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Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students
In many cases all the labor afterward bestowed upon these youth
will avail nothing.
The standard of piety is low among professed Christians gen-
erally, and it is hard for the young to resist the worldly influences
that are encouraged by many church members. The majority of
nominal Christians, while they profess to be living for Christ, are
really living for the world. They do not discern the excellence of
heavenly things, and therefore cannot truly love them. Many profess
to be Christians because Christianity is considered honorable. They
do not discern that genuine Christianity means cross-bearing, and
their religion has little influence to restrain them from taking part in
worldly pleasures.
Some can enter the ballroom and unite in all the amusements
which it affords. Others cannot go to such lengths as this, yet they
can attend parties of pleasure, picnics, shows and other places of
worldly amusement; and the most discerning eye would fail to detect
any difference between their appearance and that of unbelievers.
The Training of Children
In the present state of society it is no easy task for parents to
restrain their children and instruct them according to the Bible rule
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of right. Children often become impatient under restraint and wish
to have their own way and to go and come as they please. Especially
from the age of ten to eighteen they are inclined to feel that there
can be no harm in going to worldly gatherings of young associates.
But the experienced Christian parents can see danger. They are
acquainted with the peculiar temperaments of their children and
know the influence of these things upon their minds, and from a
desire for their salvation they should keep them back from these
exciting amusements.
When the children decide for themselves to leave the pleasures
of the world and to become Christ’s disciples, what a burden is lifted
from the hearts of careful, faithful parents! Yet even then the labors
of the parents must not cease. These youth have just commenced in
earnest the warfare against sin and against the evils of the natural
heart, and they need in a special sense the counsel and watchcare of
their parents.