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Child Guidance
It Presents God’s Love as a Pleasant Theme—The children in
every family are to be brought up in the nurture and admonition of
the Lord. Evil propensities are to be controlled, evil tempers subdued;
and the children are to be instructed that they are the Lord’s property,
bought with His own precious blood, and that they cannot live a life of
pleasure and vanity, have their own will and carry out their own ideas,
and yet be numbered among the children of God. The children are to
be instructed with kindness and patience.... Let the parents teach them
of the love of God in such a way that it will be a pleasant theme in the
family circle, and let the church take upon them the responsibility of
feeding the lambs as well as the sheep of the flock
Its Stories Bring Assurance to the Timid Child—Only the sense
of God’s presence can banish the fear that, for the timid child, would
make life a burden. Let him fix in his memory the promise, “The angel
of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth
them.”
Psalm 34:7
. Let him read that wonderful story of Elisha in
the mountain city, and, between him and the hosts of armed foemen,
a mighty encircling band of heavenly angels. Let him read how to
Peter, in prison and condemned to death, God’s angel appeared; how,
past the armed guards, the massive doors and great iron gateway with
their bolts and bars, the angel led God’s servant forth in safety. Let
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him read of that scene on the sea, when to the tempest-tossed soldiers
and seamen, worn with labor and watching and long fasting, Paul the
prisoner, on his way to trial and execution, spoke those grand words
of courage and hope: “Be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss
of any man’s life among you.... For there stood by me this night the
angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul;
thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all
them that sail with thee.” In the faith of this promise Paul assured his
companions, “There shall not an hair fall from the head of any of you.”
So it came to pass. Because there was in that ship one man through
whom God could work, the whole shipload of heathen soldiers and
sailors was preserved. “They escaped all safe to land.”
Acts 27:22-24,
34, 44
.
These things were not written merely that we might read and
wonder, but that the same faith which wrought in God’s servants of old
4
The Review and Herald, October 25, 1892
.