children

• must first master parent-child relationship

8:1.11It is enough of a reach of the ma­te­rial mind of the chil­dren of time to con­ceive of the Fa­ther in eter­nity. We know that any child can best re­late him­self to re­al­ity by first mas­ter­ing the re­la­tion­ships of the child-par­ent sit­u­a­tion and then by en­larg­ing this con­cept to em­brace the fam­ily as a whole. Sub­se­quently the grow­ing mind of the child will be able to ad­just to the con­cept of fam­ily re­la­tions, to re­la­tion­ships of the com­mu­nity, the race, and the world, and then to those of the uni­verse, the super­uni­verse, even the uni­verse of uni­verses.

• need fathers as well as mothers

47:1.6No as­cend­ing mor­tal can es­cape the ex­pe­ri­ence of rear­ing chil­dren—their own or oth­ers—ei­ther on the ma­te­rial worlds or sub­se­quently on the fi­nal­i­ter world or on Je­ru­sem. Fa­thers must pass through this es­sen­tial ex­pe­ri­ence just as cer­tainly as moth­ers. It is an un­for­tu­nate and mis­taken no­tion of mod­ern peo­ples on Uran­tia that child cul­ture is largely the task of moth­ers. Chil­dren need fa­thers as well as moth­ers, and fa­thers need this pa­ren­tal ex­pe­ri­ence as much as do moth­ers.

• do not dislodge c.’s ideals

48:6.32These an­gels are all in the chain of re­cord­ers ex­tend­ing from the low­est to the high­est cus­to­di­ans of the facts of time and the truths of eter­nity. Some day they will teach you to seek truth as well as fact, to ex­pand your soul as well as your mind. Even now you should learn to wa­ter the gar­den of your heart as well as to seek for the dry sands of knowl­edge. Forms are val­ue­less when lessons are learned. No chick may be had with­out the shell, and no shell is of any worth af­ter the chick is hatched. But some­times er­ror is so great that its rec­ti­fi­ca­tion by rev­e­la­tion would be fa­tal to those slowly emerg­ing truths which are es­sen­tial to its ex­pe­ri­en­tial over­throw. When chil­dren have their ide­als, do not dis­lodge them; let them grow. And while you are learn­ing to think as men, you should also be learn­ing to pray as chil­dren.

• Adjusterless c. reckoned still attached to parents

49:6.12Chil­dren who die when too young to have Thought Ad­justers are reper­son­al­ized on the fi­nal­i­ter world of the lo­cal sys­tems con­comi­tant with the ar­rival of ei­ther par­ent on the man­sion worlds. A child ac­quires phys­i­cal en­tity at mor­tal birth, but in the mat­ter of sur­vival all Ad­juster­less chil­dren are reck­oned as still at­tached to their par­ents.

• discipline › favorable to children

66:7.5The Prince’s staff lived to­gether as fa­thers and moth­ers. True, they had no chil­dren of their own, but the fifty pat­tern homes of Dala­ma­tia never shel­tered less than five hun­dred adopted lit­tle ones as­sem­bled from the su­pe­rior fam­i­lies of the An­donic and San­gik races; many of these chil­dren were or­phans. They were fa­vored with the dis­ci­pline and train­ing of these super­par­ents; and then, af­ter three years in the schools of the Prince (they en­tered from thir­teen to fif­teen), they were el­i­gi­ble for mar­riage and ready to re­ceive their com­mis­sions as emis­saries of the Prince to the needy tribes of their re­spec­tive races.

• should honor parents

66:7.157. You shall not show dis­re­spect to your par­ents or to the el­ders of the tribe.

• among primitives › girls killed prior to wife purchase
• among primitives › strangled at birth if deformed, sickly, premature

68:6.8The early races of­ten re­sorted to prac­tices de­signed to re­strict pop­u­la­tion; all prim­i­tive tribes killed de­formed and sickly chil­dren. Girl ba­bies were fre­quently killed be­fore the times of wife pur­chase. Chil­dren were some­times stran­gled at birth, but the fa­vorite method was ex­po­sure. The fa­ther of twins usu­ally in­sisted that one be killed since mul­ti­ple births were be­lieved to be caused ei­ther by magic or by in­fi­delity. As a rule, how­ever, twins of the same sex were spared. While these taboos on twins were once well-nigh uni­ver­sal, they were never a part of the An­don­ite mores; these peo­ples al­ways re­garded twins as omens of good luck.

• among primitives › illegitimate c. became wards of girl’s mother

68:6.9Many races learned the tech­nique of abor­tion, and this prac­tice be­came very com­mon af­ter the es­tab­lish­ment of the taboo on child­birth among the un­mar­ried. It was long the cus­tom for a maiden to kill her off­spring, but among more civ­i­lized groups these il­le­git­i­mate chil­dren be­came the wards of the girl’s mother. Many prim­i­tive clans were vir­tu­ally ex­ter­mi­nated by the prac­tice of both abor­tion and in­fan­ti­cide. But re­gard­less of the dic­tates of the mores, very few chil­dren were ever de­stroyed af­ter hav­ing once been suck­led—ma­ter­nal af­fec­tion is too strong.

• women naturally love babies more than men

69:3.21. Spe­cial­iza­tion based on sex. Woman’s work was de­rived from the se­lec­tive pres­ence of the child; women nat­u­rally love ba­bies more than men do. Thus woman be­came the rou­tine worker, while man be­came the hunter and fighter, en­gag­ing in ac­cen­tu­ated pe­ri­ods of work and rest.

• among primitives › were common property

70:3.1In the most prim­i­tive so­ci­ety the horde is ev­ery­thing; even chil­dren are its com­mon prop­erty. The evolv­ing fam­ily dis­placed the horde in child rear­ing, while the emerg­ing clans and tribes took its place as the so­cial unit.

• innocent c. share in consequences of parents’ follies

75:5.6The con­se­quences of the fol­lies of mis­guided par­ents are so of­ten shared by their in­no­cent chil­dren. The up­right and no­ble sons and daugh­ters of Adam and Eve were over­whelmed by the in­ex­pli­ca­ble sor­row of the un­be­liev­able tragedy which had been so sud­denly and so ruth­lessly thrust upon them. Not in fifty years did the older of these chil­dren re­cover from the sor­row and sad­ness of those tragic days, es­pe­cially the ter­ror of that pe­riod of thirty days dur­ing which their fa­ther was ab­sent from home while their dis­tracted mother was in com­plete ig­no­rance of his where­abouts or fate.

• 20 was age of choice for children of Adam

75:6.3The Edenic car­a­van was halted on the third day out from the Gar­den by the ar­rival of the se­raphic trans­ports from Je­ru­sem. And for the first time Adam and Eve were in­formed of what was to be­come of their chil­dren. While the trans­ports stood by, those chil­dren who had ar­rived at the age of choice (twenty years) were given the op­tion of re­main­ing on Uran­tia with their par­ents or of be­com­ing wards of the Most Highs of Nor­la­ti­adek. Two thirds chose to go to Eden­tia; about one third elected to re­main with their par­ents. All chil­dren of pre­choice age were taken to Eden­tia. No one could have be­held the sor­row­ful part­ing of this Ma­te­rial Son and Daugh­ter and their chil­dren with­out re­al­iz­ing that the way of the trans­gres­sor is hard. These off­spring of Adam and Eve are now on Eden­tia; we do not know what dis­po­si­tion is to be made of them.

• among primitives › c. belonged to mother in plural marriages

83:5.1In the early his­tory of mar­riage the un­mar­ried women be­longed to the men of the tribe. Later on, a woman had only one hus­band at a time. This prac­tice of one-man-at-a-time was the first step away from the promis­cu­ity of the herd. While a woman was al­lowed but one man, her hus­band could sever such tem­po­rary re­la­tion­ships at will. But these loosely reg­u­lated as­so­ci­a­tions were the first step to­ward liv­ing pair­wise in dis­tinc­tion to liv­ing herd­wise. In this stage of mar­riage de­vel­op­ment chil­dren usu­ally be­longed to the mother.

