Appeal to Mothers
9
Mothers, it is a crime for you to allow yourselves to remain in
ignorance in regard to the habits of your children. If they are pure,
keep them so. Fortify their young minds, and prepare them to detest
this health and soul destroying vice. Shield them, as faithful mothers
should, from becoming contaminated by associating with every young
companion. Keep them, as precious jewels, from the corrupting influ-
ence of this age. If you are situated so that their intercourse with young
associates cannot always be overruled, as you would wish to have it,
then let them visit your children in your presence, and in no case allow
these associates to lodge in the same bed, or even in the same room. It
will be far easier to prevent an evil than to cure it afterward.
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If your children practice this vice, they may be in danger of resort-
ing to falsehood to deceive you. But, mothers, you must not be easily
quieted, and cease your investigations. You should not let the matter
rest until you are fully satisfied. The health and souls of those you
love are in peril, which makes this matter of the greatest importance.
Determined watchfulness, and close inquiry, notwithstanding the at-
tempts to evade and conceal, will generally reveal the true state of the
case. Then should the mother faithfully present this subject to them
in its true light, showing its degrading, downward tendency. Try to
convince them that indulgence in this sin will destroy self-respect and
nobleness of character; will ruin health and morals, and its foul stain
will blot from the soul true love for God, and the beauty of holiness.
The mother should pursue this matter until she has sufficient evidence
that the practice is at an end.
The course which most mothers pursue, in training their children
in this dangerous age, is injurious to their children. It prepares the
way to make their ruin more certain. Some mothers, with their own
hands, open the door and virtually invite the devil in, by permitting
their daughters to remain in idleness, or what is but little better, spend
their time in knitting edging, crocheting, or embroidering, and employ
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a hired girl to do those things their children should do. They let them
visit other young friends, form their own acquaintances, and even go
from their parental watchcare some distance from home, where they
are allowed to do very much as they please. Satan improves all such
opportunities, and takes charge of the minds of these children whom
mothers ignorantly expose to his artful snares. Because this course