第46章 论继母
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第46章 论继母
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Chap. 46 - The Stepmother
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劝导一位作继母的人——你和一位有儿女的男子结婚，对你可能成为一种福惠。你本已陷于专顾自己的危险中。你在品格方面所有宝贵的特质，需要加以激发并运用。借着这些新成立的关系，你必获得经验，使你懂得怎样与别人的思想接触。照顾儿童足以培养亲切，慈爱，和温柔的心念。你在家庭中必须负担的责任很可能为你导致极大的福惠。这些孩子可以作你珍贵的课本。你若好好地研究这些活的课本，他们就必为你带来无数的福惠。由于照顾他们而引起的思潮，必激发温慈、仁爱，和同情的心念。这些孩子虽不是你自己的骨肉，然而由于你和他们的父亲结婚，他们已变成你的了，你也当加以爱护、抚育、教导和照顾。你与他们的关系，必唤起那于你绝对有益的思念与计划。借着在家中必能获得的经验，你便可以摆脱那威胁并损害你工作的以自我为中心的意念，并改变那些必须予以缓和及克服的坚决的计划。[1]
§4
Counsel to a Stepmother.--Your marriage to one who is a father of children will prove to be a blessing to you. . . . You were in danger of becoming self-centered. You had precious traits of character that needed to be awakened and exercised. . . . Through your new relations you will gain an experience that will teach you how to deal with minds. By the care of children affection, love, and tenderness are developed. The responsibilities resting upon you in your family may be a means of great blessing to you. These children will be to you a precious lesson book. They will bring you many blessings if you read them aright. The train of thought awakened by their care will call into exercise tenderness, love, and sympathy. Although these children are not a part of your flesh and blood, yet through your marriage to their father, they have become yours, to be loved, cherished, instructed, and ministered to by you. Your connection with them will call into exercise thoughts and plans that will be of genuine benefit to you. . . . By the experience that you will gain in your home, you will lose the self-centered ideas that threatened to mar your work and will change the set plans that have needed softening and subduing. . . . {AH 270.1}[1]
§5
你原需培养更深厚的亲切之念，更广泛的同情之心，俾能接近那些需要听到温和，同情，慈爱的话语之人。你的儿女必唤起这些品格上的特质，帮助你扩展你的思想和判断力的深度。借着与他们亲切的交往，你就必明白在服务受苦之人的事上，乃要表现更多的仁慈和同情。[2]
§6
You have needed to develop greater tenderness and larger sympathy, that you might come close to those in need of gentle, sympathetic, loving words. Your children will call out these traits of character and will help you to develop breadth of mind and judgment. Through loving association with them, you will learn to be more tender and sympathetic in your ministry for suffering humanity. {AH 270.2}[2]
§7
责备一位缺少爱心的继母——你本来很爱你的丈夫，因此与他结婚。你自己也知道：在你与他结婚的时候曾许愿要作他儿女的母亲。但我看出你在这件事上有不完全之处。你实在有着可悲的缺欠。你并不爱你丈夫的儿女，而且除非你作完全的转变，彻底地改过自新，纠正管教的方式，这些可爱的珍宝势必要被败坏了。在你所施的处分中，根本没有爱心——就是亲切的表现——的成分。[3]
§8
Reproof to a Stepmother Who Lacked Love.--You loved your husband and married him. You knew that when you married him you covenanted to become a mother to his children. But I saw a lack in you in this matter. You are sadly deficient. You do not love the children of your husband, and unless there is an entire change, a thorough reformation in you and in your manner of government, these precious jewels are ruined. Love, manifestation of affection, is not a part of your discipline. . . . {AH 271.1}[3]
§9
你正在使这些可爱的孩子们——尤其是女儿们的生活苦不堪言。爱心，亲切的照顾，忍耐和宽容在哪里呢？你那颗未成圣的心中怀藏的恨意多于爱念。你的嘴唇涌出的谴责多于嘉许和鼓励。你的态度，你苛刻的行为，你全无同情的本性，对于那敏感的女儿，就如毁坏的冰雹落在娇嫩的植物之上一般；这植物屈服于每一阵风暴之下，直至它的生命被压碎、损毁、并折断而倒在地上。[4]
§10
