286
The Adventist Home
To a Family Living Beyond Its Means—You ought to be careful
that your expenses do not exceed your income. Bind about your wants.
It is a great pity that your wife is so much like you in this matter of
expending means so that she cannot be a help to you in this direction,
to watch the little outgoes in order to avoid the larger leaks. Needless
expenses are constantly brought about in your family management.
Your wife loves to see her children dress in a manner beyond their
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means, and because of this, tastes and habits are cultivated in your
children which will make them vain and proud. If you would learn the
lesson of economy and see the peril to yourselves and to your children
and to the cause of God in this free use of means, you would obtain
an experience essential to the perfection of your Christian character.
Unless you do obtain such an experience, your children will bear the
mold of a defective education as long as they live....
I would not influence you to hoard up means—it would be difficult
for you to do this—but I would counsel you both to expend your
money carefully and let your daily example teach lessons of frugality,
self-denial, and economy to your children. They need to be educated
by precept and example
A Family Called to Self-denial—I was shown that you, my
brother and sister, have much to learn. You have not lived within
your means. You have not learned to economize. If you earn high
wages, you do not know how to make it go as far as possible. You
consult taste or appetite instead of prudence. At times you expend
money for a quality of food in which your brethren cannot afford to
indulge. Dollars slip from your pocket very easily.... Self-denial is a
lesson which you both have yet to learn
Parents should learn to live within their means. They should culti-
vate self-denial in their children, teaching them by precept and exam-
ple. They should make their wants few and simple, that there may be
time for mental improvement and spiritual culture
Indulgence Not an Expression of Love—Do not educate your
children to think that your love for them must be expressed by in-
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dulgence of their pride, extravagance, and love of display. There is
12
Letter 23, 1888
.
13
Testimonies For The Church 2, 431, 432
.
14
The Review and Herald, June 24, 1890
.