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Child Guidance
straight. Parents act an important part in this matter. On them rests the
sacred responsibility of training their children for God. To them has
been given the work of helping their little ones form characters which
will gain for them entrance into the courts above
Parents, Do Not Blunder Here—Parents, for Christ’s sake do not
blunder in your most important work, that of molding the characters of
your children for time and for eternity. An error on your part in neglect
of faithful instruction, or in the indulgence of that unwise affection
which blinds your eyes to their defects and prevents you from giving
them proper restraint, will prove their ruin. Your course may give a
wrong direction to all their future career. You determine for them what
they will be and what they will do for Christ, for men, and for their
own souls.
Deal honestly and faithfully with your children. Work bravely
and patiently. Fear no crosses, spare no time or labor, burden or
suffering. The future of your children will testify the character of your
work. Fidelity to Christ on your part can be better expressed in the
symmetrical character of your children than in any other way. They
are Christ’s property, bought with His own blood. If their influence is
wholly on the side of Christ, they are His colaborers, helping others to
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find the path of life. If you neglect your God-given work, your unwise
course of discipline places them among the class who scatter from
Christ and strengthen the kingdom of darkness
A Clean House, but Children Untrained—I have seen a mother
whose critical eye could discern anything imperfect in the matching
of the woodwork of her house, and who was very particular to have
her house cleaning thoroughly done at the precise time she had set,
and would carry it through frequently at the expense of physical and
spiritual health, while her children were left to run in the street and
obtain a street education. These children were growing up coarse,
selfish, rude, and disobedient. The mother, although she had hired
help, was so much engaged in household cares that she could not
afford time to properly train her children. She let them come up with
deformity of character, undisciplined, and untrained. We could but
feel that the fine taste of the mother was not exercised in the right
5
Letter 78, 1901
.
6
Pacific Health Journal, September, 1890
.