| The Joy of Service |
Chapter 6 |
Page 5 |
This work requires the best that is in the mother. She must teach her child the truth of God. In the ancient Jewish law the greatest stress was laid upon home instruction. Parents were commanded to teach the words of God continually to their children, until their very souls were saturated with the spirit of the holy precepts. Then there was but one book, – now there are many; but the duty of home instruction remains. No book should be permitted in the hands of children which would bring to them anything that is not the word of God. The mother should read the book before her child reads it, since she is set to hold for it the pattern of sound words in faith and love.
The home where children are growing up should be made as beautiful, as sweet, as pure, as full of love and gentleness and all holy inspirations, as it is possible to make any spot in this world. The good thing committed to the mother she is required to guard through the Holy Ghost. She cannot do her sacred work alone without Divine help; she needs the help of God continually, and must live near the heart of Christ, if she would be fitted for her holy ministry.
The same is true of all influence. It is part of the deposit which the Master has made with us, something which we are to cherish and guard most sacredly, and use to its last particle for the bettering, sweetening, and enriching of other lives. A good man on his last day wrote: “I die tonight; but the members of my own family and of my own circle of acquaintance will never be again as if I had not known them. My influence upon them for evil or for good will be perpetuated in them, and through them to others, modifying remote generations; it will live for evermore, enduring as the waters of the deep, with countless changes, a power throughout all ages.” Such a trust as this we must use with holy reverence.
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