Parental Responsibility
65
I repeat: intemperance begins at the table, and, with the majority,
appetite is indulged until indulgence becomes second nature.
Whoever eats too much, or of food which is not healthful, is weak-
ening his power to resist the clamors of other appetites and passions.
Many parents, to avoid the task of patiently educating their children
to habits of self-denial, indulge them in eating and drinking whenever
they please. The desire to satisfy the taste and to gratify inclination
does not lessen with the increase of years; and these indulged youth,
as they grow up, are governed by impulse, slaves to appetite. When
they take their place in society, and begin life for themselves, they are
powerless to resist temptation. In the glutton, the tobacco-devotee,
the wine-bibber, and the inebriate, we see the evil results of erroneous
education and of self-indulgence.
When we hear the sad lamentation of Christian men and women
over the terrible evils of intemperance, the questions at once arise:
Who have educated the youth? who have fostered in them these unruly
appetites? who have neglected the solemn responsibility of forming
their character for usefulness in this life, and for the society of heavenly
angels in the next?
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? Did the Lord make
these youth corrupt?—Oh, no! Who, then, has done this fearful work?
Were not the sins of the parents transmitted to the children in perverted
appetites and passions? and was not the work completed by those who
[77]
neglected to train them according to the pattern which God has given?
Just as surely as they exist, all these parents will pass in review before
God.
Satan is ready to do his work; he will not neglect to present allure-
ments which the children have no will or moral power to resist. I saw
that, through his temptations, he is instituting ever-changing fashions,
and attractive parties and amusements, that mothers may be led to
devote their time to frivolous matters, instead of to the education and
training of their children. Our youth need mothers who will teach them
from the cradle to control passion, to deny appetite, and to overcome