Your mind is impure. You were relieved from care and labor altogether too long. Household duties would have been one of the richest blessings that you could have had. Weariness would not have injured you one tenth as much as have your lascivious thoughts and conduct. You have received incorrect ideas in regard to girls’ and boys’ associating together, and it has been very congenial to your mind to be in the company of the boys. You are not pure in heart and mind. You have been injured by reading love stories and romances, and your mind has been fascinated by impure thoughts. Your imagination has become corrupt, until you seem to have no power to control your thoughts. Satan leads you captive as he pleases. You are not happy. You do not love God or His people. You have a bitter spirit toward those who see your true character. You seem to blame them for the view they take of your case, but you are the one to blame. Your conduct has been such as to call forth cautions and warnings. You have only yourself to censure in this.

You are a dangerous associate, and have done much harm by your influence in —–. You have led instead of being led. You have dishonored God and are accountable to Him for the work of evil which you have wrought by your influence. Your conduct has not been chaste, modest, or becoming. You have not had the fear of God before your eyes. You have so often dissembled in order to accomplish your plans that you bear a violated conscience. My dear girl, unless you stop just where you are, ruin is surely before you. Cease your daydreaming, your castle-building. Stop your thoughts from running in the channel of folly and corruption. You cannot safely associate with the boys. A tide of temptation is roused and surges in your breast, having a tendency to uproot principle, female virtue, and true modesty. If you go on in your willful, headstrong course, what will be your fate?

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A new year has dawned upon us. What have you determined to do? What have you resolved shall be the record borne up to God by the ministering angels of your work from day to day? What words that you have uttered will appear in the page of the book of records? What thoughts will the Searcher of hearts find cherished by you? He is a discerner of the thoughts, of the intents and purposes of the heart. You have a fearful record of the past year, which is laid open to the view of the Majesty of heaven and the myriads of pure, sinless angels. Your thoughts and acts, your desperate and unsanctified feelings, may have been concealed from mortals; but remember, the most trivial acts of your life are open to the view of God. You have a spotted record in heaven. The sins you have committed are all registered there.

God’s frown is upon you, and yet you appear destitute of feeling; you do not realize your lost and undone condition. At times you do have feelings of remorse; but your proud, independent spirit soon rises above this, and you stifle the voice of conscience. You are not happy, yet you imagine that if you could have your own way unrestrained you would be happy. Poor child! you occupy a position similar to that of Eve in Eden. She imagined that she would be highly exalted if she could only eat of the fruit of the tree which God had forbidden her even to touch, lest she die. She ate, and lost all the glories of Eden.

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You should control your thoughts. This will not be an easy task; you cannot accomplish it without close and even severe effort. Yet God requires this of you; it is a duty resting upon every accountable being. You are responsible to God for your thoughts. If you indulge in vain imaginations, permitting your mind to dwell upon impure subjects, you are, in a degree, as guilty before God as if your thoughts were carried into action. All that prevents the action is the lack of opportunity. Day and night dreaming and castle-building are bad and exceedingly dangerous habits. W