The Children by MRS. S. N. HASKELL

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 2, 1914

The Children

By MRS. S. N. HASKELL

MRS. S. N. HASKELL

WHAT phase of home missionary work is more important than the salvation of the dear boys and girls in our own homes? In the early years of childhood, the mold is given to the entire life. Those who have given years of study to this subject tell us that the training and influence of the first eight or ten years of the child’s life shape its future career.

“Viewed from its human side, life is to all an untried path. It is a path in which, as regards our deeper experiences, we each walk alone. Into our inner life no other human being can fully enter. As the little child sets forth on that journey in which, sooner or later, he must choose his own course, himself deciding life’s issues for eternity, how earnest should be the effort to direct his trust to the sure Guide and Helper!”

Parents, you who have your little ones around you in your homes, are you instructing them to put their trust in God? Are you teaching them to pray? Are you taking their tiny hands and placing them in the hands of the infinite God?

In many so-called Christian homes there is no family altar. There is plenty of time for even the card table, but none for family prayer. The daily service around the family altar, if properly conducted, wields a mighty power. I experienced its power in my own life. When but a girl of thirteen, I was left an orphan, and, losing my hold on God, I drifted out of the fold of the church into the world; but the memory of my father kneeling at the family altar and daily committing the keeping of his children into the hands of God, prevented me from attending the theater and other worldly amusements. That memory kept me until father’s prayers were answered, and I was brought back into the sunlight of God’s love.

The richest legacy you can leave your children is, by a godly life and earnest prayer, so firmly to bind their hearts to the throne of the infinite God that the world and all its allurements can never sever the connection. Teach your children to pray, not simply to repeat the Lord’s Prayer as they would a beautiful poem, but teach them to go to God, as they come to you, with all their childish trials. It is the privilege of every mother to take the perfect faith that each child has in its parents, and connect it with the Heavenly Father.

But, alas! this is a lesson that few parents have learned. They themselves fail of receiving the blessing of real communion with God. They are in too great haste. “With hurried steps they press through the circle of Christ’s loving presence, pausing perhaps a moment within the sacred precincts, but not waiting for counsel.” They have no time to lay their burdens at the feet of the Divine Teacher, but return to their daily tasks with their burdens and perplexities.

If you wish to save your little ones from the evil of the world, you must instill into their childish minds a reverence for the Word of God. Take time to study the Bible with your children; teach them to go to its sacred pages for help.

“It is one thing to treat the Bible as a book of good moral instruction, to be heeded so far as is consistent with the spirit of the times and our position in the world; it is another thing to regard it as it really is,—the word of the living God, the word that is to mold our actions, our words, and our thoughts. To hold God’s Word as anything less than this is to reject it. And this rejection by those that profess to believe it, is foremost among the causes of skepticism and infidelity in the youth.”

When you tell your little ones the story of the three Hebrews walking in the midst of the fiery furnace, do not neglect to repeat to them the promise given by the prophet Isaiah over one hundred years before: “When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour.” Isa. 43:2, 3.

It was faith in this promise, taught those Hebrew youth at their mothers’ knees, that enabled them, before they entered the furnace, to fearlessly say: “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thy hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” Dan. 3:17, 18.

As your children leave the shelter of your homes, they are asked to worship idols of greed, lust, avarice, bribery, and intemperance. On every side the tempter beckons them to bow down to some of the many idols the enemy of their souls has set up. What are you doing to prepare them to face these temptations? Are you filling their young minds with the promises of God’s Word? Are you teaching them that every promise in the Bible is like a check signed by the infinite God, and if they present it in faith at the bank of heaven they will receive full value? Nothing but a firm trust in God

and his word will save our youth.

Jesus was a perfect pattern in childhood, youth, and manhood. Luke tells us of Jesus' obedience to his parents when a lad of twelve years. In the prophecy of Isaiah we have a glimpse of his childhood: 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.' Isa. 7:14, 15. From this we would infer that the control of appetite was a test in even the child life of Jesus. It was not the first victory won by Jesus over appetite when, weary and faint in the desert, he refused to satisfy his hunger at the dictates of Satan. May we not think that, as he was subject to his parents, Mary taught him self-control from childhood? What Mary did, every godly mother may do.

Let us notice the words of Isaiah again: 'Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.' In the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters of Proverbs we have three verses containing a rule for eating honey, which may apply equally well in eating all good food. They read as follows: First, 'My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste.' Second, 'Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee.' Third, 'It is not good to eat much honey. . . . He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.'

The secret of strength is in taking only a sufficient quantity of good food, and never touching that which is injurious. The one who is the master of his own desires will not plunge headlong into evil, but will have judgment to 'know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.'

Some thirty years ago I was a frequent visitor in two homes. In each family were two sturdy boys who, like most children, were often given candy. The way their mothers managed them will illustrate the principle. After the boys had eaten a sufficient quantity of the candy, one mother cheerily said, 'Boys, you have had enough for today; put it away until tomorrow.' The boys, who had been taught from babyhood to be the masters of their appetite, replied, 'All right, mamma,' and putting the candy away, went with bright faces to their play. The other mother, after the children had eaten sufficient, diverted their attention until she hid the candy from their sight. They at once began to cry and she to scold, and the boys left their mother with their little hearts filled with anger and rebellion.

Where are the four boys today? The mother that taught her boys, when mere babes, to be the masters of their appetites, and after they had eaten sufficient of that which they desired, to themselves place the remainder within their own reach and not touch it, sent her sons out into the world, not like a city broken down without walls, but like a fortified castle. They were the masters of their desires, and today fill places of trust, an honor to their parents. Where are the lads who were not taught self-control? Ah! I scarcely need tell you that they are with thousands of others who have been reared in the same manner—they are drunkards. Their mother sent them from her home into the world with all its allurements, helpless to withstand temptations; for 'he that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.'

While the baby sits in the high chair at the family table, he should be taught to master his own spirit. The mother who removes every tempting object beyond the reach of baby instead of teaching him to sit within reach of it without touching it, is failing to teach her child to rule his own spirit. If your child is allowed to grasp everything within reach that he fancies, perilous will be his fate when he stands face to face with the temptations of the world.

Only the one who is the master of his appetite is fortified for the conflicts of life. Appetite has always been a test. It was the test given our first parents, Adam and Eve, in the garden of Eden, and they failed. It was the test given our Saviour, the second Adam, in childhood, and when at the age of thirty he entered upon his life work. He gained the victory, and in his strength 'whosoever will' may be victorious.

The foundations of a victorious life may be laid by the mother, during the first eight years of childhood. Though the control of appetite is important, that will not insure the salvation of your children. Prayer, faith in God's word, and a mastery over self, will safely lead your little ones through this sin-cursed earth, to the gates of the city of God.

Mothers, what answer will you give when, standing face to face with the Judge of all the earth, he asks, 'Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?' Jer. 13:20. Happy the mother who, in that great day, can reply, 'Behold I and the children which God hath given me.' Heb. 2:13.