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Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students
The Family Altar
In every Christian home God should be honored by the morning
and evening sacrifices of prayer and praise. Children should be
taught to respect and reverence the hour of prayer. It is the duty
of Christian parents, morning and evening, by earnest prayer and
persevering faith, to make a hedge about their children.
In the church at home the children are to learn to pray and to
trust in God. Teach them to repeat God’s law. Concerning the
commandments the Israelites were instructed: “Thou shalt teach
them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou
sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when
thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”
Deuteronomy 6:7
. Come
in humility, with a heart full of tenderness, and with a sense of the
temptations and dangers before yourselves and your children; by
faith bind them to the altar, entreating for them the care of the Lord.
Train the children to offer their simple words of prayer. Tell them
that God delights to have them call upon Him.
Will the Lord of heaven pass by such homes and leave no blessing
there? Nay, verily. Ministering angels will guard the children who
are thus dedicated to God. They hear the offering of praise and the
prayer of faith, and they bear the petitions to Him who ministers in
the sanctuary for His people and offers His merits in their behalf.
Home Discipline
The children are to be taught that their capabilities were given
them for the honor and glory of God. To this end they must learn
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the lesson of obedience, for only by lives of willing obedience can
they render to God the service He requires. Before the child is old
enough to reason, he must be taught to obey. By gentle, persistent
effort the habit should be established. Thus to a great degree may be
prevented those later conflicts between will and authority that do so
much to arouse in the minds of the youth alienation and bitterness
toward parents and teachers, and too often resistance of all authority,
human and divine.
Let children be shown that true reverence is revealed by obedi-
ence. God has commanded nothing that is unessential, and there