Which Shall It Be? by Mrs. D. A. Fitch

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 26, 1915

Which Shall It Be?

By Mrs. D. A. Fitch

MRS. D. A. FITCH

Two ladies were guests at my table. Mrs. Adams was the mother of children in their teens. Mrs. Paige had only one, a girl of two years. Some improper action on the part of little Edith rather exasperated the mother, at which she gave expression to the thought that when the child was older, she would not be so much trouble. Mrs. Adams, speaking from experience, said, “It is not wise to feel like that; for when she is older, you will have her on your heart as well as on your hands.”

Parents are quite disposed to expect that children who are very troublesome in babyhood will do better when older grown. All depends on the course pursued by the parents. The conscientious, God-fearing father and mother will do all in their power so to train and inform the child that it will be easy for him to do right, and contrary to his desires to do wrong.

Says the proverb: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

It was with great sorrow that one sincere Christian mother heard from her nature son these words of reproof: “Mother, if you had only told me, when I was a boy, the things I ought to have known, I should have been saved a world of trouble. As it is, I have had to fight many a hard battle all alone.”

May God give the parents of this denomination the grace needed to instill in the minds of their children a knowledge of right principles, coupled with an earnest desire to have them dominate the whole life.