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Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students - Ellen G. White

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Useful Employment Versus Selfish Pleasure<br />

In the place of providing diversions that merely<br />

amuse, arrangements should be made for exercises<br />

that will be productive of good. <strong>Students</strong> are sent <strong>to</strong><br />

our schools <strong>to</strong> receive an education that will enable<br />

them <strong>to</strong> go forth as workers in God’s cause. Satan<br />

would lead them <strong>to</strong> believe that amusements are<br />

necessary <strong>to</strong> physical health; but the Lord has<br />

declared that the better way is for them <strong>to</strong> get<br />

physical exercise through manual training <strong>and</strong> by<br />

letting useful employment take the place of selfish<br />

pleasure. The desire for amusement, if indulged,<br />

soon develops a dislike for useful, healthful<br />

exercise of body <strong>and</strong> mind such as will make<br />

students efficient in helping themselves <strong>and</strong> others.<br />

God bes<strong>to</strong>ws talents upon men, not that these<br />

talents may lie unused or be employed in selfgratification,<br />

but that they may be used <strong>to</strong> bless<br />

others. God grants men the gift of time for the<br />

purpose of promoting His glory. When this time is<br />

used in selfish pleasure, the hours thus spent are<br />

lost for all eternity.<br />

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