Whoever eats too much, or of food which is not healthful, is weakening his power to resist the clamors of other appetites and passions. Many parents, to avoid the task of patiently educating their children to habits of self-denial, indulge them in eating and drinking whenever they please. The desire to satisfy the taste and to gratify inclination, does not lessen with the increase of years; and these indulged youth, as they grow up, are governed by impulse, slaves to appetite. When they take their places in society, and begin life for themselves, they are powerless to resist temptation. In the glutton, the tobacco devotee, the winebibber, and the inebriate, we see the evil results of erroneous education and of self-indulgence. (FE 140.1) MC VC

When we hear the sad lamentation of Christian men and women over the terrible evils of intemperance, the questions at once arise: Who have educated the youth? who have fostered in them these unruly appetites? who have neglected the solemn responsibility of forming their characters for usefulness in this life, and for the society of heavenly angels in the next? (FE 140.2) MC VC

When parents and children meet at the final reckoning, what a scene will be presented! Thousands of children who have been slaves to appetite and debasing vice, whose lives are moral wrecks, will stand face to face with the parents who made them what they are. Who but the parents must bear this fearful responsibility? Did the Lord make these youth corrupt?—Oh, no! Who, then, has done this fearful work? Were not the sins of the parents transmitted to the children in perverted appetites and passions? and was not the work completed by those who neglected to train them according to the pattern which God has given? Just as surely as they exist, all these parents will pass in review before God. (FE 140.3) MC VC