622
Counsels on Health
Parents may have transmitted to their children tendencies to ap-
petite and passion, which will make more difficult the work of edu-
cating and training these children to be strictly temperate and to have
pure and virtuous habits. If the appetite for unhealthy food and for
stimulants and narcotics has been transmitted to them as a legacy from
their parents, what a fearfully solemn responsibility rests upon the
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parents to counteract the evil tendencies which they have given to their
children! How earnestly and diligently should the parents work to do
their duty, in faith and hope, to their unfortunate offspring!
Parents should make it their first business to understand the laws of
life and health, that nothing shall be done by them in the preparation of
food, or through any other habits, which will develop wrong tendencies
in their children. How carefully should mothers study to prepare
their tables with the most simple, healthful food, that the digestive
organs may not be weakened, the nervous forces unbalanced, and the
instruction which they should give their children counteracted, by the
food placed before them. This food either weakens or strengthens
the organs of the stomach, and has much to do in controlling the
physical and moral health of the children. ... Those who indulge the
appetite of their children, and do not control their passions, will see the
terrible mistake they have made in the tobacco-loving, liquor-drinking
slave, whose senses are benumbed and whose lips utter falsehoods and
profanity.
When parents and children meet at the final reckoning, what a
scene will be presented! Thousands of children who have been slaves
to appetite and debasing vice, whose lives are moral wrecks, will stand
face to face with the parents who made them what they are. Who but
the parents must bear this fearful responsibility?
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