A BAD FEATURE by E. H. Gates

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · June 17, 1880

FromThe Review and Herald, Vol. 55, No. 25

A BAD FEATURE.

By E. H. Gates

BY E. H. GATES.

ONE of the worst features of our times is the defective training of children, and the lack of properly restraining them. How hard it is for children who have always had their own way to submit to the requirements of the gospel and the law of God. Why is it that parents do not realize that early training largely determines the future destiny of their children? The Wise Man says, “Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Prov. 22: 6.

Many parents allow their children to grow up headstrong, and then wonder that they become as unmanageable as wild beasts. But this result is the legitimate fruit of such improper training. Very often more care is exercised in raising fine stock than in training those who, should time continue, are to be the future men and women of our country. If children are not restrained when young, they will not be when older.

Why do not parents spend more time in teaching the young minds to love truth and virtue, and to stand for the right in spite of the corrupting influences of the wicked world? Why is so much time spent in trimming and flouncing their apparel, which only fosters pride in them, and in preparing them to shine in society? Why is so little time spent in talking with them about Christ, and Heaven, and truth, and virtue? Why is there so much talk about accumulating wealth, thus surely instilling into their young minds the idea that this is all that is worth seeking for? Children learn very early what parents consider of the greatest value in this life.

In Ps. 144: 12 the object of parental training is set forth in the following beautiful and forcible figure: “That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace.” By proper training and pruning, a little sapling may develop into a beautiful, thrifty tree; but if neglected, it will grow up crooked and deformed. The expression, “polished after the similitude of a palace,” does not refer to that superficial polish, that empty formality, so common in our day; but to that true politeness which shows careful early training, and which is carried into the kitchen as well as into the drawing-room.

Among the heathen in the early days of Greece, children were particularly taught obedience, that they might be good, law-abiding citizens when they should grow older. Let Christian parents learn an important lesson from this. All who do not carry out the Scripture requirements on this point, will in the end suffer loss.