Remember Lot's Wife by R. A. Morton

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 22, 1879

Remember Lot's Wife.

By R. A. Morton

I WRITE a word in behalf of the youth. Parents frequently overlook the important fact that character is a thing of growth; that each of its qualities has been planted in the mind through one or more of the five senses; that these germs of character become fixed thought; that thought is manifested in word and act. Character therefore is the development of impressions received through the senses of sight, hearing, etc.

Hence it is a mistaken idea entertained by many parents, that a youth may visit places of public amusement and behold the vanities of this wicked age clothed in their most attractive dress, without receiving impressions of a similar kind which develope into character.

The mind of the youth is a fertile field which most generally brings to maturity all the impressions of evil planted there.

Let such parents follow these vanities to their dwelling place as they retire from the public gaze. Let them see them in their daily attire and fall in with their train of ungodly thought, leading away from all holiness down to the gates of death; then would they spurn public vanities when in their most gaudy attire, as so many seductive emissaries of evil which decoy the youth by gay appearances.

Parents who profess to be looking for the glorious appearing of our Saviour could no longer worship at the altar of public amusement bringing the tender lambs of their own nourishing as priceless sacrifices, could they realize that one such hour's work frequently changes the character of a youth.

"But my children must see what is going on in the world." But stop; this is a plea more selfish than godly. It is the same that leads to theatrical scenes of lust drawn out in the most thrilling and attractive manner, even if void of the soul-ruining consequences thereof.

Public amusements, church festivals included as now practiced, are the devil's seed-sowers. May the time soon come when there will not be one in all the land who professes to love the Lord's soon return, who will consider it a light thing to allow the youth to go to behold the ungodly vanities of this age.

When this kind of selfishness is gone, and parents come to understand that the youth must have recreation, they will then unite with alacrity to institute some harmless recreation for their children. Such, perhaps, as the romance which the fields of nature afford, with a good regard to appropriate luxuries. Spare no pains in giving them a good holiday of innocent amusement.

Let us not look back upon the world and long for its unbridled vanities.

Brethren, what will you do on the Fourth of July? R. A. MORTON.