Knowledge of Health Principles
61
for outward appearance! O parents, be not governed by the world’s
opinion; labor not to reach its standard. Decide for yourselves what
is the great aim of life, and then bend every effort to reach that aim.
You cannot with impunity neglect the proper training of your children.
Their defective characters will publish your unfaithfulness. The evils
that you permit to pass uncorrected, the coarse, rough manners, the
disrespect and disobedience, the habits of indolence and inattention,
will bring dishonor to your names and bitterness into your lives. The
destiny of your children rests to a great extent in your hands. If you fail
in duty you may place them in the ranks of the enemy and make them
his agents in ruining others; on the other hand, if you faithfully instruct
them, if in your own lives you set before them a godly example, you
may lead them to Christ, and they in turn will influence others, and
thus many may be saved through your instrumentality.
Fathers and mothers, do you realize the importance of the respon-
sibility resting upon you? Do you realize the necessity of guarding
your children from careless, demoralizing habits? Allow your children
to form only such associations as will have a right influence upon their
characters. Do not allow them to be out in the evening unless you
know where they are and what they are doing. Instruct them in the
principles of moral purity. If you have neglected to teach them line
upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, begin
at once to do your duty. Take up your responsibilities and work for
time and for eternity. Let not another day pass without confessing
[67]
your neglect to your children. Tell them that you mean now to do your
God-appointed work. Ask them to take hold with you in the reform.
Make diligent efforts to redeem the past. No longer remain in the
condition of the Laodicean church. In the name of the Lord I call upon
every family to show its true colors. Reform the church in your own
home.
As you faithfully do your duty in the home, the father as a priest of
the household, the mother as a home missionary, you are multiplying
agencies for doing good outside of the home. As you improve your
own powers, you are becoming better fitted to labor in the church and
in the neighborhood. By binding your children to yourselves and to
God, fathers and mothers and children become laborers together with
God.