It is the duty of men and women to act with reason in regard to their labour. They should not exhaust their energies unnecessarily, for by doing this they not only bring suffering upon themselves, but, by their74errors, bring anxiety, weariness, and suffering upon those they love. What calls for such an amount of labour? Intemperance in eating and in drinking, and the desire for wealth, have led to this intemperance in labour. If the appetite is controlled, and that food only which is healthful be taken, there will be so great a saving of expense that men and women will not be compelled to labour beyond their strength, and thus violate the laws of health. The desire of men and women to accumulate property is not sinful, if, in their efforts to attain their object, they do not forget God and transgress the last six precepts of Jehovah, which dictate the duty of man to his fellow-man, and place themselves in a position where it is impossible for them to glorify God in their bodies and spirits which are His. If, in their haste to be rich, they overtax their energies and violate the laws of their being, they place themselves in a condition where they cannot render to God perfect service, and are pursuing a course of sin. Property thus obtained is at an immense sacrifice.
Hard labour and anxious care often make the father nervous, impatient, and exacting. He does not notice the tired look of his wife, who has laboured, with her feebler strength, just as hard as he has laboured, with his stronger energies. He suffers himself to be hurried with business, and, through his anxiety to be rich, loses in a great measure the sense of his obligation to his family, and does not measure aright his wife’s power of endurance. He often enlarges his farm, requiring an increase of hired help, which necessarily increases the housework. The wife realises every day that she is doing too much work for her strength, yet she toils on, thinking the work must be done. She is continually reaching down into the future, drawing upon her future resources of strength,75and is living upon borrowed capital, and at the period when she needs that strength, it is not at her command; and if she does not lose her life, her constitution is broken past recovery.
A Mother’s Duties Should be Minimised
If the father would become acquainted with physical law, he might better understand his obligations and his responsibilities. He would see that he had been guilty of almost murdering his children, by suffering so many burdens to come upon the mother, compelling her to labour beyond her strength before their birth, in order to obtain means to leave for them. They nurse these children through their suffering life, and often lay them prematurely in the grave, little realising that their wrong course has brought the sure result. How much better to have shielded the mother of his children from wearing labour and mental anxiety, and let the children inherit good constitutions, and give them an opportunity to battle their way through life, not relying upon their father’s property, but upon their own energetic strength. The experience thus obtained would be of more worth to them than houses and lands purchased at the expense of the health of mother and children.
It seems perfectly natural for some men to be morose, selfish, exacting, and over-bearing. They have never learned the lesson of self-control, and will not restrain their unreasonable feelings, let the consequences be what they may. Such men will be repaid by seeing their companions sickly and dispirited and their children bearing the peculiarities of their own disagreeable traits of character.
It is the duty of every married couple to studiously avoid marring the feelings of each other. They should control every look and expression of fretfulness and76passion. They should study each other’s happiness, in small matters as well as in large, manifesting a tender thoughtfulness in acknowledging kind acts and the little courtesies of each other. These small things should not be neglected, for they are just as important to the happiness of man and wife as food is necessary to sustain physical strength. The father should encourage the wife and mother to lean upon his large affections. Kind, cheerful, encouraging words from him with whom she has intrusted her life happiness will be more beneficial to her than any medicine; and the cheerful rays of light which such sympathising words will bring to the heart of the wife and mother will reflect back their own cheering beams upon the heart of the father.
The husband will frequently see his wife careworn and debilitated, growing prematurely old, in labouring to prepare food to suit the vitiated taste. He gratifies the appetite, and will eat and drink those things which it costs much time and labour to prepare for the table, and which have a tendency to make those who partake of them nervous and irritable. The wife and mother is seldom free from headache, and the children are suffering the effects of eating unwholesome food, and there is a great lack of patience and affection with parents and children. All are sufferers together, for health has been sacrificed to lustful appetite. The offspring, before its birth, has had transmitted to it disease and an unhealthy appetite; and the irritability, nervousness, and despondency manifested by the mother will mark the character of her child.
In past generations, if mothers had informed themselves in regard to the laws of their being, they would have understood that their constitutional strength, as well as the tone of their morals and their mental faculties, would in a great measure be represented in their77offspring. Their ignorance upon this subject, where so much is involved, is criminal. Many women never should have become mothers. Their blood was filled with scrofula, transmitted to them from their parents, and increased by their gross manner of living. The intellect has been brought down and enslaved to serve the animal appetites, and children, born of such parents, have been poor sufferers, and of but little use to society.
Overworked Mothers Produce Race Degeneracy
It has been one of the greatest causes of degeneracy in generations back, up to the present time, that wives and mothers who otherwise would have had a beneficial influence upon society, in raising the standard of morals, have been lost to society through multiplicity of home cares, because of the fashionable, health-destroying manner of cooking, and also in consequence of too frequent child-bearing. She has been compelled to needless suffering, her constitution has failed, and her intellect has become weakened by so great a draught upon her vital resources. Her offspring suffer her debility, and thus a class is thrown upon society, poorly fitted, through the mother’s inability to educate them, to be of the least benefit.