• among primitives › c. belonged to mother in plural marriages

83:7.1In the early evo­lu­tion of the mar­i­tal mores, mar­riage was a loose union which could be ter­mi­nated at will, and the chil­dren al­ways fol­lowed the mother; the mother-child bond is in­stinc­tive and has func­tioned re­gard­less of the de­vel­op­men­tal stage of the mores.

• among primitives › strangled at birth if deformed, sickly, premature

84:1.4Many early peo­ples as­so­ci­ated ghosts with the sea; hence vir­gins were greatly re­stricted in their bathing prac­tices; young women were far more afraid of bathing in the sea at high tide than of hav­ing sex re­la­tions. De­formed or pre­ma­ture ba­bies were re­garded as the young of an­i­mals which had found their way into a woman’s body as a re­sult of care­less bathing or through malev­o­lent spirit ac­tiv­ity. Sav­ages, of course, thought noth­ing of stran­gling such off­spring at birth.

• among primitives › mother’s interests always sacrificed for

84:7.10Love of off­spring is al­most uni­ver­sal and is of dis­tinct sur­vival value. The an­cients al­ways sac­ri­ficed the mother’s in­ter­ests for the wel­fare of the child; an Es­kimo mother even yet licks her baby in lieu of wash­ing. But prim­i­tive moth­ers only nour­ished and cared for their chil­dren when very young; like the an­i­mals, they dis­carded them as soon as they grew up. En­dur­ing and con­tin­u­ous hu­man as­so­ci­a­tions have never been founded on bi­o­logic af­fec­tion alone. The an­i­mals love their chil­dren; man—civ­i­lized man—loves his chil­dren’s chil­dren. The higher the civ­i­liza­tion, the greater the joy of par­ents in the chil­dren’s ad­vance­ment and suc­cess; thus the new and higher re­al­iza­tion of name pride comes into ex­is­tence.

• among primitives › primitives desired many

84:7.11The large fam­i­lies among an­cient peo­ples were not nec­es­sar­ily af­fec­tional. Many chil­dren were de­sired be­cause:

84:7.121. They were valu­able as la­bor­ers.

84:7.132. They were old-age in­sur­ance.

84:7.143. Daugh­ters were sal­able.

84:7.154. Fam­ily pride re­quired ex­ten­sion of name.

84:7.165. Sons af­forded pro­tec­tion and de­fense.

84:7.176. Ghost fear pro­duced a dread of be­ing alone.

84:7.187. Cer­tain re­li­gions re­quired off­spring.

• among primitives › calamity for ancestor worshipers not to have sons

84:7.19An­ces­tor wor­shipers view the fail­ure to have sons as the su­preme calamity for all time and eter­nity. They de­sire above all else to have sons to of­fi­ci­ate in the post-mortem feasts, to of­fer the re­quired sac­ri­fices for the ghost’s prog­ress through spir­it­land.

• discipline › began very early among ancients

84:7.20Among an­cient sav­ages, dis­ci­pline of chil­dren was be­gun very early; and the child early re­al­ized that dis­obe­di­ence meant fail­ure or even death just as it did to the an­i­mals. It is civ­i­liza­tion’s pro­tec­tion of the child from the nat­u­ral con­se­quences of fool­ish con­duct that con­tributes so much to mod­ern in­sub­or­di­na­tion.

84:7.21Es­kimo chil­dren thrive on so lit­tle dis­ci­pline and cor­rec­tion sim­ply be­cause they are nat­u­rally docile lit­tle an­i­mals; the chil­dren of both the red and the yel­low men are al­most equally tractable. But in races con­tain­ing And­ite in­her­i­tance, chil­dren are not so placid; these more imag­i­na­tive and ad­ven­tur­ous youths re­quire more train­ing and dis­ci­pline. Mod­ern prob­lems of child cul­ture are ren­dered in­creas­ingly dif­fi­cult by:

84:7.221. The large de­gree of race mix­ture.

84:7.232. Ar­ti­fi­cial and su­per­fi­cial ed­u­ca­tion.

84:7.243. In­abil­ity of the child to gain cul­ture by im­i­tat­ing par­ents—the par­ents are ab­sent from the fam­ily pic­ture so much of the time.

• having c. entails supreme responsibility

84:7.25The olden ideas of fam­ily dis­ci­pline were bi­o­logic, grow­ing out of the re­al­iza­tion that par­ents were cre­ators of the child’s be­ing. The ad­vanc­ing ide­als of fam­ily life are lead­ing to the con­cept that bring­ing a child into the world, in­stead of con­fer­ring cer­tain pa­ren­tal rights, en­tails the su­preme re­spon­si­bil­ity of hu­man ex­is­tence.

84:7.26Civ­i­liza­tion re­gards the par­ents as as­sum­ing all du­ties, the child as hav­ing all the rights. Re­spect of the child for his par­ents arises, not in knowl­edge of the obli­ga­tion im­plied in pa­ren­tal pro­cre­ation, but nat­u­rally grows as a re­sult of the care, train­ing, and af­fec­tion which are lov­ingly dis­played in as­sist­ing the child to win the bat­tle of life. The true par­ent is en­gaged in a con­tin­u­ous ser­vice-min­istry which the wise child comes to rec­og­nize and ap­pre­ci­ate.

• now are economic liabilities

84:7.27In the pres­ent in­dus­trial and ur­ban era the mar­riage in­sti­tu­tion is evolv­ing along new eco­nomic lines. Fam­ily life has be­come more and more costly, while chil­dren, who used to be an as­set, have be­come eco­nomic li­a­bil­i­ties. But the se­cu­rity of civ­i­liza­tion it­self still rests on the grow­ing will­ing­ness of one gen­er­a­tion to in­vest in the wel­fare of the next and fu­ture gen­er­a­tions. And any at­tempt to shift pa­ren­tal re­spon­si­bil­ity to state or church will prove sui­ci­dal to the wel­fare and ad­vance­ment of civ­i­liza­tion.

• love of c. not augmented by unwise pursuit of pleasure

84:8.4There is real dan­ger in the com­bi­na­tion of rest­less­ness, cu­rios­ity, ad­ven­ture, and plea­sure-aban­don char­ac­ter­is­tic of the post-And­ite races. The hunger of the soul can­not be sat­is­fied with phys­i­cal plea­sures; the love of home and chil­dren is not aug­mented by the un­wise pur­suit of plea­sure. Though you ex­haust the re­sources of art, color, sound, rhythm, mu­sic, and adorn­ment of per­son, you can­not hope thereby to el­e­vate the soul or to nour­ish the spirit. Van­ity and fash­ion can­not min­is­ter to home build­ing and child cul­ture; pride and ri­valry are pow­er­less to en­hance the sur­vival qual­i­ties of suc­ceed­ing gen­er­a­tions.

• among primitives › mothers once killed and ate c. to renew strength

89:5.4The taste for hu­man flesh grows. Hav­ing been started through hunger, friend­ship, re­venge, or re­li­gious rit­ual, the eat­ing of hu­man flesh goes on to ha­bit­ual can­ni­bal­ism. Man-eat­ing has arisen through food scarcity, though this has sel­dom been the un­der­ly­ing rea­son. The Es­ki­mos and early An­don­ites, how­ever, sel­dom were can­ni­bal­is­tic ex­cept in times of famine. The red men, es­pe­cially in Cen­tral Amer­ica, were can­ni­bals. It was once a gen­eral prac­tice for prim­i­tive moth­ers to kill and eat their own chil­dren in or­der to re­new the strength lost in child­bear­ing, and in Queens­land the first child is still fre­quently thus killed and de­voured. In re­cent times can­ni­bal­ism has been de­lib­er­ately re­sorted to by many African tribes as a war mea­sure, a sort of fright­ful­ness with which to ter­ror­ize their neigh­bors.

