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The Adventist Home
turn away from your mother and go into the paths of wickedness, your
mother will stand clear, but you will have to suffer for your own sins.”
This is the way I did with my children, and before I would get
through, they would be weeping, and they would say, “Won’t you pray
for us?” Well, I never refused to pray for them. I knelt by their side and
prayed with them. Then I have gone away and have pleaded with God
until the sun was up in the heavens, the whole night long, that the spell
of the enemy might be broken, and I have had the victory. Although it
cost me a night’s labor, yet I felt richly paid when my children would
hang about my neck and say, “Oh, Mother, we are so glad that you did
not let us go when we wanted to. Now we see that it would have been
wrong.”
[529]
Parents, this is the way you must work, as though you meant it.
You must make a business of this work if you expect to save your
children in the kingdom of God
Problems of the Perplexing Teen Ages—In the present state of
society it is no easy task for parents to restrain their children and
instruct them according to the Bible rule of right. Children often
become impatient under restraint and wish to have their own way
and to go and come as they please. Especially from the age of ten
to eighteen they are inclined to feel that there can be no harm in
going to worldly gatherings of young associates. But the experienced
Christian parents can see danger. They are acquainted with the peculiar
temperaments of their children and know the influence of these things
upon their minds; and from a desire for their salvation, they should
keep them back from these exciting amusements
Vigilance Is Especially Needed After Conversion—When the
children decide for themselves to leave the pleasures of the world and
to become Christ’s disciples, what a burden is lifted from the hearts of
careful, faithful parents! Yet even then the labors of the parents must
not cease. These youth have just commenced in earnest the warfare
against sin and against the evils of the natural heart, and they need in a
special sense the counsel and watchcare of their parents
The Secret of Guarding the Children From Worldly Attrac-
tions—How many parents are lamenting the fact that they cannot keep
5
Undated
Manuscript 70
.
6
Counsels to Teachers, Parents, and Students, 327
.
7
Ibid
.