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The Ministry of Healing
little disappointments and trials. Instead of calling attention to every
trifling pain or hurt, divert their minds, teach them to pass lightly
over little annoyances or discomforts. Study to suggest ways by
which the children may learn to be thoughtful for others.
But let not the children be neglected. Burdened with many
cares, mothers sometimes feel that they cannot take time patiently to
instruct their little ones and give them love and sympathy. But they
should remember that if the children do not find in their parents and
in their home that which will satisfy their desire for sympathy and
companionship, they will look to other sources, where both mind
and character may be endangered.
For lack of time and thought, many a mother refuses her chil-
dren some innocent pleasure, while busy fingers and weary eyes are
diligently engaged on work designed only for adornment, something
that, at best, will serve only to encourage vanity and extravagance in
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their young hearts. As the children approach manhood and woman-
hood, these lessons bear fruit in pride and moral worthlessness. The
mother grieves over her children’s faults, but does not realize that
the harvest she is reaping is from seed which she herself planted.
Some mothers are not uniform in the treatment of their children.
At times they indulge them to their injury, and again they refuse
some innocent gratification that would make the childish heart very
happy. In this they do not imitate Christ; He loved the children; He
comprehended their feelings and sympathized with them in their
pleasures and their trials.
The Father’s Responsibility
The husband and father is the head of the household. The wife
looks to him for love and sympathy, and for aid in the training of the
children; and this is right. The children are his as well as hers, and
he is equally interested in their welfare. The children look to their
father for support and guidance; he needs to have a right conception
of life and of the influences and associations that should surround
his family; above all, he should be controlled by the love and fear of
God and by the teaching of His word, that he may guide the feet of
his children in the right way.