If these mothers had given birth to but few children, and if they had been careful to live upon such food as would preserve physical health and mental strength, so that the moral and intellectual might predominate over the animal, they could have so educated their children for usefulness as to have made them bright ornaments to society.
If parents in past generations had, with firmness of purpose, kept the body servant to the mind, and had not allowed the intellectual to be enslaved by animal passions, there would be in this age a different order of78beings upon the earth; and if the mother, before the birth of her offspring, had always possessed self-control, realising that she was giving the stamp of character to future generations, the present state of society would not be so depreciated in character as at the present time.
Contentment
Every woman about to become a mother, whatever may be her surroundings, should encourage constantly a happy, cheerful, contented disposition, knowing that for all her efforts in this direction she will be repaid tenfold in the physical, as well as the moral, character of her offspring. Nor is this all. She can, by habit, accustom herself to cheerful thinking, and thus encourage a happy state of mind, and cast a cheerful reflection of her own happiness of spirit upon her family and those with whom she associates, and in a very great degree will her physical health be improved. A force will be imparted to the life springs, the blood will not move sluggishly, as would be the case if she were to yield to despondency and gloom. Her mental and moral health are invigorated by the buoyancy of her spirits. The power of the will can resist impressions of the mind, and will prove a grand soother of the nerves. Children who are robbed of that vitality which they should have inherited of their parents, should have the utmost care. By close attention to the laws of their being, a much better condition of things can be established.
The period during which the infant receives its nourishment from the mother is a critical one. Many mothers, while nursing their infants, have been permitted to over-labour and to heat their blood in cooking, and the nursling has been seriously affected, not only with fevered nourishment from the mother’s79breast, but its blood has been poisoned by the unhealthy diet of the mother, which has fevered her whole system, thereby affecting the food of the infant. The infant will also be affected by the condition of the mother’s mind. If she is unhappy, easily agitated, irritable, giving vent to outbursts of passion, the nourishment the infant receives from its mother will be inflamed, often producing colic, spasms, and, in some instances, causing convulsions and fits.
The character also of the child is more or less affected by the nature of the nourishment received from the mother. How important, then, that the mother, while nursing her infant, should preserve a happy state of mind, having the perfect control of her own spirit. By thus doing, the food of the child is not injured, and the calm, self-possessed course the mother pursues in the treatment of her child has very much to do in moulding the mind of the infant. If it is nervous and easily agitated, the mother’s careful, unhurried manner will have a soothing and correcting influence, and the health of the infant can be very much improved.
Infants Suffer Through Excessive Feeding
Infants have been greatly abused by improper treatment. If fretful, they have generally been fed to keep them quiet, when, in most cases, the very reason of their fretfulness was because of their having received too much food, made injurious by the wrong habits of the mother. More food only made the matter worse, for their stomachs were already overloaded.
Children are generally brought up from the cradle to indulge the appetite, and are taught that they live to eat. The mother does much toward the formation of the character of her children in their childhood. She can teach them to control the appetite, or she can80teach them to indulge the appetite and become gluttons. The mother often arranges her plans to accomplish a certain amount through the day, and when the children trouble her, instead of taking time to soothe their little sorrows, and divert them, something is given them to eat to keep them still, which answers the purpose for a short time, but eventually makes things worse. The children’s stomachs have been pressed with food, when they had not the least want of it. All that was required was a little of the mother’s time and attention. But she regarded her time as altogether too precious to devote to the amusement of her children. Perhaps the arrangement of her house in a tasteful manner for visitors to praise, and to have her food looked in a fashionable style, are with her higher considerations than the happiness and health of her children.
Dyspepsia and its Train of Evils
Intemperance in eating and in labour debilitates the parents, often making them nervous, and disqualifying them to rightly discharge their duty to their children. Three times a day parents and children gather around the table loaded with a variety of fashionable foods. The merits of each dish have to be tested. Perhaps the mother had toiled till she was heated and exhausted, and was not in a condition to take even the simplest food till she had first had a period of rest. The food she wearied herself in preparing was wholly unfit for her at any time, but especially taxes the digestive organs when the blood is heated and the system exhausted. Those who have thus persisted in violating the laws of their being have been compelled to pay the penalty at some period in their life.
