Home and the School
55
Jesus loved the children. He remembered that He was once a child,
and His benevolent countenance won the affections of the little ones.
They loved to play around Him, and to stroke that loving face with
their innocent hands. When the Hebrew mothers brought their babes
to be blessed by the dear Saviour the disciples deemed the errand of
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too little importance to interrupt His teachings. But Jesus read the
earnest longing of those mothers’ hearts, and checking His disciples,
He said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto Me:
for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
Parents, you have a work to do for your children which no other
can do. You cannot shift your responsibilities upon another. The
father’s duty to his children cannot be transferred to the mother. If
she performs her own duty, she has burden enough to bear. Only by
working in unison, can the father and mother accomplish the work
which God has committed to their hands.
That time is worse than lost to parents and children which is de-
voted to the acquirement of wealth, while mental improvement and
moral culture are neglected. Earthly treasures must pass away; but
nobility of character, moral worth, will endure forever. If the work of
parents be well done, it will through eternity testify of their wisdom
and faithfulness. Those who tax their purses and their ingenuity to the
utmost to provide for their households costly apparel and dainty food,
or to maintain them in ignorance of useful labor, will be repaid only
by the pride, envy, willfulness, and disrespect of their spoiled children.
The young need to have a firm barrier built up from their infancy
between them and the world, that its corrupting influence may not
affect them. Parents must exercise increasing watchfulness, that their
children be not lost to God. If it were considered as important that the
young possess a beautiful character and amiable disposition as it is
that they imitate the fashions of the world in dress and deportment, we
would see hundreds where there is one today coming upon the stage
of active life prepared to exert an ennobling influence upon society.
The parents’ work of education, instruction, and discipline un-
derlies every other. The efforts of the best teachers must often bear
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little fruit, if fathers and mothers fail to act their part with faithfulness.
God’s word must ever be their guide. We do not endeavor to present a
new line of duty. We set before all the teachings of that word by which
our work must be judged, and we inquire, Is this the standard which