Chapter 36—The Proper Discipline and Education of
our Children
The prevailing influence in the world is to suffer the youth to follow
the natural turn of their own minds. And if very wild in youth, parents
say they will come right after a while, and when sixteen or eighteen
years of age, will reason for themselves, and leave off their wrong
habits, and become at last useful men and women. What a mistake! For
years they permit an enemy to sow the garden of the heart; they suffer
wrong principles to grow, and in many cases all the labor afterward
bestowed on that soil will avail nothing.
Satan is an artful, persevering workman, a deadly foe. Whenever
an incautious word is spoken to the injury of youth, whether in flattery
or to cause them to look upon some sin with less abhorrence, Satan
takes advantage of it and nourishes the evil seed that it may take root
and yield a bountiful harvest. Some parents have suffered their children
to form wrong habits, the marks of which may be seen all through
life. Upon the parents lies this sin. These children may profess to
be Christians, yet without a special work of grace upon the heart and
a thorough reform in life their past habits will be seen in all their
experience, and they will exhibit just the character which their parents
allowed them to form
Parents must govern their children, correct their passions, and
subdue them, or God will surely destroy the children in the day of His
fierce anger, and the parents who have not controlled their children
will not be blameless. Especially should the servants of God govern
their own families and have them in good subjection. I saw that they
are not prepared to judge or decide in matters of the church, unless
they can rule well their own house. They must first have order at home,
and then their judgment and influence will tell in the church
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Testimonies for the Church 1:403
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Testimonies for the Church 1:119
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