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Page 13
CHAPTER VI.
HOME INFLUENCE AND TRAINING IN THEIR RELATION TO
THE KEEPING OF THE BAPTISMAL COVENANT.
According to the last chapter, it is indeed a high and holy ideal
that every Christian parent should set before him in regard to his
children. Every child that God gives to a Christian parent is to be so
treated that, from the hour of its baptism, it is to be a son or
daughter of God. It is to be so fostered and nurtured and trained
that, from its earliest self-consciousness, it is to grow day by day
in knowledge and in Grace. As it increases in stature, so it is to
increase in wisdom and in favor with God and man.
In order that this may be realized, it is first of all necessary
that there be the proper surroundings. We cannot expect that parent to
draw out these graces of the new life in the child, who is not himself
imbued with a spirit of living faith and fervent love to Christ. In
the beautiful words of Luthardt: "Religion must first approach the
child in the form of life, and afterward in the form of instruction.
Let religion be the atmosphere by which the child is surrounded, the
air which it breathes. The whole spirit of the home, its order, its
practice--that world in which the child finds himself so soon as he
knows himself--this it is which must make religion appear to him a
thing natural and self-evident."
And this is especially important for the mother. It is while
resting on the mother's bosom and playing at the mother's knee, that
the child is receiving impressions that are stones for character
building. The father, of course, is not released from responsibility.
He too is to set a holy example, to make impressions for good and to
use all his influence to direct the thoughts and inclinations of the
child upward. The man who does not help in the religious training of
his own children is not fit to be a father. But it is after all with
the mother that the little child spends most of its time and receives
most of its impressions. Oh, that every mother were a Hannah, an
Elizabeth, an Eunice. Then would there be more Samuels, Johns and
Timothys. Let us have more of the spirit of Christ in the heart of the
mother and father, and in the home. Let the child learn, with the
first dawnings of self-consciousness, that Jesus is known and loved
and honored in the home, and there will be no trouble about the
future.
But the child must be instructed. Begin early. Let it learn to
pray as soon as it can speak. Let it use its first lispings and
stammerings in speaking words of prayer. We quote again from Luthardt:
"Let it not be objected that the child cannot understand the prayer.
The way of education is by practice to understanding, not by
understanding to practice. And the child will have a feeling and a
presentiment of what it cannot understand. The world of heavenly
things is not an incomprehensible region to the child, but the home of
its spirit. The child will speak to his Father in Heaven without
needing much instruction as to who that Father is. It seems as though
God were a well-known friend of his heart. The child will love to
pray. If mother forgets it, the child will not."
Therefore, oh, ye parents! pray for your child. Pray with your
child. Teach that child to pray. The writer knows of a little girl who
came home from Sunday-school and said: "Mamma, why don't you ever
pray?" What a rebuke!
The child must be taught the truth of God's Word. It also must be
sanctified, _i.e._, made more and more holy "_through the truth_." As
a child it needs first the "_milk of the Word_." It is not desirable,
neither is it necessary, to try to teach the very young child
doctrines and abstract truths. Neither ought the child to be required
to learn by rote long passages from the Scriptures. In this way some
well-meaning, but mistaken parents make the Word a burden to their
children, and it becomes odious in their eyes. There are other and
better ways. Begin by showing the child Bible pictures, even if it
should soil the book a little. Better a thousand times have its
lessons of life and love graven on the heart of the child, than to
have its fine engravings as a parlor ornament for strangers. In our
day there is also an abundant supply of Bible pictures and story books
for children. Those parents who have never tried it will be surprised
to see the interest the little ones take. With the pictures connect
the stories of the Bible. And where are the stories better calculated
to interest a child than these same old stories, that have edified a
hundred generations? When will children ever weary of hearing of
Joseph, and Moses, and David, and Daniel, and especially of Him who is
the special Friend of children? It will be easy to so connect the
teachings of the Word with these pictures and stories that very young
children will be able to distinguish right from wrong, to know and
hate sin, and to be drawn ever nearer to the blessed Jesus.
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