2T 94, 253
(Testimonies for the Church Volume 2 94, 253)
Your children have come up, instead of being brought up and educated to the end that they might become Christians. In many respects your cattle have received better treatment than your children. You have not done your duty to your children, but have left them to grow up in ignorance. You have not realized the responsibility you took upon yourself in bringing into the world so numerous a flock, that you were in a great measure accountable for their salvation. You cannot throw off this responsibility. You have robbed your children of their rights by not interesting yourself in their education and instructing them patiently and faithfully in regard to forming characters for heaven. Your course has done much to destroy their confidence in you. You are exacting, overbearing, tyrannical; you fret, and scold, and censure, and by so doing wean their affections from you. You treat them as though they had no just rights, as though they were machines to turn in your hands according to your pleasure. You provoke them to wrath, and often discourage them. You do not give them love and affection. Love begets love, affection begets affection. The spirit which you manifest toward your children will be reflected upon you. (2T 94.1) MC VC
Battle Creek, Michigan. (2T 253) MC VC
Chapter 37—Severity in Family Government VC
Brother L (2T 253) MC VC
Last June I was shown that there is a work before you to correct your ways. You do not see yourself. Your life has been a mistake. You do not pursue a wise and merciful course in your family. You are exacting. If you continue to pursue the course that you have been pursuing toward your wife and children, her days will be shortened, and your children will fear, but not love, you. You feel that your course is in Christian wisdom, but in this you deceive yourself. (2T 253.1) MC VC
You have peculiar views in regard to managing your family. You exercise an independent, arbitrary power which permits no liberty of will around you. You think yourself sufficient to be head in your family, and feel that your head is sufficient to move every member, as a machine is moved in the hands of the workmen. You dictate and assume authority. This displeases Heaven and grieves the pitying angels. You have conducted yourself in your family as though you alone were capable of self-government. It has offended you that your wife should venture to oppose your opinion or question your decisions. (2T 253.2) MC VC
After much long-suffering on her part, and patient waiting upon your whims, she has rebelled against unjust authority, and has become nervous and distracted, and shown contempt for your course. You have made the most of these manifestations on her part, and have charged her with sin and being led by the spirit of the devil, when you were the one at fault. You drove her almost to desperation, and afterward taunted her with it. How easy it would have been for you to have made her life cheerful and pleasant. But it has been the opposite of this. (2T 253.3) MC VC