Counsels for the Church - Ellen G. White

Chapter 24
The Christian Father and Mother
As you faithfully do your duty in the home, the father as a priest of the
household, the mother as a home missionary, you are multiplying agencies
for doing good outside of the home. As you improve your own powers, you
are becoming better fitted to labor in the church and in the neighborhood. By
binding your children to yourselves and to God, fathers and mothers and
children become laborers together with God.
The Sacredness of a Mother's Work
Woman should fill the position which God originally designed for her,
as her husband's equal. The world needs mothers who are mothers not
merely in name but in every sense of the word. We may safely say that the
distinctive duties of woman are more sacred, more holy, than those of man.
Let woman realize the sacredness of her work and in the strength and fear of
God take up her life mission. Let her educate her children for usefulness in
this world and for a home in the better world.
The wife and mother should not sacrifice her strength and allow her
powers to lie dormant, leaning wholly upon her husband. Her individuality
cannot be merged in his. She should feel that she is her husband's equal--to
stand by his side, she faithful at her post of duty and he at his. Her work in
the education of her children is in every respect as elevating and ennobling
as any post of duty he may be called to fill, even if it is to be the chief
magistrate of the nation.
The king upon his throne has no higher work than has the mother. The
mother is queen of her household. She has in her power the molding of her
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