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Ministry of the Home
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effort for those who would work to improve society. There is no
more important field of effort than that committed to the founders
and guardians of the home. No work entrusted to human beings
involves greater or more far-reaching results than does the work of
fathers and mothers.
By the youth and children of today the future of society is deter-
mined, and what these youth and children shall be depends upon the
home. To the lack of right home training may be traced the larger
share of the disease, misery, and crime that curse humanity. If the
home life were pure and true, if the children who went forth from its
care were prepared to meet life’s responsibilities and dangers, what
a change would be seen in the world!
Great efforts are put forth, time and money and labor almost with-
out limit are expended, in enterprises and institutions for reforming
the victims of evil habits. And even these efforts are inadequate to
meet the great necessity. Small is the result, and few victims are
permanently reclaimed.
Multitudes long for a better life, but they lack courage and res-
olution to break away from the power of habit. They shrink from
the struggle and sacrifice demanded, and their lives are wrecked and
ruined. Thus even people with the brightest minds, people of high
aspirations and noble powers, who otherwise are fitted by nature and
education to fill positions of trust and responsibility, are degraded
and lost for this life and for the life to come.
Of those who do reform, many reap the harvest of their evil
sowing all their life in a shattered physical constitution, a wavering
will, impaired intellect, and weakened soul power. How much more
might be accomplished if the evil were dealt with at the beginning!
The Responsibility of Parents
This work rests, in a great degree, on parents. Intemperance and
other evils are eating like a cancer in the social body, but if more
attention were given to teaching parents how to form the habits and
character of their children, a hundredfold more good would result. It
is in their power to make habit, which is so terrible a force for evil,
into a force for good. Dealing with the stream at its source, it rests
with them to direct it rightly.