The mothers of the present day are making the society of the future. How important that their children be so brought up that they shall be able to resist the temptations they will meet on every side in later life! (FE 159.1) MC VC

Whatever may be his calling and its perplexities, let the father take into his home the same smiling countenance and pleasant tones with which he has all day greeted visitors and strangers. Let the wife feel that she can lean upon the large affections of her husband,—that his arms will strengthen and uphold her through all her toils and cares, that his influence will sustain hers, and her burden will lose half its weight. Are the children not his as well as hers? (FE 159.2) MC VC

Let the father seek to lighten the mother’s task. In the time that he would devote to selfish enjoyment of leisure, let him seek to become acquainted with his children—associate with them in their sports, in their work. Let him point them to the beautiful flowers, the lofty trees, in whose very leaves they can trace the work and love of God. He should teach them that the God who made all these things loves the beautiful and the good. Christ pointed His disciples to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, showing how God cares for them, and presented this as an evidence that He will care for man, who is of higher consequence than birds and flowers. Tell the children that however much time may be wasted in attempts at display, our appearance can never compare, for grace and beauty, with that of the simplest flowers of the field. Thus their minds may be drawn from the artificial to the natural. They may learn that God has given them all these beautiful things to enjoy, and that He wants them to give Him the heart’s best and holiest affections. (FE 159.3) MC VC

Parents should seek to awaken in their children an interest in the study of physiology. Youth need to be instructed in regard to their own bodies. There are but few among the young who have any definite knowledge of the mysteries of life. The study of the wonderful human organism, the relation and dependence of all its complicated parts, is one in which most mothers take little if any interest. They do not understand the influence of the body upon the mind, or of the mind upon the body. They occupy themselves with needless trifles, and then plead that they have no time to obtain the information which they need in order to care properly for the health of their children. It is less trouble to trust them to the doctors. Thousands of children die through ignorance of the laws of their being. (FE 159.4) MC VC