What Can Be Done for the Children?
WITH what deep anxiety and solicitude is this question asked by many a parent. How few feel it enough to let their lives show they are in earnest to seek the cause of the present state of things, and as if life depended upon their individual efforts, commence a reformation. I have just come from meeting. One brother spoke very lengthily, and said nothing but the truth, but not a bit of feeling in the whole, dry as Sahara, without the redeeming feature of one oasis. During the time, the children fell asleep. Another brother rose, and in the same strain repeated much the same thing. Still the little ones slept, and I thought it was well, for though he told how he felt to see the young going to ruin, he related such a doleful experience that any child would shrink from a road where they would be in danger of meeting the like, and I should advise them to do so. Parents, what would you do if the children in your neighborhood came to spend the afternoon with yours? Would you seat them in straight-backed chairs and bring from some dark corner the hideous looking skeletons your father had in his office, and tell them to look at these and remember they too must soon pass away, hoping thus to make a salutary and lasting religious impression upon their young minds? Would you take from your box of relics the dried rose buds and geranium leaves, sacred to you from association, and try to interest them in these because beautiful to you? Would you not rather lead them to the garden, where the summer flowers were blooming in all their freshness, and, while weaving bright garlands, tell them of God, the author of the beautiful? Do you say, “We are too old for this—the young can talk hope, but we who have felt the storm of adversity and suffering have had our hearts chilled as yours will sometime be.” It is true the floodtide of sorrow has swept the shore of many a heart—one by one its idols may have been carried far out into the briny deep, but where is the brave soul that with Christian fortitude says no other life shall be shadowed by a cloud which hangs over mine? Have you seen the beautiful peaches mellowing in the long August days? Storms as well as sunshine have done their part toward coloring the velvety surface. As the summer days of life go by and its autumn days come, should they not find us with a deeper experience—a richer soul beauty? Why not have a religion that lasts forever? a kind that makes life sunnier and brighter? The Bible tells us that “the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day,” and who would not prefer this to the one where is only darkness and groaning? The exhortations which reached my heart when a child were not the longest ones however filled with fine rhetorical phrases, but perhaps some aged pilgrim would tell, in words brief and broken, his desires and determinations, or a little child would rise to say, “I love Jesus.” These suited me best then, and they do now. But how shall it be done? Live for God at home. Faithfully perform life’s little duties—if there are any such—and let your daily life be such that the young will not look incredulous when in meeting you profess to know what religion is. Draw the young heart near to yours in confidence and real concern, and being a child yourself, learning daily at the feet of Jesus, yours will be a language they can understand. I think now of sweet childish faces and lips that loved to talk of Jesus—ears that would listen eagerly when told of Heaven and its beauties. Some are now far down the broad road, others are asleep, but alas! not in Jesus. Who shall be called to give an account for these things? Can we not make our Bible-classes and our social meetings more interesting? Jesus’ love is as warm and fresh to-day as when he shared the joys and sorrows of childhood, and so will ours ever remain if we have the right kind. If I plead earnestly, it is because I have been a child, and my heart aches for the children.