. The devil and the world are getting many of our young men and women who should be preparing to enter the service of the Master. The enemy is blinding many of our promising young people by his worldly allurements, by his flattering offers and appeals to their natural desires or earthly aspirations, and many are not aware of the fact that all this in the end will prove to be only a gaudy, bubble of vanity. Many will wake up when it is too late—too late to overtake the golden opportunities of youth.

Young men and young women, you who know this truth, O, how can I bring you to see the great possibilities that lie at your feet? Your opportunity of future usefulness lies within yourself, and our schools are the ordained sculptors that can chisel a living statue of beauty and expressive character out of you that otherwise would remain forever veiled and dormant as the adamant stones of the quarry.

O that the parents of our youth might be awake to their responsibilities! “O, what a sad mistake I made,” said a father to me not long ago, “in the training of my children!” He went on and told me how he desired his children to be something—good, honest, upright citizens. He sent them to the schools of the world, and his four sons are good, honest citizens of the State. One is a doctor, one an undertaker, another the city postmaster, and another a holiness preacher. Not one is in the truth, nor cares for his father's religion. He himself is a wealthy farmer and highly respected in his neighborhood. “I made a sad mistake when I did not send my boys to our own schools and prepare them to help spread the third angel's message,” were the parting words of this father when I saw him a few days ago. Who will refuse to profit by this father's sad mistake?

The public schools are all right in their place, but they are not intended to preserve our youth and train them for the work of the third angel's message. A blacksmith shop is all right in its place, but it would be a poor place to send your son to be a carpenter. If we want our children preserved to this cause, we must use good judgment, and send them where the Lord can preserve them and prepare them for his work.

C. S. LONGACRE.