When Counsel is Needed
51
to know what course is right, let them lay the matter just as they
view it before their parents, and ask advice of them. Who are so
well calculated to point out their dangers as godly parents? Who can
understand their peculiar temperaments so well as they? Children who
are Christians will esteem above every earthly blessing the love and
approbation of their God-fearing parents. The parents can sympathize
[74]
with the children and pray for and with them that God will shield
and guide them. Above everything else they will point them to their
never-failing Friend and Counselor
Parents to Guide the Affections of Youth—Fathers and mothers
should feel that a duty devolves upon them to guide the affections of
the youth, that they may be placed upon those who will be suitable
companions. They should feel it a duty, by their own teaching and
example, with the assisting grace of God, to so mold the character
of the children from their earliest years that they will be pure and
noble and will be attracted to the good and true. Like attracts like;
like appreciates like. Let the love for truth and purity and goodness
be early implanted in the soul, and the youth will seek the society of
those who possess these characteristics
The Example Set by Isaac—Parents should never lose sight of
their own responsibility for the future happiness of their children.
Isaac’s deference to his father’s judgment was the result of the training
that had taught him to love a life of obedience
Isaac was highly honored by God in being made inheritor of the
promises through which the world was to be blessed; yet when he was
forty years of age, he submitted to his father’s judgment in appointing
his experienced, God-fearing servant to choose a wife for him. And
the result of that marriage, as presented in the Scriptures, is a tender
and beautiful picture of domestic happiness: “Isaac brought her into
his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife;
and he loved her: and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death.
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Wise Parents Will Be Considerate—“Should parents,” you ask,
“select a companion without regard to the mind or feelings of son or
daughter?” I put the question to you as it should be: Should a son
9
Fundamentals of Christian Education, 105, 106
.
10
Patriarchs and Prophets, 176
.
11
Ibid., 175, 176
.
12
Ibid., 175
.