• among primitives › custom of sacrificing first-born

89:6.6A petty king in Pales­tine, in build­ing the walls of Jeri­cho, “laid the foun­da­tion thereof in Abi­ram, his first-born, and set up the gates thereof in his young­est son, Segub.” At that late date, not only did this fa­ther put two of his sons alive in the foun­da­tion holes of the city’s gates, but his ac­tion is also re­corded as be­ing “ac­cord­ing to the word of the Lord.” Moses had for­bid­den these foun­da­tion sac­ri­fices, but the Is­raelites re­verted to them soon af­ter his death. The twen­ti­eth-cen­tury cer­e­mony of de­posit­ing trin­kets and keep­sakes in the cor­ner­stone of a new build­ing is rem­i­nis­cent of the prim­i­tive foun­da­tion sac­ri­fices.

• among primitives › custom of sacrificing first-born

89:6.8The spec­ta­cle of Abra­ham con­strained to sac­ri­fice his son Isaac, while shock­ing to civ­i­lized sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ties, was not a new or strange idea to the men of those days. It was long a preva­lent prac­tice for fa­thers, at times of great emo­tional stress, to sac­ri­fice their first-born sons. Many peo­ples have a tra­di­tion anal­o­gous to this story, for there once ex­isted a world-wide and pro­found be­lief that it was nec­es­sary to of­fer a hu­man sac­ri­fice when any­thing ex­traor­di­nary or un­usual hap­pened.

• among primitives › custom of sacrificing first-born

89:7.1Moses at­tempted to end hu­man sac­ri­fices by in­au­gu­rat­ing the ran­som as a sub­sti­tute. He es­tab­lished a sys­tem­atic sched­ule which en­abled his peo­ple to es­cape the worst re­sults of their rash and fool­ish vows. Lands, prop­er­ties, and chil­dren could be re­deemed ac­cord­ing to the es­tab­lished fees, which were payable to the priests. Those groups which ceased to sac­ri­fice their first-born soon pos­sessed great ad­van­tages over less ad­vanced neigh­bors who con­tin­ued these atro­cious acts. Many such back­ward tribes were not only greatly weak­ened by this loss of sons, but even the suc­ces­sion of lead­er­ship was of­ten bro­ken.

• among primitives › custom of sacrificing first-born

89:7.3Even af­ter most groups had ceased the rit­ual killing of chil­dren, it was the cus­tom to put an in­fant away by it­self, off in the wilder­ness or in a lit­tle boat on the wa­ter. If the child sur­vived, it was thought that the gods had in­ter­vened to pre­serve him, as in the tra­di­tions of Sar­gon, Moses, Cyrus, and Ro­mu­lus. Then came the prac­tice of ded­i­cat­ing the first-born sons as sa­cred or sac­ri­fi­cial, al­low­ing them to grow up and then ex­il­ing them in lieu of death; this was the ori­gin of col­o­niza­tion. The Ro­mans ad­hered to this cus­tom in their scheme of col­o­niza­tion.

• alter egos of

91:3.1Chil­dren, when first learn­ing to make use of lan­guage, are prone to think out loud, to ex­press their thoughts in words, even if no one is pres­ent to hear them. With the dawn of cre­ative imag­i­na­tion they evince a ten­dency to con­verse with imag­i­nary com­pan­ions. In this way a bud­ding ego seeks to hold com­mu­nion with a fic­ti­tious al­ter ego. By this tech­nique the child early learns to con­vert his mono­logue con­ver­sa­tions into pseudo di­a­logues in which this al­ter ego makes replies to his ver­bal think­ing and wish ex­pres­sion. Very much of an adult’s think­ing is men­tally car­ried on in con­ver­sa­tional form.

• should honor parents

93:4.137. You shall not show dis­re­spect for your par­ents and el­ders.

• family life cannot be had without

99:4.2So­cial lead­er­ship is trans­formed by spir­i­tual in­sight; re­li­gion pre­vents all col­lec­tive move­ments from los­ing sight of their true ob­jec­tives. To­gether with chil­dren, re­li­gion is the great uni­fier of fam­ily life, pro­vided it is a liv­ing and grow­ing faith. Fam­ily life can­not be had with­out chil­dren; it can be lived with­out re­li­gion, but such a hand­i­cap enor­mously mul­ti­plies the dif­fi­cul­ties of this in­ti­mate hu­man as­so­ci­a­tion. Dur­ing the early decades of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury, fam­ily life, next to per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence, suf­fers most from the deca­dence con­se­quent upon the tran­si­tion from old re­li­gious loy­al­ties to the emerg­ing new mean­ings and val­ues.

• evaluate experience in accordance with pleasure

100:1.1While re­li­gion pro­duces growth of mean­ings and en­hance­ment of val­ues, evil al­ways re­sults when purely per­sonal eval­u­a­tions are el­e­vated to the lev­els of ab­so­lutes. A child eval­u­ates ex­pe­ri­ence in ac­cor­dance with the con­tent of plea­sure; ma­tu­rity is pro­por­tional to the sub­sti­tu­tion of higher mean­ings for per­sonal plea­sure, even loy­al­ties to the high­est con­cepts of di­ver­si­fied life sit­u­a­tions and cos­mic re­la­tions.

• permanently impressed only by loyalties of adults

100:1.4Chil­dren are per­ma­nently im­pressed only by the loy­al­ties of their adult as­so­ciates; pre­cept or even ex­am­ple is not last­ingly in­flu­en­tial. Loyal per­sons are grow­ing per­sons, and growth is an im­pres­sive and in­spir­ing re­al­ity. Live loy­ally to­day—grow—and to­mor­row will at­tend to it­self. The quick­est way for a tad­pole to be­come a frog is to live loy­ally each mo­ment as a tad­pole.

• first conflict is between altruism and egoism

103:2.7Moral choos­ing is usu­ally ac­com­pa­nied by more or less moral con­flict. And this very first con­flict in the child mind is be­tween the urges of ego­ism and the im­pulses of al­tru­ism. The Thought Ad­juster does not dis­re­gard the per­son­al­ity val­ues of the ego­is­tic mo­tive but does op­er­ate to place a slight pref­er­ence upon the al­tru­is­tic im­pulse as lead­ing to the goal of hu­man hap­pi­ness and to the joys of the king­dom of heaven.

• Jesus › said not to despise any c.

113:1.1The teach­ing about guard­ian an­gels is not a myth; cer­tain groups of hu­man be­ings do ac­tu­ally have per­sonal an­gels. It was in rec­og­ni­tion of this that Je­sus, in speak­ing of the chil­dren of the heav­enly king­dom, said: “Take heed that you de­spise not one of these lit­tle ones, for I say to you, their an­gels do al­ways be­hold the pres­ence of the spirit of my Fa­ther.”

• Jesus › forbidden to father c.

120:3.5“4. Un­der no cir­cum­stances and not even in the least de­tail, should you in­ter­fere with the nor­mal and or­derly pro­gres­sive evo­lu­tion of the Uran­tia races. But this pro­hi­bi­tion must not be in­ter­preted as lim­it­ing your ef­forts to leave be­hind you on Uran­tia an en­dur­ing and im­proved sys­tem of pos­i­tive re­li­gious ethics. As a dis­pen­sa­tional Son you are granted cer­tain priv­i­leges per­tain­ing to the ad­vance­ment of the spir­i­tual and re­li­gious sta­tus of the world peo­ples.

