Telling and Training

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 14, 1868

Telling and Training.

A wise man once said, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” But many people who are continually telling their children how to do right, but who do not thus themselves, appear to wonder why they do no better after all their good advice to them; but the truth is, those who would train up a child in the way he should go, must go that very way themselves. Aye, an ounce of example is worth whole tons of precept. I was forcibly reminded of this, while walking down street a few days ago, I observed six or eight little school-boys by the side of the road, and though the utmost good nature appeared to prevail among them, one of them was swearing, and not stopping to swear by rule either. Said I, Tut, tut, little boy, does your pa allow you to swear? “Oh no,” said he “pa swears when he gets angry, but he whips me when I do so, he whipped me this morning for it, and now I’m out of his sight I’ll pay him for whipping me, for doing just as he does.” People should learn to govern themselves, before they try to govern others. Be a living lesson in your own individuality, and there is but little fear but that those who look up to you will follow in your footsteps; but if you undertake to coerce children into the practice of virtues which with you are matters of theory only, the success of the experiment is doubtful, to say the least of it; for they are much more apt to act as you act, than to act as you say; and you will often find them to be like a mirror, in which your own faults are reflected, it may be even with exaggeration. Go, therefore, in the way in which you would train up a child.—Advocate and Guardian.