p. 487 | Let Children Grow

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 13, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 31.

Let Children Grow

EVERY well-wisher of children wishes them to grow in grace; but not every well-wisher is willing to give them time to grow. You cannot make a boy of six as wise as a man of forty, by simply reading to him the maxims of Confucius; you must plant the principle of wisdom in his heart, and let it grow with his growth, and gain strength with his strength. You can make a perfect little image of a man in an evening with a jack-knife and a piece of wood, but, after all, your man is only a wooden one. That is not the model on which you would construct the men your boys are going to be. Give them time, then, to grow. Act for them as if you wish them to be oaks whose trunks and limbs are compacted with each year's slow growth; not as if you wish them to be mushrooms, springing up in a night, and falling to pieces at the first rough touch.—Sel.