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Spiritual Gifts, Volume 4b
Again I was directed to the condition of children in these last days.
Children are not controlled. Parents should commence their first lesson
of discipline when their children are babes in their arms. Teach them
to yield their will to yours. This can be done by bearing an even hand,
and manifesting firmness. Parents should have perfect control over
their own spirits, and with mildness, and yet firmness, bend the will of
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the child until it shall expect nothing else but to yield to their wishes.
Parents do not commence in season. The first manifestation of
temper is not subdued, and the children grow stubborn, which increases
with their growth, and strengthens with their strength. Some children,
as they grow older, think it a matter of course that they must have their
own way, and that their parents must submit to their wishes. They
expect their parents to wait upon them. They are impatient of restraint,
and when old enough to be a help to their parents, they do not bear the
burdens they should. They have been released from responsibilities,
and grow up worthless at home, and worthless abroad. They have
no power of endurance; the parents have borne the burden, and have
suffered them to grow up in idleness, without habits of order, industry,
and 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 when the children are but children still, and while they
need to be disciplined, they are allowed to go out in company, mingle
with the society of the young, and one has a corrupting influence over
the other.
The curse of God will surely rest upon unfaithful parents. Not
only are they planting thorns which shall 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 to pass them by without correction, and their
children are lost in consequence, and the blood of their souls will rest
upon unfaithful parents.
Children, who are thus brought up undisciplined, when they profess
to be Christ’s followers, have everything to learn. Their whole religious
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experience is effected by their bringing up in childhood. The same self-