• Jesus › forbidden to father c.

120:3.8“7. While you will live the nor­mal and av­er­age so­cial life of the planet, be­ing a nor­mal in­di­vid­ual of the male sex, you will prob­a­bly not en­ter the mar­riage re­la­tion, which re­la­tion would be wholly hon­or­able and con­sis­tent with your be­stowal; but I must re­mind you that one of the in­car­na­tion man­dates of Sonar­ing­ton for­bids the leav­ing of hu­man off­spring be­hind on any planet by a be­stowal Son of Par­a­dise ori­gin.

• Jesus › played with c.

127:1.8He was a real though youth­ful fa­ther to the fam­ily; he spent ev­ery pos­si­ble hour with the young­sters, and they truly loved him. His mother grieved to see him work so hard; she sor­rowed that he was day by day toil­ing at the car­pen­ter’s bench earn­ing a liv­ing for the fam­ily in­stead of be­ing, as they had so fondly planned, at Je­ru­sa­lem study­ing with the rab­bis. While there was much about her son that Mary could not un­der­stand, she did love him, and she most thor­oughly ap­pre­ci­ated the will­ing man­ner in which he shoul­dered the re­spon­si­bil­ity of the home.

• Jesus › played with c.

127:3.8Sev­eral times a year, when vis­i­tors were not pres­ent thus to func­tion, Je­sus con­tin­ued to read the Sab­bath scrip­tures at the syn­a­gogue and many times of­fered com­ments on the les­son, but usu­ally he so se­lected the pas­sages that com­ment was un­nec­es­sary. He was skill­ful, so ar­rang­ing the or­der of the read­ing of the var­i­ous pas­sages that the one would il­lu­mi­nate the other. He never failed, weather per­mit­ting, to take his broth­ers and sis­ters out on Sab­bath af­ter­noons for their na­ture strolls.

• discipline › favorable to children

127:4.3Je­sus be­gan wise dis­ci­pline upon his broth­ers and sis­ters at such an early age that lit­tle or no pun­ish­ment was ever re­quired to se­cure their prompt and whole­hearted obe­di­ence. The only ex­cep­tion was Jude, upon whom on sundry oc­ca­sions Je­sus found it nec­es­sary to im­pose penal­ties for his in­frac­tions of the rules of the home. On three oc­ca­sions when it was deemed wise to pun­ish Jude for self-con­fessed and de­lib­er­ate vi­o­la­tions of the fam­ily rules of con­duct, his pun­ish­ment was fixed by the unan­i­mous de­cree of the older chil­dren and was as­sented to by Jude him­self be­fore it was in­flicted.

• Jesus › played with c.

128:6.10This year his sea­sons of deep med­i­ta­tion were of­ten bro­ken into by Ruth and her play­mates. And al­ways was Je­sus ready to post­pone the con­tem­pla­tion of his fu­ture work for the world and the uni­verse that he might share in the child­ish joy and youth­ful glad­ness of these young­sters, who never tired of lis­ten­ing to Je­sus re­late the ex­pe­ri­ences of his var­i­ous trips to Je­ru­sa­lem. They also greatly en­joyed his sto­ries about an­i­mals and na­ture.

128:6.11The chil­dren were al­ways wel­come at the re­pair shop. Je­sus pro­vided sand, blocks, and stones by the side of the shop, and be­vies of young­sters flocked there to amuse them­selves. When they tired of their play, the more in­trepid ones would peek into the shop, and if its keeper were not busy, they would make bold to go in and say, “Un­cle Joshua, come out and tell us a big story.” Then they would lead him out by tug­ging at his hands un­til he was seated on the fa­vorite rock by the cor­ner of the shop, with the chil­dren on the ground in a semi­cir­cle be­fore him. And how the lit­tle folks did en­joy their Un­cle Joshua. They were learn­ing to laugh, and to laugh heart­ily. It was cus­tom­ary for one or two of the small­est of the chil­dren to climb upon his knees and sit there, look­ing up in won­der­ment at his ex­pres­sive fea­tures as he told his sto­ries. The chil­dren loved Je­sus, and Je­sus loved the chil­dren.

128:6.12It was dif­fi­cult for his friends to com­pre­hend the range of his in­tel­lec­tual ac­tiv­i­ties, how he could so sud­denly and so com­pletely swing from the pro­found dis­cus­sion of pol­i­tics, phi­los­o­phy, or re­li­gion to the light­hearted and joy­ous play­ful­ness of these tots of from five to ten years of age. As his own broth­ers and sis­ters grew up, as he gained more leisure, and be­fore the grand­chil­dren ar­rived, he paid a great deal of at­ten­tion to these lit­tle ones. But he did not live on earth long enough to en­joy the grand­chil­dren very much.

• should honor parents

131:2.12“Says God, the cre­ator of heaven and earth: ‘Great peace have they who love my law. My com­mand­ments are: You shall love me with all your heart; you shall have no gods be­fore me; you shall not take my name in vain; re­mem­ber the Sab­bath day to keep it holy; honor your fa­ther and mother; you shall not kill; you shall not com­mit adul­tery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false wit­ness; you shall not covet.’

• love c. as God loves us

133:2.2And then, in bid­ding him farewell, Je­sus said: “My brother, al­ways re­mem­ber that man has no right­ful au­thor­ity over woman un­less the woman has will­ingly and vol­un­tar­ily given him such au­thor­ity. Your wife has en­gaged to go through life with you, to help you fight its bat­tles, and to as­sume the far greater share of the bur­den of bear­ing and rear­ing your chil­dren; and in re­turn for this spe­cial ser­vice it is only fair that she re­ceive from you that spe­cial pro­tec­tion which man can give to woman as the part­ner who must carry, bear, and nur­ture the chil­dren. The lov­ing care and con­sid­er­a­tion which a man is will­ing to be­stow upon his wife and their chil­dren are the mea­sure of that man’s at­tain­ment of the higher lev­els of cre­ative and spir­i­tual self-con­scious­ness. Do you not know that men and women are part­ners with God in that they co-op­er­ate to cre­ate be­ings who grow up to pos­sess them­selves of the po­ten­tial of im­mor­tal souls? The Fa­ther in heaven treats the Spirit Mother of the chil­dren of the uni­verse as one equal to him­self. It is God­like to share your life and all that re­lates thereto on equal terms with the mother part­ner who so fully shares with you that di­vine ex­pe­ri­ence of re­pro­duc­ing your­selves in the lives of your chil­dren. If you can only love your chil­dren as God loves you, you will love and cher­ish your wife as the Fa­ther in heaven hon­ors and ex­alts the In­fi­nite Spirit, the mother of all the spirit chil­dren of a vast uni­verse.”

• to enter kingdom, become as little

137:8.8“Those who first seek to en­ter the king­dom, thus be­gin­ning to strive for a no­bil­ity of char­ac­ter like that of my Fa­ther, shall pres­ently pos­sess all else that is need­ful. But I say to you in all sin­cer­ity: Un­less you seek en­trance into the king­dom with the faith and trust­ing de­pen­dence of a lit­tle child, you shall in no wise gain ad­mis­sion.

• Jesus › played with c.

138:8.9The dis­ci­ples early learned that the Mas­ter had a pro­found re­spect and sym­pa­thetic re­gard for ev­ery hu­man be­ing he met, and they were tremen­dously im­pressed by this uni­form and un­vary­ing con­sid­er­a­tion which he so con­sis­tently gave to all sorts of men, women, and chil­dren. He would pause in the midst of a pro­found dis­course that he might go out in the road to speak good cheer to a pass­ing woman laden with her bur­den of body and soul. He would in­ter­rupt a se­ri­ous con­fer­ence with his apos­tles to frat­er­nize with an in­trud­ing child. Noth­ing ever seemed so im­por­tant to Je­sus as the in­di­vid­ual hu­man who chanced to be in his im­me­di­ate pres­ence. He was mas­ter and teacher, but he was more—he was also a friend and neigh­bor, an un­der­stand­ing com­rade.

