Proper Discipline and Education of our Children
257
some innocent gratification that would make the childish heart very
happy. In this they do not imitate Christ; He loved the children;
He comprehended their feelings and sympathized with them in their
pleasures and their trials
When the children will beg that they may go to this company
or join that party of amusement, say to them: “I cannot let you go,
children; sit right down here, and I will tell you why. I am doing up
work for eternity and for God. God has given you to me and entrusted
you to my care. I am standing in the place of God to you, my children;
therefore I must watch you as one who must give an account in the
day of God. Do you want your mother’s name written in the books of
heaven as one who failed to do her duty to her children, as one who
let the enemy come in and preoccupy the ground that I ought to have
occupied? Children, I am going to tell you which is the right way,
and then if you choose to 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
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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.”
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
Never can the proper education be given to the youth in this country,
or any other country, unless they are separated a wide distance from
the cities. The customs and practices in the cities unfit the minds of
the youth for the entrance of truth
307
The Ministry of Healing, 389, 390
308
The Adventist Home, 528, 529
309
Fundamentals of Christian Education, 312