Dangers and Duty of Ministers
113
Parents and Children
I have been shown that while parents who have the fear of God
before them restrain their children, they should study their dispositions
and temperaments, and should seek to meet their wants. Some parents
attend carefully to the temporal wants of their children; if sick, they
kindly and faithfully nurse them, and then think their duty done. They
mistake here. Their work has but just begun. The wants of the mind
should be cared for. It requires skill to apply the proper remedies to
cure a wounded mind. Children have trials just as hard to bear, just as
grievous in character, as older people. Parents do not always feel alike.
[128]
Their minds are often perplexed. They labor under mistaken views
and feelings. Satan buffets them, and they yield to his temptations.
They speak irritably, and in a manner to excite wrath in their children,
and are sometimes exacting and fretful. The poor children partake
of the same spirit, and the parents are not prepared to help them, for
they were the cause of the trouble. Sometimes everything seems to
go wrong. It is fretfulness all around, and all have a very miserable,
unhappy time of it. The parents lay the wrong upon their poor children,
and think them very disobedient and unruly, and the worst children in
the world, when the cause of the disturbance is in themselves. In this
manner some parents raise many a storm, by their lack of self-control.
Instead of kindly asking the children to do this, or that, they are ordered
in a scolding tone, and at the same time a censure or reproof is on their
lips which the children have not merited. This course, pursued toward
children, destroys their cheerfulness and ambition. They do your
bidding, not from love, but because they dare not do otherwise. Their
heart is not in the matter. It is a drudgery, instead of a pleasure, which
often leads them to forget to follow out all your directions, which
increases your irritation, and makes it still worse for the children. The
fault-finding is repeated, their bad conduct is arrayed before them in
glowing colors, until a discouragement comes over the children, and
they are not particular whether they please or not. A spirit of “I don’t
care” seizes them, and they seek that pleasure and enjoyment away
from home, away from their parents, which they do not find at home.
They mingle with street company, and are soon as corrupt as any of
the worst.