Pitfalls for the Young by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 30, 1906

Pitfalls for the Young

By C. M. S.

C. M. S.

WHILE the great deceiver of souls is focusing his powers upon the people of this generation, the means which he employs can not be looked upon with complacency by the guardians of the young. We may rest assured that no power Satan can employ to delude and ensnare the young will be left unemployed. There are but two great powers in the world, the power from above and the power from beneath; and while we know that God will use every agency possible to save souls, we know also that “a power from beneath” has taken hold of this generation with all the fury of the kingdom of sin.

That power has filled the land with a class of reading that is educating souls away from God and all that is good and substantial, putting fanciful ideals in the place of all that is real and true, and begetting in the heart a strong distaste for the Word of God. In the case of those strongly addicted to the reading of novels, the plainest and most precious truths fall upon leaden ears. The pyramid is inverted—the novel is real, and salvation is a fancy.

Another soul-benumbing influence is the cigarette, which is searing the heart, callousing the brain, and making the soul a barren waste, where the seeds of God’s truth can not grow.

There are Christian Science, theosophy, spiritualism, and pantheism, all armed with the poisoned darts of error, all setting their snares for young and old, and each one setting up in the soul of the deluded one a bulwark of defense against the truth.

In company with all these, and working to the same end, is hypnotism. The satanic purpose of this also is to weaken the mind and the will power, and dull the conscience and the desire for righteousness. In very many cases persons who have submitted themselves to the will of the hypnotist have been unable to throw off the spell entirely, have not really been in their right mind after the experiment. A large number of traveling hypnotists are going through the country giving exhibitions of their powers, generally choosing the young for their demonstrations, and then using the power which they gain for purposes that are not good.

Says the editor of one of our exchanges:—

“We have several times known and more frequently read of the utter breaking up of the morale, and sometimes the morals, of girls who went night after night and were plainly infatuated, some with being hypnotized and others with the hypnotizer.”

A case of this kind came to public notice a few weeks ago. Two girls who had just been graduated from a high school attended the performance of a “professor of hypnotism.” They appeared to be greatly impressed with the hypnotizer’s power. The day after the “professor” and his two musicians left the place, the girls seemed to be uneasy, and disappeared after the close of the Sunday-school, which they attended. Finally they were found under compromising circumstances at the place to which the hypnotizer had gone. Similar incidents are not of infrequent occurrence, and prove that the influence emanating from such demonstrations is demoralizing in its tendency; that the power which actuates the performer is the “power from beneath.”

Concerning such work our contemporary adds:—

“Parents should see that their boys and girls are not allowed to submit themselves as subjects in public, and we doubt if minor children should be permitted to attend such performances.”

But this does not go even half-way. There is as much danger in submitting to hypnotic influence in private as in public—nay, more. The children should be so educated upon this point that they will not submit to the will of the hypnotizer either in public or in private; and as for minor children only being excluded from such performances, that, too, is a dangerous mistake. It virtually says to the older children that they can attend in safety. We have never known of any good coming to any one from attending such demonstrations; we have known of much evil resulting, both to minors and to those who were not minors.

He who abdicates the throne of the mind to another has placed himself in a position where Satan can use him as he will. It is safe to say that not without a struggle will Satan ever retreat from such vantage-ground.

There can not be too great intimacy between parents and children upon these matters. Help the children to understand the danger that threatens in all these traps set for their unwary feet. It is high time that there was a turning of the hearts of the parents to the children and the hearts of the children to the parents along such lines. Children have a right to a protection which only the parents can give. Deprived of it, a terrible responsibility rests upon the parents. Some children appear not so susceptible to divine things as are others; but how much less susceptible will they be if these pitfalls are allowed to entrap them! The child who is not educated in this school of parental advice and close, sympathizing intimacy, has no shield of defense.