When those weary mothers knew not what to do with their children, they thought that they would bring them to Jesus. And as one mother started, and would say to another, "I want Jesus to bless my children," then another would join the company, and still another, and so on until quite a little group came to Jesus with their children. As they came to where Jesus was, He caught the sound. He knew when they had first left. Jesus Christ sympathized with these mothers. As they brought their little ones to Jesus, He said, "Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God." Parents, take hold; the gates are ajar. {Temperance 289.3}
The tone of voice that you use is a means of educating your children. No one ever knows all the troubles that the little hands give. Mothers, there is One who knows all--that is, the God of heaven. Every day that you fulfill your duties, mothers, the words "Conqueror through Christ Jesus" are written opposite your names. {Temperance, Appendix B}
A Christian father is the house-band of his family, binding them close to the throne of God. Never is his interest in his children to flag. The father who has a family of boys should not leave these restless boys wholly to the care of the mother. This is too heavy a burden for her. He should make himself their companion and friend. He should exert himself to keep them from evil associates. {Review and Herald, July 8, 1902}
But how many mothers there are who are so far from God that they devote their time to their own gratification, and leave their children to be cared for by unconsecrated hands. Or perhaps the mother sits at her work night after night, while her children go to bed without a prayer or a good-night kiss...And is this as Go...d would have it? No, indeed!{Signs of the Times, January 14, 1886}
If you do not govern your children and mold their characters to meet the requirements of God, then the fewer children there are to suffer from your defective training the better it will be for you, their parents, and the better it will be for society. Unless children can be trained and disciplined from their babyhood by a wise and judicious mother who is conscientious and intelligent, and who rules her household in the fear of the Lord, molding and shaping their characters to meet the standard of righteousness, it is a sin to increase your family. God has given you reason, and He requires you to use it. {Adventist Home 164.1}
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. {The Adventist Home, 216}
Many a widowed mother with her fatherless children is bravely striving to bear her double burden, often toiling far beyond her strength in order to keep her little ones with her and to provide for their needs. Little time has she for their training and instruction, little opportunity to surround them with influences that would brighten their lives. She needs encouragement, sympathy, and tangible help.
God calls upon us to supply to these children, so far as we can, the want of a father's care. Instead of standing aloof, complaining of their faults, and of the trouble they may cause, help them in every way possible. Seek to aid the careworn mother. Lighten her burdens.' {The Ministry of Healing, 203}
Sow in the Mind Seeds of Bible Truth.--Between an uncultivated field and an untrained mind there is a striking similarity. In the minds of children and youth the enemy sows tares, and unless parents keep watchful guard, these will spring up to bear their evil fruit. Unceasing care is needed in cultivating the soil of the mind and sowing it with the precious seed of Bible truth. Children should be taught to reject trashy, exciting tales and to turn to sensible reading, which will lead the mind to take an interest in Bible story, history, and argument. Reading that will throw light upon the Sacred Volume and quicken the desire to study it is not dangerous, but beneficial. {Adventist Home 417.1
Why will mothers be so blind and negligent in the education of their daughters? I have been distressed, as I have visited different families, to see the mother bearing the heavy burden, while the daughter, who manifested buoyancy of spirit and had a good degree of health and vigor, felt no care, no burden. When there are large gatherings, and families are burdened with company, I have seen the mother bearing the burden, with the care of everything upon her, while the daughters are sitting down chatting with young friends, having a social visit. These things seem so wrong to me that I can hardly forbear speaking to the thoughtless youth and telling them to go to work. Release your tired mother. Lead her to a seat in the parlor and urge her to rest and enjoy the society of her friends. {1Testimonies 683.1}
But the daughters are not the ones to be blamed wholly in this matter. The mother is at fault. She has not patiently taught her daughters how to cook. She knows that they lack knowledge in the cooking department, and therefore feels no release from the labor. She must attend to everything that requires care, thought, and attention. Young ladies should be thoroughly instructed in cooking. Whatever be their circumstances in life, here is knowledge which may be put to a practical use. It is a branch of education which has the most direct influence upon human life, especially the lives of those held most dear. Many a wife and mother who has not had the right education and lacks skill in the cooking department is daily presenting her family with ill-prepared food which is steadily and surely destroying the digestive organs, making a poor quality of blood, and frequently bringing on acute attacks of inflammatory disease and causing premature death. {Testimonies for the Church Vol 1 Chap 115}
