358
The Adventist Home
path. None are in so great danger as those who apprehend no danger
and are impatient of caution and counsel
Guard your children from every objectionable influence possible;
for in childhood they are more ready to receive impressions, either
of moral dignity, purity, and loveliness of character, or of selfishness,
impurity, and disobedience. Once let them become influenced by the
[470]
spirit of murmuring, pride, vanity, and impurity, and the taint may be
as indelible as life itself
It is because the home training is defective that the youth are
so unwilling to submit to proper authority. I am a mother; I know
whereof I speak when I say that youth and children are not only safer
but happier under wholesome restraint than when following their own
inclination
Unaccompanied Visits Inadvisable—Some parents mistake in
giving their children too much liberty. They sometimes have so much
confidence in them that they do not see their faults. It is wrong to allow
children, at some expense, to visit at a distance, unaccompanied by
their parents or guardians. It has a wrong influence upon the children.
They come to feel that they are of considerable consequence and that
certain privileges belong to them, and if these are not granted, they
think themselves abused. They refer to children who go and come and
have many privileges, while they have so few.
And the mother, fearing that her children will think her unjust,
gratifies their wishes, which in the end proves a great injury to them.
Young visitors, who have not a parent’s watchful eye over them to see
and correct their faults, often receive impressions which it will take
months to remove
Unwise Advice and How to Meet It—Keep your children at their
home; and if people say to you, “Your children will not know how to
conduct themselves in the world,” tell your friends that you are not so
concerned about that matter, but that you do want to take them to the
Master for His blessing, even as the mothers of old took their children
to Jesus. Say to your advisers: Children are the heritage of the Lord,
[471]
and I want to prove faithful to my trust.... My children must be brought
11
Testimonies For The Church 5, 545, 546
.
12
The Signs of the Times, April 16, 1896
.
13
Fundamentals of Christian Education, 62, 63
.
14
Testimonies For The Church 1: 401, 402
.