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Safeguarding the Young
103
of their own; and as you teach them how to make a garden, how to
prepare the soil for seed, and the importance of keeping all the weeds
pulled out, teach them also how important it is to keep unsightly,
injurious practices out of the life. Teach them to keep down wrong
habits as they keep down the weeds in their gardens. It will take
time to teach these lessons, but it will pay, greatly pay.
Tell your children about the miracle-working power of God. As
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they study the great lesson book of nature, God will impress their
minds. The farmer plows his land and sows his seed, but he cannot
make the seed grow. He must depend on God to do that which no
human power can do. The Lord puts His vital power into the seed,
causing it to spring forth into life. Under His care the germ of life
breaks through the hard crust encasing it, and springs up to bear
fruit. First appears the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the
ear. As the children are told of the work that God does for the seed,
they learn the secret of growth in grace.
There is untold value in industry. Let the children be taught to do
something useful. More than human wisdom is needed that parents
may understand how best to educate their children for a useful, happy
life here, and for higher service and greater joy hereafter.
The Physical Well-Being
Parents should seek to awaken in their children an interest in
the study of physiology. From the first dawn of reason the human
mind should become intelligent in regard to the physical structure.
We may behold and admire the work of God in the natural world,
but the human habitation is the most wonderful. It is therefore of
the highest importance that among the studies selected for children,
physiology occupy an important place. All children should study it.
And then parents should see to it that practical hygiene is added.
Children are to be trained to understand that every organ of the
body and every faculty of the mind is the gift of a good and wise
God, and that each is to be used to His glory. Right habits in eating
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and drinking and dressing must be insisted upon. Wrong habits
render the youth less susceptible to Bible instruction. The children
are to be guarded against the indulgence of appetite, and especially
against the use of stimulants and narcotics. The tables of Christian