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Christian Temperance
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to the stomach, and they have no vitality to expend in other direc-
tions. They cannot properly control their children because of their
own impatience, neither can they teach them the right way. Perhaps
they take hold of them roughly and give them an impatient blow.
I have said that to shake a child would shake two evil spirits in,
while it would shake one out. If a child is wrong, to shake it only
makes it worse. It will not subdue it. When the system is not in a
right condition, when the circulation is broken up, and the nervous
power has all that it can do to take care of a bad quality of food,
or too great a quantity even of that which is good, parents have not
self-command. They cannot reason from cause to effect. Here is the
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reason why—in every move they make in their families they create
more trouble than they cure. They do not seem to understand and
reason from cause to effect, and they go to work like blind men.
They seem to act as though it would especially glorify God for them
to move like wild men, and if anything wrong should occur in their
families, to put it down with roughness and violence.
Who are our children? They are only our younger brothers and
sisters in the family that God acknowledges as His. We are dealing
with the members of the Lord’s family. And while the care of them
is committed to us, how careful should we be that we bring them
up for the Lord, so that when the Master comes we can say: “Here,
Lord, are we, and the children that Thou hast given us.” Shall we
then be able to say: We have tried to do our work, and we have tried
to do it well”?
I have seen mothers of large families, who could not see the work
that lay right in their pathway, just before them in their own families.
They wanted to be missionaries and do some great work. They were
looking out for themselves some high position, but neglecting to
take care of the very work at home which the Lord had left for them
to do. How important that the brain be clear! How important that
the body be as free as possible from disease, in order that we may do
the work which Heaven has left for us to do, and perform it in such a
manner that the Master can say: “Well done, thou good and faithful
servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee
ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” My
sisters, do not despise the few things which the Lord has left for
you to do. Let each day’s actions be such that in the day of final