Marriage has received Christ's blessing, and it is to be regarded as a sacred institution. True religion does not counterwork the Lord's plans. God ordained that man and woman should be united in holy wedlock, to raise up families that, crowned with honour, would be symbols of the family in heaven. And at the beginning of His public ministry Christ gave His decided sanction to the institution that had been sanctioned in Eden. Thus He declared to all that He will not refuse His presence on marriage occasions, and that marriage, when joined with purity and holiness, truth and righteousness, is one of the greatest blessings ever given to the human family. Priests and popes have made laws forbidding people to marry, and secluding them in monasteries. These laws and restrictions were devised by Satan to place men and women in unnatural positions. Thus Satan has tempted human beings to disregard the law of marriage as a thing unholy, but at the same time he has opened the door for the indulgence of human passion. Thus have come into existence some of the greatest evils which curse our world,--adultery, fornication, and the murder of innocent children born out of wedlock. {Bible Echo, August 28, 1899 par. 5}
The heart-broken women who have inebriate husbands, if they do not die of cruel abuse or of outright horrible murder, do die from the effects of starvation, insufficient clothing, and a continual sense of degradation and shame through the poverty, want, and suffering that are consequent upon the drink habit. These poor women see their children suffering, despised, abused, debased. They see them hooted at because of their relation to their drunken fathers, and even the liquor-seller is not careful to refrain from adding insult to injury. Everything,--clothing, food, comfort, home, self-respect, happiness, and peace,--is swallowed up, and at last life itself is practically laid down, a sacrifice to the liquor-dealer. But every circumstance consequent upon this drink traffic is accurately traced in the ledger of heaven. {Review and Herald, May 15, 1894 par. 6}
No circumstance of birth or nationality, no condition of life, can turn away His love from the children of men. {The Desire of Ages 194}
God did not mean in his threatenings that children would be compelled to suffer for their parents' sins, but that the example of the parents would be imitated by their children. If the children of wicked parents should serve God and do righteousness, he would reward their right doing. But the effects of a sinful life by the parents are often inherited by the children. They follow in the footsteps of their parents. Sinful example has its influence from father to son, to the third and fourth generations. If parents indulge in depraved appetites, they will, in almost every case, see the same reproduced in their children. The children will develop characters similar to those of their parents. If parents are continually rebellious, and inclined to make void the law of God by precept and example, their children will generally pursue the same course. The example of God-fearing parents, who respect and honor by their own course of action God's rule of right, will be imitated by their children and their children's children; and thus the influence is seen from generation to generation. The commandments of God are only grievous to those who do not observe them. {Signs of the Times, June 3, 1880 par. 13}
Parents should have perfect control over their own spirits, and with mildness and yet firmness bend the will of the child until it shall expect nothing else but to yield to their wishes.
Parents do not commence in season. The first manifestation of temper is not subdued, and the children grow stubborn, which increases with their growth and strengthens with their strength. {Testimonies for the Church vol 1 chap 40}
Many times in the day is the cry of, Mother, mother, heard, first from one little troubled voice and then another. In answer to the cry, mother must turn here and there to attend to their demands. One is in trouble and needs the wise head of the mother to free him from his perplexity. Another is so pleased with some of his devices he must have his mother see them, thinking she will be as pleased as he is. A word of approval will bring sunshine to the heart for hours. Many precious beams of light and gladness can the mother shed here and there among her precious little ones. How closely can she bind these dear ones to her heart, that her presence will be to them the sunniest place in the world. {The Adventist Home Chap 39}
"Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." These precious words are to be cherished, not only by every mother, but by every father as well. These words are an encouragement to parents to press their children into His notice, to ask in the name of Christ that the Father may let His blessing rest upon their entire family. Not only are the best beloved to receive particular attention, but also the restless, wayward children, who need careful training and tender guidance. {Adventist Home 275.3}
We have no sympathy with that discipline which would discourage children by hard censure, or irritate them by passionate correction, and then, as the impulse changes, smother them with kisses, or harm them by injurious gratification. Excessive indulgence and undue severity are alike to be avoided. While vigilance and firmness are indispensable, so also are sympathy and tenderness. Parents, remember that you deal with children who are struggling with temptation, and that to them these evil promptings are as hard to resist as are those that assail persons of mature years. Children who really desire to do right may fail again and again, and as often need encouragement to energy and perseverance. Watch the working of these young minds with prayerful solicitude. Strengthen every good impulse; encourage every noble action. {Child Guidance 263.3}
Parents, do not neglect to impart to your children the very education they should have. Upon their birthdays, instead of calling their attention to themselves by giving them presents, teach them to come with an offering to God. It is a sad fact that there are many children who have been left to come up willful, disobedient, unthankful, and unholy,
yet whose birthdays are respected and honored with feasting and with gifts, when it would have been better had they never been born. Their birthdays might better be observed with fasting, clothing them with sackcloth, instead of making them occasions of amusement and giving gifts; for their steps are rapidly leading to perdition and ruin.
