Important Testimony
47
I wish my position to be clearly understood. I have no sympathy
with the course that has been pursued toward Brother-----. The enemy
has encouraged feelings of hatred in the hearts of many. The errors
committed by him have been reported from one person to another,
constantly growing in magnitude, as busy, gossiping tongues added
fuel to the fire. Parents who have never felt the care which they should
feel for the souls of their children, and who have never given them
proper restraint and instruction, are the very ones who manifest the
most bitter opposition when their children are restrained, reproved,
or corrected at school. Some of these children are a disgrace to the
church and a disgrace to the name of Adventists.
The parents despised reproof themselves, and despised the reproof
given to their children, and were not careful to conceal this from them.
The sin of the parents began with their mismanagement at home. The
souls of some of these children will be lost because they did not receive
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instruction from God’s word and did not become Christians at home.
Instead of sympathizing with their children in a perverse course, the
parents should have reproved them and sustained the faithful teacher.
These parents were not united to Christ themselves, and this is the
reason of their terrible neglect of duty. That which they have sown
they will also reap. They are sure of a harvest.
In the school Brother-----has not only been burdened by the wrong
course of the children, but by the injudicious management of the
parents, which produced and nurtured hatred of restraint. Overwork,
unceasing care, with no help at home, but rather a constant irritation,
have caused him at times to lose self-control and to act injudiciously.
Some have taken advantage of this, and faults of minor consequence
have been made to appear like grave sins.
The class of professed Sabbathkeepers who try to form a union
between Christ and Belial, who take hold of the truth with one hand
and of the world with the other, have surrounded their children and
clouded the church with an atmosphere entirely foreign to religion
and the Spirit of Christ. They dared not openly oppose the claims of
truth. They dared not take a bold stand and say they did not believe
the testimonies; but, while nominally believing both, they have obeyed
neither. By their course of action they have denied both. They desire
the Lord to fulfill to them His promises; but they refuse to comply
with the conditions on which these promises are based. They will