Your ShelfYour Projects

WHO WAS TO BLAME?

3%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 29, 1901

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 44.

Read the full edition

WHO WAS TO BLAME?

By M. C. W.

M. C. W.
One morning a neighbor’s boy came to my house after some soap for his mother. As I went upstairs for the soap, I remembered that there was two dollars in small change lying on the table in the room where I had left Harry. I wondered if it would tempt Harry, but thought, “No, surely he will not touch it.”
When Harry went home, he dropped something on the walk. It had a ring like silver. I immediately went to the door and said, “What is the matter, Harry, did you drop something?” The moment I spoke, I spied a ten-cent piece. Harry saw it at the same time, and instantly put his foot over it. I was confident that something was wrong, and waited to see what the child would do. He talked about everything, but made no move to go home.
At last I said, “I’m afraid mama is waiting for you, so you would better run home now. Did you find what you dropped?”
“No;” then, as he moved around, “why, here it is, ten cents.”
Asking him to wait a minute, I went into the house and counted the money, and found ten cents gone. When I went out, I asked Harry where he got the money. Papa gave it to him to buy mama a birthday present. He thought he should get her a handkerchief. I asked him to think a minute and see if he was perfectly sure about it. Yes, he was; but in my heart I doubted him.
After relating the circumstance to my husband, he said, “You would better go and see his mother.” I knew I ought to, but I shrank from it. I was in hopes my husband would say something to ease my conscience; instead he made the load heavier. I went to the Great Father; He gave me no help until I promised to go to the mother, and leave the results with Him. Then freedom came.
The next morning, although very busy, I went to Harry’s home. How I dreaded to knock on the door! But in my heart was the assurance from the Lord that the mother would not be angry with me for telling her. After I went in, the words that I had planned to say were gone; I could not think of one of them, so, hardly knowing what I said, I told the mother. I told her perhaps I was the one who had made the mistake in counting, but to be sure I thought it best to see her about it.
I never shall forget the look that came over her face as I told her all about it. Tears rolled down her cheeks, as she said, “My Harry stealing! His father gave him no money.” Then she unburdened her heart to me, and told me how wild Harry was getting, and how his father would whip him hard whenever he found out anything that he had done. For that reason she had shielded him. After pointing her to Jesus, I left her.
That afternoon Harry and his mother called. As they came in, the mother said that Harry wanted to see me, by way of explanation. We sat in silence waiting for Harry to speak. After a little, Harry came to me and said, “Here is your ten cents, and—I’m so sorry, and—” The sobs came; he could say no more. Putting my arm around him, I drew him to me and told him it was not the money I cared for, but it was his future life that I was thinking of. If he began by taking a little, the devil wouldn’t let him alone until he had taken a great deal. Jesus could and would help him to be a noble man, if he would only let Him.
After a few more words with Harry, I went to the mother, who was sobbing. I put my arm around her neck; for a moment all was still. Then I offered a few words of prayer. After that she went home, her heart too full to speak. The Lord was there with us.
How thankful I was that I had gone to her with the circumstance, instead of telling some one else, and after a time letting it reach the mother that way. That spring and summer I kept track of Harry. Through vacation he and three of the smaller children spent an hour each day with me. We would have prayer, then a Bible story. I was always particular to stop where the story was the most interesting. It would do you good to see how eager they were the next day for the rest of the story. After the story came games and music. The hour passed by too quickly for the children.
Late in the summer, business called me from home for about two months. When I returned, my work was such that I could be with the children but little.
Three years have passed. What has become of Harry?—Why, he went a little deeper into sin, and now is in the reform school. What was the trouble? Who was to blame? His downward course was helped along in the home, for father and mother were not united in the government of the child. Prayer was not heard in the home. A continual jangling took its place, thereby lessening the visits of the angels. The mother let go of God’s hand. Did it pay?
Many boys are going just where Harry has gone, unless fathers and mothers arouse to their duty. The Lord says to us, “The burden is upon you, whether you are sensible of it or not, to train these children for God,—to watch with jealous care the first approach of the wily foe, and be prepared to raise a standard against him.”