• naturally trustful

140:5.14It is easy to teach this ad­mo­ni­tion even to a child. Chil­dren are nat­u­rally trust­ful, and par­ents should see to it that they do not lose that sim­ple faith. In deal­ing with chil­dren, avoid all de­cep­tion and re­frain from sug­gest­ing sus­pi­cion. Wisely help them to choose their heroes and se­lect their life­work.

• natural urge to relieve suffering

140:5.172. “Happy are the mer­ci­ful, for they shall ob­tain mercy.” Mercy here de­notes the height and depth and breadth of the truest friend­ship—lov­ing-kind­ness. Mercy some­times may be pas­sive, but here it is ac­tive and dy­namic—su­preme fa­ther­li­ness. A lov­ing par­ent ex­pe­ri­ences lit­tle dif­fi­culty in for­giv­ing his child, even many times. And in an un­spoiled child the urge to re­lieve suf­fer­ing is nat­u­ral. Chil­dren are nor­mally kind and sym­pa­thetic when old enough to ap­pre­ci­ate ac­tual con­di­tions.

• easily taught to function as peacemakers

140:5.19Chil­dren can eas­ily be taught to func­tion as peace­mak­ers. They en­joy team ac­tiv­i­ties; they like to play to­gether. Said the Mas­ter at an­other time: “Whoso­ever will save his life shall lose it, but whoso­ever will lose his life shall find it.”

• discipline › children should early learn to sacrifice

140:5.22Chil­dren al­ways re­spond to the chal­lenge of cour­age. Youth is ever will­ing to “take a dare.” And ev­ery child should early learn to sac­ri­fice.

• have natural affection for fathers
• to enter kingdom, become as little

140:10.4This same evening Thomas asked Je­sus: “Mas­ter, you say that we must be­come as lit­tle chil­dren be­fore we can gain en­trance to the Fa­ther’s king­dom, and yet you have warned us not to be de­ceived by false proph­ets nor to be­come guilty of cast­ing our pearls be­fore swine. Now, I am hon­estly puz­zled. I can­not un­der­stand your teach­ing.” Je­sus replied to Thomas: “How long shall I bear with you! Ever you in­sist on mak­ing lit­eral all that I teach. When I asked you to be­come as lit­tle chil­dren as the price of en­ter­ing the king­dom, I re­ferred not to ease of de­cep­tion, mere will­ing­ness to be­lieve, nor to quick­ness to trust pleas­ing strangers. What I did de­sire that you should gather from the il­lus­tra­tion was the child-fa­ther re­la­tion­ship. You are the child, and it is your Fa­ther’s king­dom you seek to en­ter. There is pres­ent that nat­u­ral af­fec­tion be­tween ev­ery nor­mal child and its fa­ther which in­sures an un­der­stand­ing and lov­ing re­la­tion­ship, and which for­ever pre­cludes all dis­po­si­tion to bar­gain for the Fa­ther’s love and mercy. And the gospel you are go­ing forth to preach has to do with a sal­va­tion grow­ing out of the faith-re­al­iza­tion of this very and eter­nal child-fa­ther re­la­tion­ship.”

• discipline › favorable to children

142:2.4Then Je­sus went on to say: “When your chil­dren are very young and im­ma­ture, and when you must chas­tise them, they may re­flect that their fa­ther is an­gry and filled with re­sent­ful wrath. Their im­ma­tu­rity can­not pen­e­trate be­yond the pun­ish­ment to dis­cern the fa­ther’s farsee­ing and cor­rec­tive af­fec­tion. But when these same chil­dren be­come grown-up men and women, would it not be folly for them to cling to these ear­lier and mis­con­ceived no­tions re­gard­ing their fa­ther? As men and women they should now dis­cern their fa­ther’s love in all these early dis­ci­plines. And should not man­kind, as the cen­turies pass, come the bet­ter to un­der­stand the true na­ture and lov­ing char­ac­ter of the Fa­ther in heaven? What profit have you from suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions of spir­i­tual il­lu­mi­na­tion if you per­sist in view­ing God as Moses and the proph­ets saw him? I say to you, Ja­cob, un­der the bright light of this hour you should see the Fa­ther as none of those who have gone be­fore ever be­held him. And thus see­ing him, you should re­joice to en­ter the king­dom wherein such a mer­ci­ful Fa­ther rules, and you should seek to have his will of love dom­i­nate your life hence­forth.”

• discipline › favorable to children

142:7.94. Dis­ci­pline and re­straint. Farsee­ing fa­thers also make pro­vi­sion for the nec­es­sary dis­ci­pline, guid­ance, cor­rec­tion, and some­times re­straint of their young and im­ma­ture off­spring.

• discipline › favorable to children

143:1.4“I have come into this world to do the will of my Fa­ther and to re­veal his lov­ing char­ac­ter to all man­kind. That, my breth­ren, is my mis­sion. And this one thing I will do, re­gard­less of the mis­un­der­stand­ing of my teach­ings by Jews or gen­tiles of this day or of an­other gen­er­a­tion. But you should not over­look the fact that even di­vine love has its se­vere dis­ci­plines. A fa­ther’s love for his son of­ten­times im­pels the fa­ther to re­strain the un­wise acts of his thought­less off­spring. The child does not al­ways com­pre­hend the wise and lov­ing mo­tives of the fa­ther’s re­strain­ing dis­ci­pline. But I de­clare to you that my Fa­ther in Par­a­dise does rule a uni­verse of uni­verses by the com­pelling power of his love. Love is the great­est of all spirit re­al­i­ties. Truth is a lib­er­at­ing rev­e­la­tion, but love is the su­preme re­la­tion­ship. And no mat­ter what blun­ders your fel­low men make in their world man­age­ment of to­day, in an age to come the gospel which I de­clare to you will rule this very world. The ul­ti­mate goal of hu­man prog­ress is the rev­er­ent rec­og­ni­tion of the fa­ther­hood of God and the lov­ing ma­te­ri­al­iza­tion of the broth­er­hood of man.

• to enter kingdom, become as little

144:4.3In all pray­ing, re­mem­ber that son­ship is a gift. No child has aught to do with earn­ing the sta­tus of son or daugh­ter. The earth child comes into be­ing by the will of its par­ents. Even so, the child of God comes into grace and the new life of the spirit by the will of the Fa­ther in heaven. There­fore must the king­dom of heaven—di­vine son­ship—be re­ceived as by a lit­tle child. You earn righ­teous­ness—pro­gres­sive char­ac­ter de­vel­op­ment—but you re­ceive son­ship by grace and through faith.

• playing in the market place

144:8.7On this af­ter­noon Je­sus con­tin­ued to teach, say­ing: “But to what shall I liken this gen­er­a­tion? Many of you will re­ceive nei­ther John’s mes­sage nor my teach­ing. You are like the chil­dren play­ing in the mar­ket place who call to their fel­lows and say: ‘We piped for you and you did not dance; we wailed and you did not mourn.’ And so with some of you. John came nei­ther eat­ing nor drink­ing, and they said he had a devil. The Son of Man comes eat­ing and drink­ing, and these same peo­ple say: ‘Be­hold, a glut­tonous man and a winebib­ber, a friend of pub­li­cans and sin­ners!’ Truly, wis­dom is jus­ti­fied by her chil­dren.

