326
            
            
              The Ministry of Healing
            
            
              The time, means, and study that so many expend for a compara-
            
            
              tively useless education should be devoted to gaining an education
            
            
              that would make them practical men and women, fitted to bear life’s
            
            
              responsibilities. Such an education would be of the highest value.
            
            
              What we need is knowledge that will strengthen mind and soul,
            
            
              that will make us better men and women. Heart education is of far
            
            
              more importance than mere book learning. It is well, even essential,
            
            
              to have a knowledge of the world in which we live; but if we leave
            
            
              eternity out of our reckoning, we shall make a failure from which
            
            
              we can never recover.
            
            
              A student may devote all his powers to acquiring knowledge;
            
            
              but unless he has a knowledge of God, unless he obeys the laws that
            
            
              govern his own being, he will destroy himself. By wrong habits, he
            
            
              loses the power of self-appreciation; he loses self-control. He cannot
            
            
              reason correctly about matters that concern him most deeply. He is
            
            
              reckless and irrational in his treatment of mind and body. Through
            
            
              his neglect to cultivate right principles, he is ruined both for this
            
            
              world and for the world to come.
            
            
              If the youth understood their own weakness, they would find in
            
            
              God their strength. If they seek to be taught by Him they will become
            
            
              wise in His wisdom, and their lives will be fruitful of blessing to
            
            
              the world. But if they give up their minds to mere worldly and
            
            
              speculative study, and thus separate from God, they will lose all that
            
            
              enriches life.
            
            
              [451]