Be Gentle with Them

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 20, 1872

Be Gentle with Them.

BE ever gentle with the children God has given you. Watch over them constantly. Reprove them earnestly, but not in anger. In the forcible language of Scripture, “Be not bitter against them.” “Yes, they are good boys,” I once heard a kind father say; “I talk to them very much, but do not like to beat my children—the world will beat them.” It was a beautiful thought. Yes, there is not one child in the circle round the table, healthy and happy as they look now, on whose head, if long enough spared, the storm will not beat. Adversity may wither them, sickness may fade, a cold world may frown on them. But amidst all, let memory carry them back to a home where the law of kindness reigned, where the mother’s reproving eye was moistened with a tear, and the father frowned, “more in sorrow than in anger.” —Sel.