Duty to Children
211
They have no power or endurance. The parents have borne the burden,
and have suffered them to grow up in idleness, without habits of order,
industry, or economy. They have not been taught habits of self-denial,
but have been petted and indulged, their appetites gratified, and they
come up with enfeebled health. Their manners and deportment are not
agreeable. They are unhappy themselves, and make those around them
unhappy. And while the children are but children still, while they need
to be disciplined, they are allowed to go out in company and mingle
with the society of the young, and one has a corrupting influence over
another.
The curse of God will surely rest upon unfaithful parents. Not
only are they planting thorns which will wound them here, but they
must meet their own unfaithfulness when the judgment shall sit. Many
children will rise up in judgment and condemn their parents for not
restraining them, and charge upon them their destruction. The false
sympathy and blind love of parents causes them to excuse the faults of
their children and pass them by without correction, and their children
are lost in consequence, and the blood of their souls will rest upon the
unfaithful parents.
Children who are thus brought up undisciplined, have everything to
learn when they profess to be Christ’s followers. Their whole religious
experience is affected by their bringing up in childhood. The same
self-will often appears; there is the same lack of self-denial, the same
impatience under reproof, the same love of self and unwillingness to
seek counsel of others, or to be influenced by others’ judgment, the
same indolence, shunning of burdens, lack of bearing responsibilities.
All this is seen in their relation to the church. It is possible for such to
overcome; but how hard the battle! how severe the conflict! How hard
to pass through the course of thorough discipline which is necessary for
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them to reach the elevation of Christian character! Yet if they overcome
at last, they will be permitted to see, before they are translated, how
near the precipice of eternal destruction they came, because of the lack
of right training in youth, the failure to learn submission in childhood.
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