There are ample reasons why there are so many nervous women in the world complaining of dyspepsia, with its train of evils. The cause has been followed by the effect. It is impossible for intemperate persons to be patient. They must first reform bad habits, learn to live healthfully, and then it will not be difficult for them to be patient. Many do not seem to understand the relation the mind sustains to the body. If the system is deranged by improper food, the brain and nerves are affected, and slight things annoy those who are thus afflicted. Little difficulties are to them troubles mountain high. Persons thus situated are unfitted to properly train their children. Their life will be marked with extremes. Sometimes they are very indulgent, at other times severe, censuring for trifles which deserve no notice.
The mother frequently sends her children from her presence, because she thinks she cannot endure the noise occasioned by their happy frolics. But with no mother’s eye over them to approbate or disapprove at the right time, unhappy differences often arise. A word from the mother would set all right again. They soon become weary, desire change, and go into the street for amusement; and pure, innocent-minded children are driven into bad company, and evil communications breathed into their ears corrupt their good manners. The mother often seems to be asleep to the interests of her children until she is painfully aroused by the exhibition of vice. The seeds of evil were sown in their young minds, promising an abundant harvest. And it is a marvel to her that her children are so prone to do wrong. Parents should begin in season to instil into infant minds good and correct principles. The mother should be with her children as much as possible, and should sow precious seed in their hearts.
The mother’s time belongs in a special manner to82her children. They have a right to her time which no others can have. In many cases mothers have neglected to discipline their children, because it would require too much of their time, which time they think must be spent in the cooking department, or in preparing their own clothing and that of their children, according to fashion, to foster pride in their young hearts. In order to keep their restless children still, they have given them cake or sweets, at almost any hour of the day, and their stomachs are crowded with hurtful things at irregular periods. Their pale faces testify to the fact that mothers are doing what they can to destroy the remaining life-forces of their poor children. The digestive organs are constantly taxed and are not allowed periods of rest. The liver becomes inactive and the blood impure; and the children are sickly and irritable, because they are real sufferers from intemperance, and it is impossible for them to exercise patience.
Parents wonder that children are so much more difficult to control than they used to be. In most cases their own mismanagement has made them so. The quality of food they bring upon their tables, and encourage their children to eat, is constantly exciting their animal passions and weakening the moral and intellectual faculties. Very many children are made miserable dyspeptics in their youth by the wrong course their parents have pursued toward them in childhood. Parents will be called to render an account to God for thus dealing with their children.
Many parents do not give their children lessons in self-control. They indulge their appetite, and suffer them to form in their childhood habits of eating and drinking according to their own desires. So will they be in their general habits in their youth. Their desires have not been restrained, and as they grow older they83will not only indulge in the common habits of intemperance, but they will go still further in indulgences. They will choose their own associates, although corrupt. They cannot endure restraint from their parents. They will give loose rein to their corrupt passions, and have but little regard for purity or virtue. This is the reason why there is so little purity and moral worth among the youth of the present day, and is the great cause why men and women feel under so little obligation to render obedience to the law of God. Some parents have not control over themselves. They do not control their own morbid appetites or their passionate tempers; therefore they cannot educate their children in regard to the denial of their appetite, and teach them self-control.
Errors in Education
During the first six or seven years of a child’s life special attention should be given to its physical training rather than the intellect. After this period, if the physical constitution is good, the education of both should receive attention. Infancy extends to the age of six or seven years. Up to this period children should be left, like little lambs, to roam around the house and in the yards, skipping and jumping in the buoyancy of their spirits, free from care and trouble.
Parents, especially mothers, should be the only teachers of such infant minds. They should not educate from books. The children will generally be inquisitive to learn the things of nature. They will ask questions in regard to the things they see and hear, and parents should improve the opportunity to instruct and patiently answer these little inquirers. They can in this manner get the advantage of the enemy, and fortify the minds of their children by sowing good seed in their hearts, leaving no room for the bad to take root.84The mother’s loving instruction is what is needed by children of a tender age in the formation of character.
The Child’s First Lesson
The first important lesson for children to learn is the proper denial of appetite. It is the duty of mothers to attend to the wants of their children by soothing and diverting their minds, instead of giving them food and thus teaching them that eating is the remedy for life’s ills.
If parents had lived healthfully, being satisfied with simple diet, much expense would have been saved. The father would not have been obliged to labour beyond his strength in order to supply the wants of his family. A simple, nourishing diet would not have had an influence to unduly excite the nervous system and the animal passions, producing moroseness and irritability. If he had partaken only of plain food, his head would have been clear, his nerves steady, his stomach in a healthy condition, and with a pure system he would have had no loss of appetite, and the present generation would be in a much better condition than it now is. But even now, in this late period, something can be done to improve our condition. Temperance in all things is necessary. A temperate father will not complain if he has no great variety upon his table. A healthful manner of living will improve the condition of the family in every sense, and will allow the wife and mother time to devote to her children. The great study with the parents will be in what manner they can best train their children for usefulness in this world and for heaven hereafter. They will be content to see their children with neat, plain, but comfortable garments, free from embroidery and adornment. They will earnestly labour to see their85children in the possession of the inward adorning, the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.
