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

Into Forbidden Paths
If the minds of the youth were directed aright,
their conversation would be upon exalted themes.
When the mind is pure and the thoughts ennobled
by the truth of God, the words will be of the same
character, “like apples of gold in baskets of silver.”
(Proverbs 25:11, R.V.) But with the present
understanding and the present practices, with the
low standard that Christians are content to reach,
the conversation is cheap and profitless. It is of the
earth, earthy, and does not reach even the standard
of the more cultured class of worldlings. When
Christ and heaven are the theme of contemplation,
the conversation will give evidence of the fact. The
speech will be seasoned with grace, and the
speaker will show that he has been obtaining an
education in the school of the divine Teacher.
We are to regard the Bible as God’s disclosure
to us of eternal things--the things of most
consequence for us to know. By the world it is
thrown aside as if the perusal of it were finished,
but a thousand years of research would not exhaust
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