Seite 401 - Selected Messages Book 2 (1958)

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Chapter 2
397
it was their wrong habits which fastened disease upon their unborn
children, under which they are compelled to suffer all through their
lives. Some live but a short period with their load of debility. The
mother anxiously watches over the life of her child, and is weighed
down with sorrow as she is compelled to close its eyes in death, and
she often regards God as the author of all this affliction, when the
parents in reality were the murderers of their own child.
The father should bear in mind that the treatment of his wife before
the birth of his offspring will materially affect the disposition of the
mother during that period, and will have very much to do with the
character developed by the child after its birth. Many fathers have
been so anxious to obtain property fast that higher considerations
have been sacrificed, and some men have been criminally neglectful
of the mother and her offspring, and too frequently the lives of both
have been sacrificed to the strong desire to accumulate wealth. Many
do not immediately suffer this heavy penalty for their wrong doing,
and are asleep as to the result of their course. The condition of the
wife is sometimes no better than that of a slave, and sometimes she
is equally guilty with the husband, of squandering physical strength,
to obtain means to live fashionably. It is a crime for such to have
children, for their offspring will often be deficient in physical, mental,
and moral worth, and will bear the miserable, close, selfish impress of
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their parents, and the world will be cursed with their meanness.
It is the duty of men and women to act with reason in regard to
their labor. They should not exhaust their energies unnecessarily, for
by doing this, they not only bring suffering upon themselves but, by
their errors, bring anxiety, weariness, and suffering upon those they
love. What calls for such an amount of labor? Intemperance in eating,
and in drinking, and the desire for wealth have led to this intemperance
in labor. If the appetite is controlled, and that food only which is
healthful be taken, there will be so great a saving of expense, that
men and women will not be compelled to labor beyond their strength,
and thus violate the laws of health. The desire of men and women
to accumulate property is not sinful if in their efforts to attain their
object they do not forget God, and transgress the last six precepts of
Jehovah, which dictate the duty of man to his fellow man, and place
themselves in a position where it is impossible for them to glorify God
in their bodies and spirits which are his. If in their haste to be rich they