From whom did Harry take his first lessons in stealing? Could it have been from father or mother? Now I see a look of indignation upon your faces, as you exclaim, Indeed not; no Sabbath-keeping mother would teach her child to steal.
Just listen. A short time ago I went into a large bakery. As I was waiting, a woman and two children came in. The boy, evidently about three and one-half years of age, ran to a barrel of vanilla cakes, and was just ready to take one when the mother said, “No, no; mustn’t touch.” After a few minutes, she walked to the barrel, took out a cake and ate it. The boy saw her; to keep him quiet she gave him one, then sister must have a pretty cake. That was the beginning, they were eating when I left the shop.
Well, you say, what harm was done? Can you not hear a voice say, “Thou shalt not steal”? The mother was giving her children their first lessons in stealing. It may be Harry took his first lessons the same way. I know not, but I am afraid that at the last great day more than one mother will be found guilty.
Some one is saying, “Now that is going a little too far. Dealers want us to sample their goods.”
There may be times when they do, but they are few and far between. Let me give you my experience: One day I stopped in front of a fruit store, to buy some peaches. Thoughtlessly, I felt of one to see if it was nice and ripe. I was about to try another when some one said, “Stop that!” and a little man rushed out, saying, “You are spoiling my fruit; let it alone.” I did not know what the man meant by talking so. I felt as though I had been accused of stealing. I told him I wanted to buy some fruit, and was feeling of the peaches to find a good ripe one. Then he explained to me why he came out as he did. He said he had that morning been obliged to throw away a basket of peaches because they had been handled by customers, and that he was going to try to stop it if he could. I thanked him for the lesson he taught me, and I have always remembered it.
Then again: a man and two women walked into a store. The man turned to the women and said, “Don’t you want some bananas?” Without waiting for a reply, he cut three from a bunch, and passed them to the women. One of them exclaimed, “O Mr. B——, you ought not to do that.” His answer was a laugh.
Supposing Harry had been there, what influence would that man’s example have had upon the boy? Would he have been allowed to do the same thing unmolested?—No, indeed! and had the owner of the store expressed his opinion, I know the bananas would have been paid for immediately. That man would be very indignant if he were called a thief, but what else was he?
In a Testimony on economy and strict honesty the Lord says: “Employees have no right to help themselves to crackers, nuts, raisins, dates, sugar, oranges, or fruit of any kind; for, in the first place, in eating these things between meals, as is generally done, they are injuring the digestive organs; and again, those that partake of those things are taking that which is not theirs. . . .”
“One may reason, the little I have taken does not amount to much; but the question comes home, Did the smallness of the amount lessen the sin of the act? . . . Many littles make much in the end. But the greatest loss is sustained by the ones who digress; for they are violating the principles of right, and learning to look upon transgression in small matters as no transgression at all. . . . But God looks upon all these things as theft, and so the record is carried up to heaven.”
Yes, God looks upon all these things as theft. Is it not time for us to look at things as God does?
Then again: can we lead our children any higher than we go ourselves? Their minds are plastic, and impressions are easily made. “Children are the heritage of the Lord, and we are answerable to Him for our management of His property.” In a sense we stand in the place of God to our children.
Think of the responsibility resting upon you, father, mother. The little ones get their ideas of right and wrong from us, and our example will mold their future life. Let us not neglect our home duties, lest our children rise up in the Judgment and condemn us.
In speaking to a young man about his accepting Christ as his personal Saviour, his reply was this: “If religion does for the home what my mother’s religion has done for our home, I do not care for it. Mother is rarely at home when we boys are; she must go to this meeting or that. It is the Lord’s work, and of course she must go. She will talk and pray in meeting,—I’ve heard her,—but she never has time to do anything for us boys at home; never has time to mend our clothes; and no time to spend with father, and you know how he is going. He drinks oftener than he used to; but what is there to keep him at home? If mother had done a little less talking in meeting, and spent more time in her family, things might have been different. You know every word I have spoken is true.”
Yes, it was all true. All I could do was to point him to Jesus for his example. You can see that his ideas of God and His love were what he received from the life of his mother, who, in a sense, stood in the place of God to him.
What will that mother have to meet in the Judgment? What shall we have to meet?