Will mothers of this generation feel the sacredness of their mission and not try to vie with their wealthy neighbors in appearances, but seek to excel them in faithfully performing the work of instructing their children for the better life? If children and youth were trained and educated to habits of self-denial and self-control, if they were taught that they eat to live instead of living to eat, there would be less disease and less moral corruption. There would be little necessity for temperance crusades, which amount to so little, if in the youth who form and fashion society, right principles in regard to temperance could be implanted. They would then have moral worth and moral integrity to resist, in the strength of Jesus, the pollutions of these last days. 3T 567.1 It is a most difficult matter to unlearn the habits which have been indulged through life and have educated the appetite. The demon of intemperance is not easily conquered. It is of giant strength and hard to overcome. B…
"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
The EGW passage directly applies the principle of Proverbs 22:6, emphasizing the importance of early training and education in shaping a child's character and habits, particularly in the context of temperance and self-control.
"Parents may have transmitted to their children tendencies to appetite and passion, which will make more difficult the work of educating and training these children to be strictly temperate and to have pure and virtuous habits. If the appetite for unhealthy food and for stimulants and narcotics has been transmitted to them as a legacy from their parents, what a fearfully solemn responsibility rests upon the parents to counteract the evil tendencies which they have given to their children! How earnestly and diligently should the parents work to do their duty, in faith and hope, to their unfortunate offspring! 3T 567.3"
"Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;"
Both passages address the transmission of negative traits from parents to children. While Exodus 20:5 speaks of the iniquity of the fathers being visited upon the children, the EGW passage discusses the transmission of tendencies to appetite and passion. The connection lies in the idea of inherited predispositions.