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gross iniquity abound everywhere. The temptation to indulge taste and
to gratify inclination has not lessened with the increase of years, and
youth in general are governed by impulse and are slaves to appetite.
In the glutton, the tobacco devotee, the winebibber, and the inebriate
we see the evil results of defective education.
When we hear the sad lamentations of Christian men and women
over the terrible evils of intemperance, the questions at once arise in
the mind: Who have educated the youth and given them their stamp
of character? Who have fostered in them the appetites they have
acquired? Who have neglected the most solemn responsibility of
molding their minds and forming their characters for usefulness in this
life, and for the society of the heavenly angels in the next? A large
class of the human beings we everywhere meet are a living curse to
the world. They live for no other purpose than to indulge appetite and
passion, and to corrupt soul and body by dissolute habits. This is a
terrible rebuke to mothers who are the votaries of fashion, who have
lived for dress and show, who have neglected to beautify their own
minds and to form their own characters after the divine Pattern, and
who have also neglected the sacred trust committed to them, to bring
their children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
I saw that Satan, through his temptations, is instituting ever-
changing fashions and attractive parties and amusements, that mothers
may be led to devote their God-given probationary time to frivolous
matters so that they can have but little opportunity to educate and
properly train their children. Our youth want mothers who will teach
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them from their very cradles to control passion, to deny appetite, and
to overcome selfishness. They need line upon line and precept upon
precept, here a little and there a little.
Direction was given to the Hebrews how to train their children to
avoid the idolatry and wickedness of the heathen nations: “Therefore
shall ye lay up these My words in your heart and in your soul, and bind
them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between
your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them
when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way,
when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”
We have an earnest desire that woman shall fill the position which
God originally designed, as her husband’s equal. We so much need
mothers who are mothers not merely in name, but in every sense that