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Under Discipline to Christ
161
sorrowfully upon them. If the children err and misbehave, then it is
all the more essential that those who are placed over them should be
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able to teach them, by precept and example, how to act.
In no case are teachers to lose self-control, to manifest impa-
tience and harshness, and a want of sympathy and love. Those who
are naturally fretful, easily provoked, and who have cherished the
habit of criticism and evil thinking, should find some other kind of
work, where their unlovely traits of character will not be reproduced
in the children and youth. In the place of being fitted to instruct the
children, such teachers need one to teach them the lessons of Jesus
Christ.
If the teacher has the love of Christ abiding in the heart as a
sweet fragrance, a savor of life unto life, he may bind the children
under his care to himself. Through the grace of Christ he may be
an instrument in God’s hands to enlighten, lift up, encourage, and
help to purify the soul temple from its defilement, until the character
shall be transformed by the grace of Christ, and the image of God
be revealed in the soul.
Said Christ, “I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sancti-
fied.”
John 17:19
. This is the work that devolves on every Christian
teacher. There must be no haphazard work in this matter; for the
education of the children requires very much of the grace of Christ
and the subduing of self. Heaven sees in the child the undeveloped
man or woman, with capabilities and powers that, if correctly guided
and developed, will make him or her one with whom the divine
agencies can co-operate—a laborer together with God.
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An Object Lesson
The parable of the good shepherd represents the responsibility of
every minister and of every Christian who has accepted a position as
teacher of the children and youth. The one that has strayed from the
fold is not followed with harsh words and a whip but with winning
invitations to return. The ninety and nine that had not strayed do not
call for the sympathy and tender, pitying love of the shepherd. But
the shepherd follows the sheep and lambs that have caused him the
greatest anxiety and have engrossed his sympathies most deeply. He