at 7 :30 Saturday morning because her birthday is on the following Tuesday and they will be in school? They had no money for presents because they have no father. “When I came downstairs, they had the dishes all done and had cooked their own breakfast, too. As I sat here writing to you, they brought me a cup of tea. This is the most wonderful birthday I have ever had. I just had to tell someone how happy I am.” This is Abby’s reply: “ Only children who have been treated with love and respect could honor their mother the way yours have. The love you have given them is coming back to you.” The baby soon learns to detect love and will quickly be upset when it is absent. Its absence eventually leads to discord in the home which in turn starts young feet on the wide road to juvenile delinquency. Instead we show our love for them. By our careful thought and wise provision for their good, they feel our love for them. This gives them the needed sense of security. This better fits them to meet the hard knocks at school and in the world. The third vital factor is the influence we exert on our children by how we act and what we say. We make our instructions crystal-clear by our ex ample. Children are born imitators. What they see us do they carefully note. Children quite rightly look to us to show them how to live. A boy has a perfect right to believe that his father’s and mother’s example will not lead him astray. We can only transmit to them what we have ourselves. What a child learns from the Bible in church is very valuable to him. Yet what he learns from our example is more influential and permanent in its effects. This is especially true of their early years. Horace Bushnell says: “Let every father and mother realize that when their child is three years of age, they have done more than half of what they will ever do for its character.” That is why, even if not especially gifted, a noble person is the ideal teacher for a child. King George III of England required a governess for his children. A Scottish lady of character was recom mended to him. Impressed with her suitability, he offered her the position. To his surprise she mod estly declined, withdrawing in favour of one pos sessing higher qualifications, contending that such royal children needed a much more learned person than she. The king, however, refused her rejection, adding: “Madam, I wish you to accept the posi tion because you are a good woman. We can hire professors to teach the things you have mentioned, but I want a right-minded person to take charge of the children. I can easily buy accomplishments, but I cannot buy principles.” How true! You can easily get accomplishments where you cannot get character, yet character is primary. OCTOBER, 1967
It may take some time to show itself but that influence a lways asserts itself. Lord Bacon’s mother was a woman o f superior mind and deep piety. The mother of Washington was pious, pure, true. The mother of John Wesley was remarkable for her intelligence, piety and executive ability. So much did she influence John that she has been called “ the mother of Methodism.” In each case, the son inherited the prominent traits of the mother. What we do not wish our children to be we must not do ourselves. As Benjamin Fine has put it: “Delinquent conduct first gets established in a com munity because its adults have compromised their own moral conduct. When children see and hear of police taking graft, Dad fixing traffic tickets, friends selling perfume across the border, they feel that they too can get away with doing wrong things.” On the other hand our children will profit from and remember our good example. When Carlyle, that great master of literature, wrote his reminis cences in his old age he said: “ I am the oldest child, and trace deeply in myself the characters of both parents, also the upbringing and example of both.” Our children soon sense what we do with our problems. They will quickly discover if we take them to the Lord for His solution. As we do so, we show them on whom we depend. We reveal our belief that He is the One we can trust implicitly. They will soon learn to do the same. So by our example we try “ to show them that there is no subject, no emotion, no joy, no activity, no pleasure and no sorrow, however transient it may be regarded as being, which falls outside the all-embracing love of God, and that there is nothing of joy or sorrow, of human relationship, of knowl edge, science or discovery, which is not related to our Christian faith and which cannot be integrated fully with it” (Frances Wilkinson). Such training requires thought and patience. Is it worth it? A rugged farmer and his faithful wife sat tim idly near the back of the auditorium during the graduation exercises. Their hearts overflowed with joy and pride as they saw their only son receive the award as the outstanding Christian of the gradua tion class, based on the demonstration o f Christian character, leadership, and service. They thrilled again as they heard him bring the valedictory mes sage as the highest ranking man in his class. All the sacrifice and effort seemed amply rewarded in this happy climax to his four years of college. With tears o f joy in his eyes, the father turned to his wife and said : “Well, Ma, I guess that’s about the best crop we ever raised.” We owe it to our children to do our best for them. Prayer, love and the unwavering example of Christian conduct will make up that doing. ¡ÿë|
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