• should honor parents

149:6.6“When chil­dren are young and un­think­ing, they must nec­es­sar­ily be ad­mon­ished to honor their par­ents; but when they grow older and be­come some­what more ap­pre­cia­tive of the ben­e­fits of the pa­ren­tal min­istry and pro­tec­tion, they are led up, through un­der­stand­ing re­spect and in­creas­ing af­fec­tion, to that level of ex­pe­ri­ence where they ac­tu­ally love their par­ents for what they are more than for what they have done. The fa­ther nat­u­rally loves his child, but the child must de­velop his love for the fa­ther from the fear of what the fa­ther can do, through awe, dread, de­pen­dence, and rev­er­ence, to the ap­pre­cia­tive and af­fec­tion­ate re­gard of love.

• to enter kingdom, become as little

149:6.11“You do well to be meek be­fore God and self-con­trolled be­fore men, but let your meek­ness be of spir­i­tual ori­gin and not the self-de­cep­tive dis­play of a self-con­scious sense of self-righ­teous su­pe­ri­or­ity. The prophet spoke ad­vis­edly when he said, ‘Walk humbly with God,’ for, while the Fa­ther in heaven is the In­fi­nite and the Eter­nal, he also dwells ‘with him who is of a con­trite mind and a hum­ble spirit.’ My Fa­ther dis­dains pride, loathes hypocrisy, and ab­hors in­iq­uity. And it was to em­pha­size the value of sin­cer­ity and per­fect trust in the lov­ing sup­port and faith­ful guid­ance of the heav­enly Fa­ther that I have so of­ten re­ferred to the lit­tle child as il­lus­tra­tive of the at­ti­tude of mind and the re­sponse of spirit which are so es­sen­tial to the en­trance of mor­tal man into the spirit re­al­i­ties of the king­dom of heaven.

• should honor parents

153:3.3Then one of the Je­ru­sa­lem spies who had been ob­serv­ing Je­sus and his apos­tles, said: “We no­tice that nei­ther you nor your apos­tles wash your hands prop­erly be­fore you eat bread. You must well know that such a prac­tice as eat­ing with de­filed and un­washed hands is a trans­gres­sion of the law of the el­ders. Nei­ther do you prop­erly wash your drink­ing cups and eat­ing ves­sels. Why is it that you show such dis­re­spect for the tra­di­tions of the fa­thers and the laws of our el­ders?” And when Je­sus heard him speak, he an­swered: “Why is it that you transgress the com­mand­ments of God by the laws of your tra­di­tion? The com­mand­ment says, ‘Honor your fa­ther and your mother,’ and di­rects that you share with them your sub­stance if nec­es­sary; but you en­act a law of tra­di­tion which per­mits un­du­ti­ful chil­dren to say that the money where­with the par­ents might have been as­sisted has been ‘given to God.’ The law of the el­ders thus re­lieves such crafty chil­dren of their re­spon­si­bil­ity, not­with­stand­ing that the chil­dren sub­se­quently use all such monies for their own com­fort. Why is it that you in this way make void the com­mand­ment by your own tra­di­tion? Well did Isa­iah proph­esy of you hyp­ocrites, say­ing: ‘This peo­ple hon­ors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they wor­ship me, teach­ing as their doc­trines the pre­cepts of men.’

• to enter kingdom, become as little

155:6.12You must cease to seek for the word of God only on the pages of the olden rec­ords of the­o­logic au­thor­ity. Those who are born of the spirit of God shall hence­forth dis­cern the word of God re­gard­less of whence it ap­pears to take ori­gin. Di­vine truth must not be dis­counted be­cause the chan­nel of its be­stowal is ap­par­ently hu­man. Many of your breth­ren have minds which ac­cept the the­ory of God while they spir­i­tu­ally fail to re­al­ize the pres­ence of God. And that is just the rea­son why I have so of­ten taught you that the king­dom of heaven can best be re­al­ized by ac­quir­ing the spir­i­tual at­ti­tude of a sin­cere child. It is not the men­tal im­ma­tu­rity of the child that I com­mend to you but rather the spir­i­tual sim­plic­ity of such an easy-be­liev­ing and fully-trust­ing lit­tle one. It is not so im­por­tant that you should know about the fact of God as that you should in­creas­ingly grow in the abil­ity to feel the pres­ence of God.

• angels care for
• Jesus › blessed the little c.
• whoso receives c. receives Jesus
• whosoever causes c. to stumble, better cast into sea

158:8.1En­ter­ing Ca­per­naum at twi­light, they went by un­fre­quented thor­ough­fares di­rectly to the home of Si­mon Pe­ter for their evening meal. While David Zeb­e­dee made ready to take them across the lake, they lin­gered at Si­mon’s house, and Je­sus, look­ing up at Pe­ter and the other apos­tles, asked: “As you walked along to­gether this af­ter­noon, what was it that you talked about so earnestly among your­selves?” The apos­tles held their peace be­cause many of them had con­tin­ued the dis­cus­sion be­gun at Mount Her­mon as to what po­si­tions they were to have in the com­ing king­dom; who should be the great­est, and so on. Je­sus, know­ing what it was that oc­cu­pied their thoughts that day, beck­oned to one of Pe­ter’s lit­tle ones and, set­ting the child down among them, said: “Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, ex­cept you turn about and be­come more like this child, you will make lit­tle prog­ress in the king­dom of heaven. Whoso­ever shall hum­ble him­self and be­come as this lit­tle one, the same shall be­come great­est in the king­dom of heaven. And whoso re­ceives such a lit­tle one re­ceives me. And they who re­ceive me re­ceive also Him who sent me. If you would be first in the king­dom, seek to min­is­ter these good truths to your breth­ren in the flesh. But whoso­ever causes one of these lit­tle ones to stum­ble, it would be bet­ter for him if a mill­stone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea. If the things you do with your hands, or the things you see with your eyes give of­fense in the prog­ress of the king­dom, sac­ri­fice these cher­ished idols, for it is bet­ter to en­ter the king­dom mi­nus many of the beloved things of life rather than to cling to these idols and find your­self shut out of the king­dom. But most of all, see that you de­spise not one of these lit­tle ones, for their an­gels do al­ways be­hold the faces of the heav­enly hosts.”

• should honor parents

163:2.4Then An­drew brought to Je­sus a cer­tain rich young man who was a de­vout be­liever, and who de­sired to re­ceive or­di­na­tion. This young man, Mata­dor­mus, was a mem­ber of the Je­ru­sa­lem San­hedrin; he had heard Je­sus teach and had been sub­se­quently in­structed in the gospel of the king­dom by Pe­ter and the other apos­tles. Je­sus talked with Mata­dor­mus con­cern­ing the re­quire­ments of or­di­na­tion and re­quested that he de­fer de­ci­sion un­til af­ter he had thought more fully about the mat­ter. Early the next morn­ing, as Je­sus was go­ing for a walk, this young man ac­costed him and said: “Mas­ter, I would know from you the as­sur­ances of eter­nal life. See­ing that I have ob­served all the com­mand­ments from my youth, I would like to know what more I must do to gain eter­nal life?” In an­swer to this ques­tion Je­sus said: “If you keep all the com­mand­ments—do not com­mit adul­tery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false wit­ness, do not de­fraud, honor your par­ents—you do well, but sal­va­tion is the re­ward of faith, not merely of works. Do you be­lieve this gospel of the king­dom?” And Mata­dor­mus an­swered: “Yes, Mas­ter, I do be­lieve ev­ery­thing you and your apos­tles have taught me.” And Je­sus said, “Then are you in­deed my dis­ci­ple and a child of the king­dom.”

