SABBATH-KEEPERS' CHILDREN.
By James White
WHAT can be done for our children? There is no use in contending the fact, that but a small portion of the children of Sabbath-keepers are forming characters for eternal life in the kingdom of God. While a very few are advancing, others are falling back, and many are pressing their way to ruin. And what is most alarming, is the fact that Bible truth, and the means of grace seem to affect the youth and children of Sabbath-keepers less and less. What can be done for our children? is a perplexing inquiry which has often come up. We might pause here and lament, but this would not help their condition. Shall we not rather try to point out some of the reasons of the sad state of things among our children, in hope that when the cause is removed, by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, the effects may cease. We are introducing a subject of most thrilling interest to parents and guardians—one on which volumes may well be written—which relates to their whole duty to children intrusted to their care from the cradle to manhood and woman-hood. We can only introduce it here, and touch upon a few points. We would first call attention to the A writer in the Michigan Journal of Education speaks pointedly and well upon this subject. Though probably not impressed with the truth, that all that can be done to save the dear youth and children of our land must be done immediately, yet from his words, many among us may gather lessons of the greatest importance. He says:— "Much has been said and written on the subject of teaching morals in schools. Eloquently have gifted and good men pleaded that the Word of God and the voice of Prayer should not be banished from our common schools; that the moral nature of the little child should not be left untrained while his intellect was unfolding into a power which no man may control. Many a thoughtful parent and citizen has looked with sadness and fear upon the evident depravities of the children of our public schools, and not a few have chosen to incur the trouble and expense of educating their children at home or in private schools, rather than trust them to the dreaded contamination. "Benevolent and christian teachers have studied the means of reformation and many a well considered plan of moral teachings has been proposed and tried. But still the evil continues unabated, and the public school is still a place of peril to all that is lovely in our little ones. Nor will any one be surprised at the obstinacy of the evil if he will but notice carefully the ordinary character of the surroundings and exercises of these schools. "The evil lies not so much in the lack of proper moral instruction as in the positive immoralities of our school-houses. A deathful, moral miasma lurks in the air of our public school-rooms and school-grounds which poisons every little heart and renders nugatory every moral lesson. Go with me to the school-house and see. "Let us pause first here, upon the play-ground, a wide open space filled with children of both sexes, with no fence to separate them, and no opportunities for seclusion. Listen as some rough, wicked boy utters, just loud enough to be heard by a party of little girls near at hand, some vulgar, obscene word, or indecent jest, or makes some still more indecent gesture, and mark the half suppressed laugh and blush of the little girls as they turn away, while the boys who may have heard it, laugh aloud in shameless glee. "That word implanted a terrible stain upon the purity of your beloved daughter, my good friend, and gave a wound to her maiden delicacy which you may well deplore. Remember that every day of school repeats such scenes as this. * But come a little farther. Visit the out-buildings of the school, if it has any. Look from the floor and seat to the walls. See how they are overwritten with pollution. "The very scriptures of vice are here. Do you wonder any longer at the more than brutish uncleanliness that leaves its mark so universally in the private buildings connected with hotels &c., throughout the land, and tells so loathsome a tale of American habits? How much of Bible reading and prayer and moral teachings will it take, think you, to efface these lessons of impurity from the mind of your little son or daughter? * "But let us enter the school-house, passing first to mark how on the door-posts and walls and every where these scriptures of immorality are written or engraved. The successive generations of the vile ones who are found mingled in every school, have left here the record of their progress in vice, and your cherished little daughter whom you have guarded so carefully at home has these records before her daily, through the long, impressive years of her school-life." * "But we have not done. Stay here among these scenes the whole hour the teacher is gone to his dinner. Witness the lawless play, the frequent bickerings and quarrels, the passionate and abusive words of some, the daring profanity of others, the vulgar story telling, the scandal learned in whatever home is vilest in the neighborhood, (and this home is not always the home of the poor,) the unchecked obscenity and vulgarity, and then say can you trust the child you love and whom you hope to train up to a pure and honest life, to such daily lessons as these. Remember that it is the least restrained and hence the worst children who frequent these noon-time revels; remember too that children are the most successful teachers of children, and that such is the awful downward gravitation of our nature that evil is learned a hundred fold easier than truth; that a child's hand may hurl downward a weight that a strong man cannot lift up again." But shall not our children be taught the common branches of education? Yes, if it be in our power to teach them, or have them taught, without sending them to these common nurseries of vice. Let all parents with the highest sense of their duty do the best they can to give their children a pure education. To take them from the common schools, and let them run at large with the children in the streets, is a still greater evil. "An empty brain is Satan's workshop." It would be far better to send children to our common schools, as demoralizing as they are, where their minds may be occupied with their studies during school hours, and where they may receive some good mixed with the bad, than to turn them out into the streets, where they can get no good, but learn the habits and vices of street sinners. The young mind unemployed without moral and religious training, is almost sure to be stored with a vicious education. But both these evils may be remedied. Our children may be separated from the poisonous influences of both school and street associations. In many locations Sabbath-keepers can employ pious and devoted teachers, who, with the united efforts of parents at home, can do much in leading their children in the path of virtue and holiness. What if