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Testimonies for the Church Volume 1
This spirit is like a contagious disease. God’s people should choose
the society for their children and teach them to avoid the company
of these vain worldlings. Mothers should take their daughters with
them into the kitchen and patiently educate them. Their constitution
will be better for such labor, their muscles will gain tone and strength,
and their meditations will be more healthy and elevated at the close
of the day. They may be weary, but how sweet is rest after a proper
amount of labor. Sleep, nature’s sweet restorer, invigorates the weary
body, and prepares it for the next day’s duties. Do not intimate to your
children that it is no matter whether they labor or not. Teach them that
their help is needed, that their time is of value, and that you depend on
their labor.
I have been shown that much sin has resulted from idleness. Active
hands and minds do not find time to heed every temptation which the
enemy suggests, but idle hands and brains are all ready for Satan to
control. The mind, when not properly occupied, dwells upon improper
things. Parents should teach their children that idleness is sin. I was
referred to
Ezekiel 16:49
: “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister
Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her
and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor
and needy.”
Children should feel that they are indebted to their parents, who
have watched over them in infancy and nursed them in sickness. They
should realize that their parents have suffered much anxiety on their
account. Especially have conscientious, 396 g odly parents felt the
deepest interest that their children should take a right course. As
they have seen faults in their children, how heavy have been their
hearts. If the children who caused those hearts to ache could see
the effect of their course, they would certainly relent. If they could
see their mother’s tears and hear her prayers to God in their behalf,
if they could listen to her suppressed and broken sighs, their hearts
would feel, and they would speedily confess their wrongs and ask to
be forgiven. There is a work to be accomplished for old and young.
Parents should better qualify themselves to discharge their duty to their
children. Some parents do not understand their children and are not
really acquainted with them. There is often a great distance between
parents and children. If the parents would enter more fully into the