Like Begets Like by H. F. Phelps

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 15, 1874

Like Begets Like.

By H. F. Phelps

PARENTS, do you know that just as you act toward your children so they will act; that the same disposition you manifest in their presence they will copy? It is so. Watch your children and see. Do you not discover that they are but a faithful representation of yourself? If you desire your children to love and respect you, love and respect them. If they do not love and respect you, just blame yourself for it. If after a short absence from them you desire that they should meet you with tokens of love, manifest the same to them. If they do not do it, it is merely because they are afraid of you. They fear to approach you lest they should be rudely repulsed.

There is a timid-looking little girl. Her heart beats with just as much love as any of her age and circumstances. There is her mother or guardian who has been absent a few days. The child approaches timidly, cautiously, yes, awkwardly. What makes her do so? She is afraid. Now see—my heart aches—have not you a kiss for mother? The child hardly knows whether to kiss or not. Her chin drops upon her breast, her hands by her side. Have not you a kiss? There now, giving her a rude push, you don't like me, you naughty girl. The child cries. Anger fills her bosom on account of such conduct.

There is another mother. Her children are no more lovely by nature, but love has been cultivated. The mother is returning to them. See! see! the children almost fly to her. Her arms are spread open wide to receive them all at once, and more too, they know they will be warmly received. They have a kiss—yes, any number of them. They love their mother, and are not afraid to manifest it.

Where is the difference between these and the first mentioned? Simply in the way they are managed; simply in the conduct of these two mothers toward their children. The one is coarse in her manners and selfish in her ways; she has no time to be a child—no time, it may be, to speak a kind word. The other is kind, loving, with always a kind word for her children. She talks love, she acts love toward them. If she is gone they miss her, and long for her return. And when she returns, the seed she has sown has ripened in her absence and it is ready to be poured back upon her with interest compounded.

Tell me, reader, which you are. Which is the Christian? H. F. PHELPS. Litchfield, Minn.