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that flows from a heart filled with love to Jesus, will give you access
to them. You may win their confidence so that they will listen to your
words, and thus be saved from many a snare of the enemy.
When the youth give their hearts to God, your care for them should
not cease. Lay some special responsibility upon them. Make them
feel that they are expected to do something. The Lord chooses them
because they are strong. Teach them to labor in a quiet, unpretending
way, for their young companions. Let different branches of the mis-
sionary work be laid out systematically, and let instruction and help be
given, so that the young may learn to act a part. Thus they will grow
up to be workers for God.—
Gospel Workers, 278-279
.
A Mother’s Influence.—How far-reaching in its results was the
influence of that one Hebrew woman, [the mother of Moses] and she
an exile and a slave! The whole future life of Moses, the great mission
which he fulfilled as the leader of Israel, testifies to the importance
of the work of the Christian mother. There is no other work that can
equal this. To a very great extent, the mother holds in her own hands
the destiny of her children. She is dealing with developing minds
and characters, working not alone for time, but for eternity. She is
sowing seed that will spring up and bear fruit, either for good or for
evil. She has not to paint a form of beauty upon canvas or to chisel
it from marble, but to impress upon a human soul the image of the
divine. Especially during their early years the responsibility rests upon
her of forming the characters of her children. The impressions now
made upon their developing minds will remain with them all through
life. Parents should direct the instruction and training of their children
while very young, to the end that they may be Christians. They are
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placed in our care to be trained, not as heirs to the throne of an earthly
empire, but as kings unto God, to reign through unending ages.
Let every mother feel that her moments are priceless; her work
will be tested in the solemn day of accounts. Then it will be found that
many of the failures and crimes of men and women have resulted from
the ignorance and neglect of those whose duty it was to guide their
childish feet in the right way. Then it will be found that many who
have blessed the world with the light of genius and truth and holiness,
owe the principles that were the mainspring of their influence and
success to a praying, Christian mother.—
Patriarchs and Prophets, 244
.