134
The Adventist Home
Parents should not permit business cares, worldly customs and
maxims, and fashion to have a controlling power over them, so that
they neglect their children in babyhood and fail to give their children
proper instruction as they increase in years
One great reason why there is so much evil in the world today is
that parents occupy their minds with other things than that which is
all-important—how to adapt themselves to the work of patiently and
kindly teaching their children the way of the Lord. If the curtain could
be drawn aside, we should see that many, many children who have
gone astray have been lost to good influences through this neglect.
Parents, can you afford to have it so in your experience? You should
have no work so important that it will prevent you from giving to your
children all the time that is necessary to make them understand what it
[184]
means to obey and trust the Lord fully....
And what will you reap as a reward of your effort? You will find
your children right by your side, willing to take hold and co-operate
with you in the lines that you suggest. You will find your work made
easy
God’s Teaching Agents in the Home School—Parents should in
a special sense regard themselves as agents of God to instruct their
children, as did Abraham, to keep the way of the Lord. They need
to search the Scriptures diligently, to know what is the way of the
Lord, that they may teach it to their household. Micah says, “What
doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and
to walk humbly with thy God?” [
Micah 6:8
.] In order to be teachers,
parents must be learners, gathering light constantly from the oracles
of God and by precept and example bringing this precious light into
the education of their children
From the light that God has given me, I know that the husband and
the wife are to be in the home minister, physician, nurse, and teacher,
binding their children to themselves and to God, training them to avoid
every habit that will in any way militate against God’s work in the
body, and teaching them to care for every part of the living organism
8
The Signs of the Times, September 17, 1894
.
9
Manuscript 53, 1912
.
10
Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 145
.
11
Manuscript 100, 1902
.