Two Ways of Training Children

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 16, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 16.

Two Ways of Training Children

HERE are the two ways of the dealings of parents with their children, and the results that follow each. Abraham commanded his children and they kept the way of the Lord, and an eternity of blessedness and joy came to Abraham and to his seed. Eli restrained not his children, and experienced the truth that children left to themselves bring their parents to shame; he forfeited the promise, and turned away from his house the blessing of God forever. In these two instances are illustrated two very important texts of Scripture. In Abraham, this one, "Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it." Prov. 22: 6. In Eli, this one, "The rod and reproof give wisdom; but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame." Prov. 29: 15. These texts are both strictly, literally, true, and neither of them more so than the other. But it would seem that if there is any one particular text of the Scriptures, the truth of which is doubted, it is this one of Prov. 22: 6.