Selections from Testimonies to the Managers and Workers in our Institutions

Duty of Manager of the Office

These things should not be allowed in the Signs office. If they can not be broken up, dismiss the parties, write to their parents, and return them to their care and guardianship, making a plain statement of the case. I saw that foolish marriages would be entered into. Young girls are forward, not modest and retiring as they once were. They engage the attention of the young men, do the courting by seeking their attention, hanging around and talking with them. And it is a fact that the associations of the young men and women can not be encouraged without marriage being thought of and soon contracted. I write this to warn the young men and women not to be betrayed into foolish attachments which will prove their ruin in the end. Young men of promise in the office will be beguiled and infatuated with thoughts of marriage that should not enter their minds for years. Just as soon as the step is taken, farewell to their usefulness; they are fettered, and as far as rising higher and filling positions of trust, are useless. PH149 42.1

God will accept the services of the young men and young women, if they will consecrate themselves to Him without reserve. But when they begin to form these incautious, immature attachments, devotion, consecration, and religion are made of but little account. It is death to religious fervor, death to growth in grace. It is a time when the most solemn and serious thoughts should occupy the mind, and the most thorough consecration should be cherished. We are forming characters; brick is laid upon brick, one upon another, and the structure is going up, a beautiful temple to God. These young men may rise to almost any height in intellectual advancement and spiritual power. I warn these young men not to marry, and the young ladies not to be given in marriage, until they have gained knowledge, experience, and success in their efforts to reach the high standard for which they have thought to aim.... PH149 42.2