instruct our children not only by pre cept but also by example! We are to lead and guide the child into the ex periences of these values by our own personal traits and by the habits of life we have formed. Chapter Sixteen W ithout exception the greatest force in the world is the uncon life. This is what makes us a part of society. This is why the pressures on the crowd of young people is enor mous. They are pushed, unthinkingly, into conformity. It is only human na ture not to want to be unlike other people. There are two kinds of influence giv en to every man. There is a positive influence such as a salesman might exert when he seeks to sell his wares. In a sense it is like the influence of a minister of the Gospel who seeks to preach so that men understand that apart from Christ our Saviour there is no salvation; that we need His power and His gracious love. This is the kind of influence that a teacher tries to ex ert on a pupil. When a parent tries to guide his child by appreciation and instruction, he is positively and actively trying to influence the young life. The other side of influence is unconscious and invol untary. It can be well said that “The parent is the child’s first copybook.” In the early years of life the child is influenced far more by the pattern of the parent’s life than by any other active instruction it receives. If you dear wives want your children to yell like fishwives, all you need to do is yell like a fishwife. If you want them to live in a certain manner of life, you walk like that and they will follow you. One of the greatest difficulties of life is that our children will follow us in the things we don’t want them to do. This includes bad habits and character traits. They see the evil in our lives far more readily than they
do the good. Children will talk as well as walk like their fathers and mothers. Here is a father who is smoking. He says to his son, “I don’t want you to smoke.” But the son sees the father and says, “I want to be like my dad.” And he does just that. This same is true with any vice. Here is a father coming home from work. He slips into his lunch box something which belongs to the com pany. His son sees this and thinks, “If dad can get away with it, so can I.” And we wonder why children go wrong. Are we dishonest in the payment of our taxes? Do we lie to people? Our children see more than we think. You are responsible before the Lord for setting a proper example of Christ- likeness and godliness in character. If you are quarrelsome and irritable the tendency is for your children to become like you. If you are prejudiced against a man of another race, calling him some scurrilous name, the chil dren will pick this up. My father was a kind and gracious man. He loved the Lord. He was a loyal churchman. I never knew my father to lie. I never knew him to tell a smutty story. He was clean in his habits of life. I remember one day bursting into the room and finding my father kneeling in prayer. I tiptoed back out. My father not only talked about prayer, he prayed. I have never forgotten the character of my father and I always wanted to grow up to be like him. Would you want your son or daughters to grow up and be like you? As fathers and mothers we must in fluence our children for good because we cannot escape our responsibility. The only real way to do this is to live so close to our Saviour, growing in Christian maturity and Christ-likeness, that somehow the light of His grace in our souls will shine out to them. What kind of a life are you living fa ther and mother? Whatever way you are going on the narrow road that leads to eternal life and the path toward the 20
scious influence of a life with another
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