it be extra expense? Will parents push their dear children into channels of vice, for the sake of saving a few shillings? God forbid! Mothers may be the best teachers of their little ones. Fathers can spend those hours, too often spent from home to worse than useless chit-chat, in teaching their sons and daughters. We would plead for the children, that they, at least, be taught to read and write the English language, and other common branches as far as possible, provided it can be done without exposing them to the corrupting influences of most of our schools. We as a people hold that it is necessary to separate ourselves from the world and the fallen churches, lest their associations becloud our minds and destroy our faith. This we regard as a scriptural position, and the only safe position for christian men and women in these perilous times. God's word has required Christians in all past time to separate themselves from the world; but how much more is this the duty of Christians in this corrupt age. If this be our duty, then we have a duty to do in this respect to our children. Shall we come out of Babylon, and leave our children behind? Shall we send them where is seen the boldest imprint of the filling up of the cup of her fury? Take care brother, sister, lest you call down upon your own heads, the displeasure of God, and the blood of your children. Separate your children from the world. Like Israel, gather them into your dwellings, and strike your door-posts with blood, for the destroying angels will soon be on their way, to "slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark." But the evils among our youth and children do not all arise from the bad influences of schools. There are some evils, some of them as bad as those found at schools. Many children, especially small children, are indulged above measure. Perhaps they are not corrected when they should be, or, if corrected at all, it is done in impatience, and in passion, so that the same spirit that moves the hand is whipped into the child. Such children grow up unsubdued, self-willed, and passionate. These evils follow many all the way up to manhood, and if they try to be Christians, their christian walk all through life is crooked now and then by stubbornness, passion and self-will. True piety, is a lovely and delicate personage. She never dwells with a family where passion is manifested by parents or children. How preposterous is it to suppose that the Holy Spirit will come down and dwell in a family where human passion inspired by Satan reigns. Our object is reform. Our business is to teach truth and correct error and wrong. And it becomes our painful duty to introduce subjects of an unpleasant nature. But duty must be performed, however much it may be against our natural inclinations. There are loose habits in some families which sow the seeds of vice in very young minds. We enter their sleeping-rooms and here are sometimes parents and half-grown children occupying the same rooms; or, what is common, boys and girls sleeping in the same room, and sometimes by their own mothers put in the same beds. What is considered a suitable excuse for so doing, is that occasional visitors fill all the other beds in the house, hence the children of both sexes are huddled together like so many young swine. Here in all probability were the first temptations, and the first black stains upon the pure young heart which finally resulted in breaking the seventh commandment. O, how careful parents should be in all their acts, and how chaste in all their conversation, lest they carelessly stain the minds of their innocent ones. Some parents instead of rebuking a visiting and courting spirit in their children at the age of fifteen or sixteen years, meet it with a poisonous joke, giving the idea that such things are very smart, and all right. We might here mention premature and improper marriages, and their consequent evil results, but space and time would fail us. Let parents do their duty in season and they are prevented. Some regard the childish feelings of their children in regard to marriage, even at the age of fifteen, as though it were so deep love that it would ruin them to interfere with their arrangements. Who, that has seen much of this world, has not been disgusted with these things? The manner in which the holy institution of marriage is abused, is one of the damning sins of this age. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the last generation, at the coming of the Son of man. "For as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage," &c. It was not sin to eat food convenient to sustain nature in the days of Noah, neither is it now; but gluttonness is no less a sin now than then. It was no sin to marry from pure motives in the days of Noah; neither is marriage wrong now with the fear of God and his glory in view. The great sin of the inhabitants of the old world which called down upon them the waters of the flood, is stated thus:—"And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all126which they chose. And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." Gen. vi. 1-4. "And they took them wives"—No fault could be found with proper marriages at that time. Then where was the sin? The next clause expresses it— "Of all which they chose." Their choice ruled ever. God, and his glory were not thought of, even in this event to which most depends in human life. "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord." There was no seeking unto him for direction. No waiting for the direction of his providence. But "they took them wives as they chose." We need only to add, that the above is a perfect representation of the present time in respect to marriage. And wherever is the greatest light, and the highest professions of faith in Christ's soon coming and of consecration of all to the cause of present truth, there lies the greatest sin in this respect. There are weighty considerations, which may be urged against believers in the soon coming of Christ contracting marriage while standing upon the last crumbling sands of time, which have not existed in past ages; yet there are doubtless cases where marriage betters the condition of both parties, and enables them better to act a part in the cause of truth. Marrying at a proper age, under proper circumstances is generally a blessing; but in many cases among us it proves the cause of backsliding from God, and renders many, who otherwise might be a blessing, of no use to the cause. We have undertaken the unpleasant task of pointing out evils to which many of the children of Sabbath-keepers are exposed, from a sense of duty. What we have stated we believe to be true, and we hope that all conscientious parents will ponder well these evils, and if they exist in any degree in their families, they will make vigorous efforts to remove them. Let this be imprinted in every heart, in every family, from the oldest to the youngest, "Thou God seest me."