In many cases, birthday gifts have proved a detriment rather than a blessing. The children should be educated to look to God as the giver of life, their protector and their preserver, and to come to him with an offering for all his favors. Every opportunity should be employed to implant in their hearts right views of God and his love for us. Nothing should be done to foster in them vanity, self-esteem, or pride. Teach them to review the past year of their life, to consider whether they would be glad to meet its record just as it stands in the books of heaven. Encourage in them serious thoughts, whether their deportment, their words, their works, are of a character pleasing to God. Have they been making their lives more like Jesus, beautiful and lovely in the sight of God? Teach them the knowledge of the Lord, his ways, his precepts. "Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture." We want the children to learn to look away from self to heavenly things, there to bestow their thanksgiving. { Review and Herald 12-23-84 para. 6}
Could my voice reach the parents all through the land, I would warn them not to yield to the desires of their children in choosing their companions or associates. Little do parents consider that injurious impressions are far more readily received by the young than are divine impressions; therefore their associations should be the most favorable for the growth of grace and for the truth revealed in the word of God to be established in the heart. If children are with those whose conversation is upon unimportant, earthly things, their minds will come to the same level. If they hear the principles of religion slurred and our faith belittled, if sly objections to the truth are dropped in their hearing, these things will fasten in their minds and mold their characters. If their minds are filled with stories, be they true or fictitious, there is no room for the useful information and scientific knowledge which should occupy them. What havoc has this love for light reading wrought with the mind! How it has destroyed the principles of sincerity and true godliness, which lie at the foundation of a symmetrical character. It is like a slow poison taken into the system, which will sooner or later reveal its bitter effects. When a wrong impression is left upon the mind in youth, a mark is made, not on sand, but on enduring rock. {5Testimonies 544.2}
Kind words at home are blessed sunshine. The husband needs them, the wife needs them, the children need them. Now let us make a thanksgiving at home. How easy it might be for us to bring sunshine, mellow and beautiful, right into our homes, if our hearts were filled with the grace of God! This may be done by kind words and loving ministrations. If there had been more of them in the past, I believe that more of us would have come into this house with the praise of God in their hearts for his loving-kindness unto us and ours. {Review and Herald 1884, Dec 23}
Children who are under strict discipline will at times become impatient of restraint, and will wish to have their own way, and go and come as they please. Especially from the age of ten to eighteen, they will often feel that there would be no harm in attending gatherings of their young associates; yet their experienced parents can see danger. They are acquainted with the peculiar temperament of their children, and know the influence of these things upon their minds; and from a desire for their salvation, keep them back from these exciting amusements. When these children decide for themselves to leave the pleasures of the world, and become Christ's disciples, what a burden is lifted from the hearts of the careful, faithful parents. Yet even then the labor of the parents must not cease. The children should not be left to take their own course, and always choose for themselves. They have but just commenced in earnest the warfare against pride, passion, envy, jealousy, hatred, and all the evils of the natural heart. And parents need to watch and counsel their children, and decide for them, and to show them that if they do not yield cheerful, willing obedience to their parents and to God, it is impossible for them to be Christians. {Review and Herald, September 2, 1884 par. 10}
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