The Family Altar
Before the Christian father leaves his home to go to his labour, he will gather his family around him, and bowing before God will commit them to the care of the Chief Shepherd. He will then go forth to his labour with the love and blessing of his wife and the love of his children, to make his heart cheerful through his labouring hours. And that mother who is aroused to her duty will realise the obligations resting upon her to her children in the absence of the father. She will feel that she lives for her husband and children. By training her children aright, teaching them habits of temperance and self-control, and teaching them their duty to God, she is qualifying them to become useful in the world, to elevate the standard of morals in society, and to reverence and obey the law of God. Patiently and perseveringly will the godly mother instruct her children, giving them line upon line, and precept upon precept, not in a harsh, compelling manner, but in love and in tenderness; and thus will she win them. They will consider her lessons of love, and will happily listen to her words of instruction.
Amusements for Children
Instead of sending her children from her presence, that she may not be troubled with their noise and be annoyed with the numerous attentions they would desire, she will feel that her time cannot be better employed than in soothing and diverting their restless, active minds with some amusement or light, happy employment. The mother will be amply repaid for86the efforts she may make and the time she may spend to invent amusement for her children.
Young children love society. They cannot, as a general thing, enjoy themselves alone, and the mother should feel that, in most cases, the place for her children, when they are in the house, is in the room she occupies. She can then have a general oversight of them, and be prepared to set little differences right when appealed to by them, and correct wrong habits or the manifestation of selfishness or passion, and can give their minds a turn in the right direction. That which children enjoy, they think mother can be pleased with, and it is perfectly natural for them to consult mother in little matters of perplexity. And the mother should not wound the heart of her sensitive child by treating the matter with indifference, or by refusing to be troubled with such small matters. That which may be small to the mother is large to them. And a word of direction or caution, at the right time, will often prove of great value. An approving glance, a word of encouragement and praise from the mother, will often cast a sunbeam into their young hearts for a whole day.
The first education children should receive from the mother in infancy should be in regard to their physical health. They should be allowed only plain food, of that quality that will preserve to them the best condition of health, and that should be partaken of only at regular periods, not oftener than three times a day, and two meals would be better than three. If children are disciplined aright, they will soon learn that they can receive nothing by crying or fretting. A judicious mother will act in training her children, not merely in regard to her own present comfort, but for their future good. And to this end she will teach her children the important lesson of controlling the appe-87tite, and of self-denial, that they should eat, drink, and dress in reference to health.
A well-disciplined family who love and obey God will be cheerful and happy. The father, when he returns from his daily labour, will not bring his perplexities to his home. He will feel that home and the family circle are too sacred to be marred with unhappy perplexities. When he left his home, he did not leave his Saviour and his religion behind. Both were his companions. The sweet influence of his home, the blessing of his wife and love of his children, make his burdens light, and he returns with peace in his heart and cheerful, encouraging words for his wife and children, who are waiting to joyfully welcome his coming. As he bows with his family at the altar of prayer, to offer up his grateful thanks to God for His preserving care of himself and loved ones through the day, angels of God hover in the room, and bear the fervent prayers of God-fearing parents to heaven, as sweet incense, which are answered by returning blessings.
Parents should impress upon their children that it is sin to consult the taste to the injury of the stomach. They should impress upon their minds that by violating the laws of their being they sin against their Maker. Children thus educated will not be difficult of restraint. They will not be subject to irritable, changeable tempers, and will be in a far better condition for enjoying life. Such children will the more readily and clearly understand their moral obligations. Children who have been taught to yield their will and wishes to their parents will the more easily and readily yield their wills to God, and will submit to be controlled by the Spirit of Christ. Why so many who claim to be Christians have numerous trials, which keep the church burdened, is because they were not correctly trained in their childhood, but were left in a88great measure to form their own character. Their wrong habits and peculiar, unhappy dispositions were not corrected. They were not taught to yield their will to their parents. Their whole religious experience is affected by their training in childhood. They were not then controlled. They grew up undisciplined, and now, in their religious experience, it is difficult for them to yield to that pure discipline taught in the Word of God. Parents should, then, realise the responsibility resting upon them to educate their children in reference to their religious experience.
Those who regard the marriage relation as one of God’s sacred ordinances, guarded by His holy precept, will be controlled by the dictates of reason. They will consider carefully the result of every privilege the marriage relation grants. Such will feel that their children are precious jewels committed to their keeping by God, to remove from their natures the rough surface by discipline, that their lustre may appear. They will feel under most solemn obligations to so form their characters that they may do good in their life, bless others with their light, and the world be better for their having lived in it, and they be finally fitted for the higher life, the better world, to shine in the presence of God and the Lamb forever.