SOLEMN APPEAL TO PARENTS II

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 and passion. They should study each other's happiness, in small matters as well as in large, manifesting a tender thoughtfulness in acknowledging kind acts and 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 entrusted her life happiness will be beneficial to her than any medicine, and cheerful rays of light which such sympathizing words will bring to the heart of the wife and mother will reflect back their own cheering beams upon the heart of the father.

"A temperate father will not complain if he has no great variety upon his table. 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. “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 realize 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.

Men and women, by indulging the appetite with rich and highly- seasoned foods, especially flesh meat and gravies and by using stimulating drinks, as tea and coffee, create unnatural appetites. The system becomes fevered, the organs of digestion become injured, and the mental faculties are beclouded. The appetite becomes more unnatural and more difficult to restraint. The circulation is not equalized and the blood becomes impure. The whole system is deranged, and demands of appetite become more unreasonable, craving exciting, hurtful things, until it is thoroughly depraved. The indulgence of the appetite in first eating food highly seasoned created a morbid appetite, and prepared the way for every kind of indulgences, until health and intellect were sacrificed to lust.

Extracted from "Solemn Appeal" written by Ellen G. White.

SOLEMN APPEAL TO PARENTS I

A well-disciplined family who obey God will be cheerful and happy. The father, when he returns from his daily labour, will not bring his perplexities to his house, 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 burden 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 blessing.

The father should study how to make the mother happy. He should not allow himself to come to his home, with a clouded brow. If he is perplexed in business, he should not unless it is actually necessary to counsel with his wife, trouble her with such matters. She has cares and trails of her own to bear, and she should be tenderly spared every needless burden.

The desire of men and women to accumulate properly 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 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.

Parents should not increase their families any faster than they know that their children can be well cared for and educated. A child in the mother's from year to year in is a great injustice to her. It lessens, and often destroys, social enjoyment, and increases domestic wretchedness.

The husband violates the marriage vow and the duties enjoined upon him in the word of God when he disregards the health and happiness of the wife by increasing her burdens and cares by numerous offspring. "Husbands, love your wives even as Christ loved the church,(Ephesians 5:25) and gave Himself for it so ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no men ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherishedth it, even as the Lord the church."

Fathers, especially are often guilty of manifesting less care for wife and children than that shown to cattle. A merciful farmer will take time and devote special thoughts as to the best manner of managing his stock, and will be particular that his valuable horses shall not be over worked, overfed, or fed when heated, lest they ruined. He will take time and care for his stock lest they be injured by neglect, exposure, or any improper treatment and his increasing young stock depreciate in value. He will observe regular period for their eating, and will know the amount of word they can perform without injuring them. In order to accomplish this he will provide them only the most the healthful food, in proper quantities and at stated periods. By thus following the dictates of reasons farmers are successful in preserving the strength of their beasts. If the interest of every father for his wife and children corresponded to that care manifested for his cattle, in that degree their lives are more valuable than the dumb animals, there world be an entire reformation in every family and human misery be far less.