You are making the lives of those dear children very bitter, especially the daughters. Where is the affection, the loving caress, the patient forbearance? Hatred lives in your unsanctified heart more than love. Censure leaps from your lips more than praise and encouragement. Your manners, your harsh ways, your unsympathizing nature, are to that sensitive daughter like desolating hail upon a tender plant; it bends to every blast until its life is crushed out, and it lies bruised and broken. {AH 271.2}[4]
§11
你所采用的管理方法，正在使你儿女心中的爱心，盼望和喜乐之源趋于涸竭。这女孩的面上经常带着忧郁的表情，但这一点非但没有激发你的同情和亲切之念，反而惹起了你的不耐烦和绝对的厌恶。你若愿意的话，很可以将她的表情转变为活泼而愉快。[5]
§12
Your administration is drying up the channel of love, hopefulness, and joy in your children. A settled sadness is expressed in the countenance of the girl, but, instead of awakening sympathy and tenderness in you, this arouses impatience and positive dislike. You can change this expression to animation and cheerfulness if you choose. . . . {AH 271.3}[5]
§13
儿女们经常注意着母亲的脸色；他们知道所表现的是慈爱或是嫌恶。你所作的连你自己也不知道。那流露愁容的小脸，那被压伤的心灵因渴望眷爱而发出的沉重叹息，都不能引起你的恻隐之心么？[6]
§14
Children read the countenance of the mother; they understand whether love or dislike is there expressed. You know not the work you are doing. Does not the little sad face, the heaving sigh welling up from a pressed heart in its yearning call for love, awaken pity? {AH 271.4}[6]
§15
过度严酷的后果——不久以前，见到谢姊妹的情况。她的错误和缺点都忠实地暴露在她的眼前；但是我在最后所得的启示中，发现她的错行依然存在，她对她丈夫的儿女仍旧冷酷无情。她的谴责和纠正并非仅对严重的过错而发，连那些原应放过的无足轻重的小事也不例外。不断地吹毛求疵是错的，而且基督的灵也不能住在怀藏这种意念的心中。她故意放过儿女善良的行为，不说一句嘉奖的话，但一发现错行，就随即加以谴责。这样足以使孩子们灰心丧志，并养成了不顾后果的习惯。它也会激起心中的恶念，使其中涌出淤泥和污秽。常常受责备的孩子必产生一种“我不管”的精神，以至不断地表露恶的情绪，丝毫不顾后果如何。[7]
§16
Results of Undue Severity.--Some time ago I was shown the case of J. Her errors and wrongs were faithfully portrayed before her; but in the last view given me I saw that the wrongs still existed, that she was cold and unsympathizing with her husbands children. Correction and reproof are not given by her for grave offenses merely, but for trivial matters that should be passed by unnoticed. Constant faultfinding is wrong, and the Spirit of Christ cannot abide in the heart where it exists. She is disposed to pass over the good in her children without a word of approval, but is ever ready to bear down with censure if any wrong is seen. This ever discourages children and leads to habits of heedlessness. It stirs up the evil in the heart and causes it to cast up mire and dirt. In children who are habitually censured there will be a spirit of I dont care, and evil passions will frequently be manifested, regardless of consequences. . . . {AH 271.5}[7]
§17
谢姊妹应该培养爱心和同情。她应该对于那些丧失了母亲，而处在她照顾之下的孩子们表现温慈的爱心。这样作，便是造福于上帝所眷爱的儿童，而这种福惠也必在他们亲切的敬爱中反射到她自己的身上来。[8]
§18
Sister J should cultivate love and sympathy. She should manifest tender affection for the motherless children under her care. This would be a blessing to these children of Gods love and would be reflected back upon her in affection and love. {AH 272.1}[8]
§19
必需加倍谨慎——那些丧失了满怀母爱之人的孩子们，已经遭受了永远无法弥补的损失。但若有人胆敢担任这群遭受打击的小羊之母亲的职位，就有加倍的责任和重担落在她的身上，倘若可能的话，她应当比他们自己的母亲表现更多的爱心和忍耐，抑制一切责备和威吓的话语，借此力求弥补这群小羊所遭受的损失。[9]
§20
When Double Care is Needed.--Children who have lost the one in whose breasts maternal love has flowed have met with a loss that can never be supplied. But when one ventures to stand in the place of mother to the little stricken flock, a double care and burden rests upon her to be even more loving if possible, more forbearing of censure and threatening than their own mother could have been, and in this way supply the loss which the little flock have sustained. {AH 272.2}[9]