Counsels for the Church - Ellen G. White

When the children will beg that they may go to this company or join that
party of amusement, say to them: "I cannot let you go, children; sit right
down here, and I will tell you why. I am doing up work for eternity and for
God. God has given you to me and entrusted you to my care. I am standing
in the place of God to you, my children; therefore I must watch you as one
who must give an account in the day of God. Do you want your mother's
name written in the books of heaven as one who failed to do her duty to her
children, as one who let the enemy come in and preoccupy the ground that I
ought to have occupied? Children, I am going to tell you which is the right
way, and then if you choose to turn away from your mother and go into the
paths of wickedness, your mother will stand clear, but you will have to suffer
for your own sins."
This is the way I did with my children, and before I would get through,
they would be weeping, and they would say, "Won't you pray for us?" Well,
I never refused to pray for them. I knelt by their side and prayed with them.
Then I have gone away and have pleaded with God until the sun was up in
the heavens, the whole night long, that the spell of the enemy might be
broken, and I have had the victory. Although it cost me a night's labor, yet I
felt richly paid when my children would hang about my neck and say, "Oh,
Mother, we are so glad that you did not let us go when we wanted to. Now
we see that it would have been wrong."
Parents, this is the way you must work, as though you meant it. You
must make a business of this work if you expect to save your children in the
kingdom of God.
Never can the proper education be given to the youth in this country, or
any other country, unless they are separated a wide distance from the cities.
The customs and practices in the cities unfit the minds of the youth for the
entrance of truth.
249