• leaving c. for sake of kingdom

163:3.4And then said Pe­ter, “But, Mas­ter, we have left ev­ery­thing to fol­low you, what then shall we have?” And Je­sus spoke to all of the twelve: “Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, there is no man who has left wealth, home, wife, breth­ren, par­ents, or chil­dren for my sake and for the sake of the king­dom of heaven who shall not re­ceive man­i­fold more in this world, per­haps with some per­se­cu­tions, and in the world to come eter­nal life. But many who are first shall be last, while the last shall of­ten be first. The Fa­ther deals with his crea­tures in ac­cor­dance with their needs and in obe­di­ence to his just laws of mer­ci­ful and lov­ing con­sid­er­a­tion for the wel­fare of a uni­verse.

• parents are copartners with Makers in creating

167:5.7Af­ter Je­sus had talked about mar­riage and di­vorce, later on that evening his apos­tles pri­vately asked many ad­di­tional ques­tions, and his an­swers to these in­quiries re­lieved their minds of many mis­con­cep­tions. At the con­clu­sion of this con­fer­ence Je­sus said: “Mar­riage is hon­or­able and is to be de­sired by all men. The fact that the Son of Man pur­sues his earth mis­sion alone is in no way a re­flec­tion on the de­sir­abil­ity of mar­riage. That I should so work is the Fa­ther’s will, but this same Fa­ther has di­rected the cre­ation of male and fe­male, and it is the di­vine will that men and women should find their high­est ser­vice and con­se­quent joy in the es­tab­lish­ment of homes for the re­cep­tion and train­ing of chil­dren, in the cre­ation of whom these par­ents be­come co­part­ners with the Mak­ers of heaven and earth. And for this cause shall a man leave his fa­ther and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be­come as one.”

• kingdom of heaven is like

167:6.1That evening Je­sus’ mes­sage re­gard­ing mar­riage and the blessed­ness of chil­dren spread all over Jeri­cho, so that the next morn­ing, long be­fore Je­sus and the apos­tles pre­pared to leave, even be­fore break­fast time, scores of moth­ers came to where Je­sus lodged, bring­ing their chil­dren in their arms and lead­ing them by their hands, and de­sired that he bless the lit­tle ones. When the apos­tles went out to view this as­sem­blage of moth­ers with their chil­dren, they en­deav­ored to send them away, but these women re­fused to de­part un­til the Mas­ter laid his hands on their chil­dren and blessed them. And when the apos­tles loudly re­buked these moth­ers, Je­sus, hear­ing the tu­mult, came out and in­dig­nantly re­proved them, say­ing: “Suf­fer lit­tle chil­dren to come to me; for­bid them not, for of such is the king­dom of heaven. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, whoso­ever re­ceives not the king­dom of God as a lit­tle child shall hardly en­ter therein to grow up to the full stature of spir­i­tual man­hood.”

167:6.2And when the Mas­ter had spo­ken to his apos­tles, he re­ceived all of the chil­dren, lay­ing his hands on them, while he spoke words of cour­age and hope to their moth­ers.

167:6.3Je­sus of­ten talked to his apos­tles about the ce­les­tial man­sions and taught that the ad­vanc­ing chil­dren of God must there grow up spir­i­tu­ally as chil­dren grow up phys­i­cally on this world. And so does the sa­cred of­ten­times ap­pear to be the com­mon, as on this day these chil­dren and their moth­ers lit­tle re­al­ized that the on­look­ing in­tel­li­gences of Neb­a­don be­held the chil­dren of Jeri­cho play­ing with the Cre­ator of a uni­verse.

167:6.4Woman’s sta­tus in Pales­tine was much im­proved by Je­sus’ teach­ing; and so it would have been through­out the world if his fol­low­ers had not de­parted so far from that which he painstak­ingly taught them.

167:6.5It was also at Jeri­cho, in con­nec­tion with the dis­cus­sion of the early re­li­gious train­ing of chil­dren in habits of di­vine wor­ship, that Je­sus im­pressed upon his apos­tles the great value of beauty as an in­flu­ence lead­ing to the urge to wor­ship, es­pe­cially with chil­dren. The Mas­ter by pre­cept and ex­am­ple taught the value of wor­ship­ing the Cre­ator in the midst of the nat­u­ral sur­round­ings of cre­ation. He pre­ferred to com­mune with the heav­enly Fa­ther amidst the trees and among the lowly crea­tures of the nat­u­ral world. He re­joiced to con­tem­plate the Fa­ther through the in­spir­ing spec­ta­cle of the starry realms of the Cre­ator Sons.

167:6.6When it is not pos­si­ble to wor­ship God in the taber­na­cles of na­ture, men should do their best to pro­vide houses of beauty, sanc­tu­ar­ies of ap­peal­ing sim­plic­ity and artis­tic em­bel­lish­ment, so that the high­est of hu­man emo­tions may be aroused in as­so­ci­a­tion with the in­tel­lec­tual ap­proach to spir­i­tual com­mu­nion with God. Truth, beauty, and ho­li­ness are pow­er­ful and ef­fec­tive aids to true wor­ship. But spirit com­mu­nion is not pro­moted by mere mas­sive or­nate­ness and over­much em­bel­lish­ment with man’s elab­o­rate and os­ten­ta­tious art. Beauty is most re­li­gious when it is most sim­ple and na­ture­like. How un­for­tu­nate that lit­tle chil­dren should have their first in­tro­duc­tion to con­cepts of pub­lic wor­ship in cold and bar­ren rooms so de­void of the beauty ap­peal and so empty of all sug­ges­tion of good cheer and in­spir­ing ho­li­ness! The child should be in­tro­duced to wor­ship in na­ture’s out­doors and later ac­com­pany his par­ents to pub­lic houses of re­li­gious as­sem­bly which are at least as ma­te­ri­ally at­trac­tive and ar­tis­ti­cally beau­ti­ful as the home in which he is daily domi­ciled.

• of world wiser than c. of kingdom

169:2.1One evening Si­mon Ze­lo­tes, com­ment­ing on one of Je­sus’ state­ments, said: “Mas­ter, what did you mean when you said to­day that many of the chil­dren of the world are wiser in their gen­er­a­tion than are the chil­dren of the king­dom since they are skill­ful in mak­ing friends with the mam­mon of un­righ­teous­ness?” Je­sus an­swered:

• of world wiser than c. of kingdom

169:2.5“And it is in this way that the sons of this world some­times show more wis­dom in their prepa­ra­tion for the fu­ture than do the chil­dren of light. I say to you who pro­fess to be ac­quir­ing trea­sure in heaven: Take lessons from those who make friends with the mam­mon of un­righ­teous­ness, and like­wise so con­duct your lives that you make eter­nal friend­ship with the forces of righ­teous­ness in or­der that, when all things earthly fail, you shall be joy­fully re­ceived into the eter­nal habi­ta­tions.

• to enter kingdom, become as little

170:2.211. Faith, sin­cer­ity. To come as a lit­tle child, to re­ceive the be­stowal of son­ship as a gift; to sub­mit to the do­ing of the Fa­ther’s will with­out ques­tion­ing and in the full con­fi­dence and gen­uine trust­ful­ness of the Fa­ther’s wis­dom; to come into the king­dom free from prej­u­dice and pre­con­cep­tion; to be open-minded and teach­able like an un­spoiled child.

• to enter kingdom, become as little

170:3.2Though Je­sus taught that faith, sim­ple child­like be­lief, is the key to the door of the king­dom, he also taught that, hav­ing en­tered the door, there are the pro­gres­sive steps of righ­teous­ness which ev­ery be­liev­ing child must as­cend in or­der to grow up to the full stature of the ro­bust sons of God.

