20
Fundamentals of Christian Education
will expect temptations, and calculate to meet difficulties and dangers.
They should be taught to have control over themselves, and to nobly
overcome difficulties; and if they do not willfully rush into danger, and
needlessly place themselves in the way of temptation; if they shun evil
influences and vicious society, and then are unavoidably compelled to
be in dangerous company, they will have strength of character to stand
for the right and preserve principle, and will come forth in the strength
of God with their morals untainted. If youth who have been properly
educated, make God their trust, their moral powers will stand the most
powerful test.
But few parents realize that their children are what their example
and discipline have made them, and that they are responsible for the
characters their children develop. If the hearts of Christian parents
were in obedience to the will of Christ, they would obey the injunction
of the heavenly Teacher: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” If
those who profess to be followers of Christ would only do this, they
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would give, not only to their children, but to the unbelieving world,
examples that would rightly represent the religion of the Bible.
If Christian parents lived in obedience to the requirements of the
divine Teacher, they would preserve simplicity in eating and in dress-
ing, and would live more in accordance with natural law. They would
not then devote so much time to artificial life, in making for themselves
cares and burdens that Christ has not laid upon them, but that He has
positively bid them shun. If the kingdom of God and His righteous-
ness were the first and all-important consideration with parents, but
little precious time would be lost in needless outward ornamentation,
while the minds of their children are almost entirely neglected. The
precious time devoted by many parents to dressing their children for
display in their scenes of amusement would better, far better, be spent
in cultivating their own minds, in order that they may be competent
to properly instruct their children. It is not essential to the salvation
or happiness of these parents that they use the precious probationary
time that God has lent them, in dressing, visiting, and gossiping.
Many parents plead that they have so much to do that they have no
time to improve their minds, to educate their children for practical life,
or to teach them how they may become lambs of Christ’s fold. Not until
the final settlement, when the cases of all will be decided, and the acts