have to your children, and you drive them to open a door for injurious influences, to affect their young minds, and before you awake to their danger, their minds have been poisoned by others. p. 130, Para. 2, [4SGb].
Satan and his host are making most powerful efforts to sway the minds of the children, and they must be treated with candor, Christian tenderness, and love. This will give you a strong influence over them, and they will feel that they can repose unlimited confidence in you. Throw around your children charms for home, and your society. If you do this, they will not desire so much the society of other young associates. Satan works through young associates to influence and corrupt the minds of each other. It is the most effectual way he can work. Young associates have a powerful influence over one another. Their conversation is not always choice and elevated. Evil communications will be breathed into the ear, which, if not decidedly resisted, find a lodgment in the heart, take root, and spring up to bear fruit, and corrupt their good manners. Because of the evils now in the world, and the restriction necessary to be placed upon the children, parents should have double care to bind them to their hearts, and let them see they wish to make them happy. p. 131, Para. 1, [4SGb].
Parents should not forget their childhood years, how much they yearned for sympathy and love, and how unhappy they felt when censured and fretfully chided. They should be young again in their feelings. You should bring your mind down to understand the wants of your children. With firmness, all mixed with love, require your children to obey you. Your word should be implicitly obeyed. p. 131, Para. 2, [4SGb].
Angels of God are watching the children with the deepest interest, to see what characters they develop. If Christ dealt with us as we often deal with each other, and with our children, we should stumble and fall through utter discouragement. I saw that Jesus knows our infirmities, and himself hath felt their experience in all things but in sin, therefore he hath proportioned a way and a path to our strength and capacity, and, like Jacob, hath marched softly and in evenness with the children as they were able to endure, that he might entertain us by the comfort of his company, and be to us a perpetual guide. He does not despise, neglect, or leave behind the children of the flock. p. 131, Para. 3, [4SGb].