• leaving c. for sake of kingdom

171:2.2“You who would fol­low af­ter me from this time on, must be will­ing to pay the price of whole­hearted ded­i­ca­tion to the do­ing of my Fa­ther’s will. If you would be my dis­ci­ples, you must be will­ing to for­sake fa­ther, mother, wife, chil­dren, broth­ers, and sis­ters. If any one of you would now be my dis­ci­ple, you must be will­ing to give up even your life just as the Son of Man is about to of­fer up his life for the com­ple­tion of the mis­sion of do­ing the Fa­ther’s will on earth and in the flesh.

• Jesus › played with c.

172:1.4The ban­quet went along in a very cheer­ful and nor­mal man­ner ex­cept that all the apos­tles were un­usu­ally sober. Je­sus was ex­cep­tion­ally cheer­ful and had been play­ing with the chil­dren up to the time of com­ing to the ta­ble.

• affectionate parents never called upon to forgive

174:1.2Af­ter a short si­lence Je­sus looked sig­nif­i­cantly at all four and an­swered: “My breth­ren, you err in your opin­ions be­cause you do not com­pre­hend the na­ture of those in­ti­mate and lov­ing re­la­tions be­tween the crea­ture and the Cre­ator, be­tween man and God. You fail to grasp that un­der­stand­ing sym­pa­thy which the wise par­ent en­ter­tains for his im­ma­ture and some­times erring child. It is in­deed doubt­ful whether in­tel­li­gent and af­fec­tion­ate par­ents are ever called upon to for­give an av­er­age and nor­mal child. Un­der­stand­ing re­la­tion­ships as­so­ci­ated with at­ti­tudes of love ef­fec­tively pre­vent all those es­trange­ments which later ne­ces­si­tate the read­just­ment of re­pen­tance by the child with for­give­ness by the par­ent.

• importance of early home life
• wholly dependent on parents for all early concepts

177:2.5For more than an hour Je­sus and John con­tin­ued this dis­cus­sion of home life. The Mas­ter went on to ex­plain to John how a child is wholly de­pen­dent on his par­ents and the as­so­ci­ated home life for all his early con­cepts of ev­ery­thing in­tel­lec­tual, so­cial, moral, and even spir­i­tual since the fam­ily rep­re­sents to the young child all that he can first know of ei­ther hu­man or di­vine re­la­tion­ships. The child must de­rive his first im­pres­sions of the uni­verse from the mother’s care; he is wholly de­pen­dent on the earthly fa­ther for his first ideas of the heav­enly Fa­ther. The child’s sub­se­quent life is made happy or un­happy, easy or dif­fi­cult, in ac­cor­dance with his early men­tal and emo­tional life, con­di­tioned by these so­cial and spir­i­tual re­la­tion­ships of the home. A hu­man be­ing’s en­tire af­ter­life is enor­mously in­flu­enced by what hap­pens dur­ing the first few years of ex­is­tence.

• discipline › favorable to children

177:2.7It is true that many of the ob­jec­tion­able stunt­ing in­flu­ences and other cramp­ing fea­tures of these olden Jew­ish homes have been vir­tu­ally elim­i­nated from many of the bet­ter-reg­u­lated mod­ern homes. There is, in­deed, more spon­ta­neous free­dom and far more per­sonal lib­erty, but this lib­erty is not re­strained by love, mo­ti­vated by loy­alty, nor di­rected by the in­tel­li­gent dis­ci­pline of wis­dom. As long as we teach the child to pray, “Our Fa­ther who is in heaven,” a tremen­dous re­spon­si­bil­ity rests upon all earthly fa­thers so to live and or­der their homes that the word fa­ther be­comes worthily en­shrined in the minds and hearts of all grow­ing chil­dren.

• to enter kingdom, become as little

181:2.20And then Je­sus went over to Philip, who, stand­ing up, heard this mes­sage from his Mas­ter: “Philip, you have asked me many fool­ish ques­tions, but I have done my ut­most to an­swer ev­ery one, and now would I an­swer the last of such ques­tion­ings which have arisen in your most hon­est but un­spir­i­tual mind. All the time I have been com­ing around to­ward you, have you been say­ing to your­self, ‘What shall I ever do if the Mas­ter goes away and leaves us alone in the world?’ O, you of lit­tle faith! And yet you have al­most as much as many of your breth­ren. You have been a good stew­ard, Philip. You failed us only a few times, and one of those fail­ures we uti­lized to man­i­fest the Fa­ther’s glory. Your of­fice of stew­ard­ship is about over. You must soon more fully do the work you were called to do—the preach­ing of this gospel of the king­dom. Philip, you have al­ways wanted to be shown, and very soon shall you see great things. Far bet­ter that you should have seen all this by faith, but since you were sin­cere even in your ma­te­rial sight­ed­ness, you will live to see my words ful­filled. And then, when you are blessed with spir­i­tual vi­sion, go forth to your work, ded­i­cat­ing your life to the cause of lead­ing man­kind to search for God and to seek eter­nal re­al­i­ties with the eye of spir­i­tual faith and not with the eyes of the ma­te­rial mind. Re­mem­ber, Philip, you have a great mis­sion on earth, for the world is filled with those who look at life just as you have tended to. You have a great work to do, and when it is fin­ished in faith, you shall come to me in my king­dom, and I will take great plea­sure in show­ing you that which eye has not seen, ear heard, nor the mor­tal mind con­ceived. In the mean­time, be­come as a lit­tle child in the king­dom of the spirit and per­mit me, as the spirit of the new teacher, to lead you for­ward in the spir­i­tual king­dom. And in this way will I be able to do much for you which I was not able to ac­com­plish when I so­journed with you as a mor­tal of the realm. And al­ways re­mem­ber, Philip, he who has seen me has seen the Fa­ther.”

• discipline › favorable to children

188:4.10Nei­ther do gen­uine be­liev­ers trou­ble them­selves so much about the fu­ture pun­ish­ment of sin. The real be­liever is only con­cerned about pres­ent sep­a­ra­tion from God. True, wise fa­thers may chas­ten their sons, but they do all this in love and for cor­rec­tive pur­poses. They do not pun­ish in anger, nei­ther do they chas­tise in ret­ri­bu­tion.

• minister to c.

192:2.2Je­sus then turned to­ward Pe­ter and asked, “Pe­ter, do you love me?” Pe­ter an­swered, “Lord, you know I love you with all my soul.” Then said Je­sus: “If you love me, Pe­ter, feed my lambs. Do not ne­glect to min­is­ter to the weak, the poor, and the young. Preach the gospel with­out fear or fa­vor; re­mem­ber al­ways that God is no re­specter of per­sons. Serve your fel­low men even as I have served you; for­give your fel­low mor­tals even as I have for­given you. Let ex­pe­ri­ence teach you the value of med­i­ta­tion and the power of in­tel­li­gent re­flec­tion.”

• Christianity put end to infanticide

195:3.5The teach­ing re­gard­ing Christ’s love for chil­dren soon put an end to the wide­spread prac­tice of ex­pos­ing chil­dren to death when they were not wanted, par­tic­u­larly girl ba­bies.

• to enter kingdom, become as little

196:0.12The faith of Je­sus at­tained the pu­rity of a child’s trust. His faith was so ab­so­lute and un­doubt­ing that it re­sponded to the charm of the con­tact of fel­low be­ings and to the won­ders of the uni­verse. His sense of de­pen­dence on the di­vine was so com­plete and so con­fi­dent that it yielded the joy and the as­sur­ance of ab­so­lute per­sonal se­cu­rity. There was no hes­i­tat­ing pre­tense in his re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence. In this gi­ant in­tel­lect of the full-grown man the faith of the child reigned su­preme in all mat­ters re­lat­ing to the re­li­gious con­scious­ness. It is not strange that he once said, “Ex­cept you be­come as a lit­tle child, you shall not en­ter the king­dom.” Not­with­stand­ing that Je­sus’ faith was child­like, it was in no sense child­ish.