p. 46 | TO PARENTS by Ellet Joseph Waggoner

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 25, 1860

TO PARENTS.

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

THE duty of parents to their children does not consist alone in feeding and clothing them, but in training them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. While you feel that the coldness and indifference of former friends is as much as you can bear up under, with the grace of God to help you, don't forget the children. They, too, had their little friends and associates with whom they took much delight, but they are all cut off. The separating line has been drawn. The pleasure of school-days is gone. Many cannot attend school at all, and others that do, are made very unhappy. Instead of the love and kindness of their playmates, they hear nothing but taunts and reproaches. Poor children, how I have pitied them, when they have come to me with quivering lip and a broken heart, saying, "The children won't play with me. They say they don't love me—that my pa is deluded—he is an old Advent."

Now what is to be done to make up this loss they have sustained? They feel it, and know it, and it is no use to try to hide their eyes from it. A substitute must be provided or there is danger of their saying of the Sabbath, "What a weariness is it." It is not only required that we turn away our foot from the Sabbath, but also that we call it a delight. I have seen children keep the Sabbath only as an imposed task, and I could not blame them for it, because it brought no delight to them. They had no Sabbath-school to attend, no interesting instruction imparted to them at home, no good books to read, no, not even their own little paper that is prepared for them with so much care and interest, a copy of which ought to be in every Sabbath-keeper's house. The Lord has raised up those who feel an interest in the salvation of the children. But it depends much upon parents whether they will place this means of instruction within their reach. Encourage them to save means enough to take the little sheet as their own, and if two or three children in one family send for it, and love it for the spirit of its teachings, and obey its admonitions, they could not spend their money more profitably. Only think, this is the only thing in all the publications at this Office adapted to the understanding of a child. And will you deprive your children of the milk that is calculated to nourish them, and qualify them for the examination that they must soon pass? I know you will not. We expect all who love their children, all who love the truth, and look for the coming of Jesus, to send in their orders for the Instructor at the opening of the present volume.

E. J. WAGGONER.