To Teachers
221
should be an educator. Teachers must consider that they are dealing
with children, not men and women. They are children who have
everything to learn, and it is much more difficult for some to learn
than others. The dull scholar needs much more encouragement than he
[270]
receives. If teachers are placed over these varied minds, who naturally
love to order and dictate and magnify themselves in their authority,
who will deal with partiality, having favorites to whom they will show
preferences, while others are treated with exactitude and severity, it
will create a state of confusion and insubordination. Teachers who
have not been blessed with a pleasant and well balanced experience
may be placed to take charge of children and youth, but a great wrong
is done to those whom they instruct. Parents must come to view this
matter in a different light. They must feel it their duty to co-operate
with the teacher, to encourage wise discipline, and to pray much for
the one who is teaching their children. You will not help the children
by fretting, censuring, or discouraging them; neither will you act a
good part to help them to rebel, and to be disobedient and unkind and
unlovable, because of the spirit you develop. If you are Christians
indeed, you will have an abiding Christ, and the spirit of Him who
gave His life for sinners; and the wisdom of God will teach you in
every emergency the course to pursue.
Children are in need of having a steady, firm, living principle of
righteousness exercised over them and practiced before them. Be sure
you let the true light shine before your pupils. The light of heaven
is wanted. Never let the world have the impression that your spirit
and taste and longings are of no higher and purer order than that of
worldlings. If you in your actions leave this impression upon them,
you let a false, deceptive light lead them to ruin. The trumpet must
give a certain sound. There is a broad, clear, and deep line drawn by
the eternal God between the righteous and unrighteous, the godly and
the ungodly; between those who are obedient to God’s commandments
and those who are disobedient.
The ladder which Jacob saw in the night vision, the base of it
resting upon the earth and the topmost round reaching unto the highest
[271]
heavens; God himself above the ladder, and His glory shining upon
every round; angels ascending and descending upon this ladder of
shining brightness, is a symbol of constant communication kept up
between this world and heavenly places. God accomplishes His will