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Testimonies for the Church Volume 5
are careless, irreverent, and inattentive. They are seldom instructed
that the minister is God’s ambassador, that the message he brings is
one of God’s appointed agencies in the salvation of souls, and that to
all who have the privilege brought within their reach it will be a savor
of life unto life or of death unto death.
The delicate and susceptible minds of the youth obtain their es-
timate of the labors of God’s servants by the way their parents treat
the matter. Many heads of families make the service a subject of
criticism at home, approving a few things and condemning others.
Thus the message of God to men is criticized and questioned, and
made a subject of levity. What impressions are thus made upon the
young by these careless, irreverent remarks the books of heaven alone
will reveal. The children see and understand these things very much
quicker than parents are apt to think. Their moral senses receive a
wrong bias that time will never fully change. The parents mourn over
the hardness of heart in their children and the difficulty in arousing
their moral sensibility to answer to the claims of God. But the books
of heavenly record trace with unerring pen the true cause. The parents
were unconverted. They were not in harmony with heaven or with
heaven’s work. Their low, common ideas of the sacredness of the
ministry and of the sanctuary of God were woven into the education
of their children. It is a question whether anyone who has for years
been under this blighting influence of home instruction will ever have
a sensitive reverence and high regard for God’s ministry and the agen-
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cies He has appointed for the salvation of souls. These things should
be spoken of with reverence, with propriety of language, and with fine
susceptibility, that you may reveal to all you associate with that you
regard the message from God’s servants as a message to you from God
Himself.
Parents, be careful what example and what ideas you give your
children. Their minds are plastic, and impressions are easily made. In
regard to the service of the sanctuary, if the speaker has a blemish, be
afraid to mention it. Talk only of the good work he is doing, of the good
ideas he presented, which you should heed as coming through God’s
agent. It may be readily seen why children are so little impressed with
the ministry of the word and why they have so little reverence for the
house of God. Their education has been defective in this respect. Their
parents need daily communion with God. Their own ideas need to be