p. 325 | Religious Impressions

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 3, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 21.

Religious Impressions.

THE simplest lessons are often the most impressive and abiding. Many years ago a child was leaving the junior department of a city school for a new home in the country. As he left, his old teacher put her hand upon his head, and in a single, simple sentence, commended him to God and to good. Years passed, and the child grew up, and read books—English, French, German, Greek—on ethics, and listened to lectures on the same subject, by famous professors, in a venerable university. But no word which he read in the pages of ancient philosophers, or listened to from the lips of loving teachers, ever proved to him a beacon-light like the simple words of his old school mistress. In the time of temptation, the learned discussions of the philosophers were forgotten, or were remembered only to cause bewilderment as to the basis of right and duty; but the lessons of childhood shone then most clearly in the secret chamber of the soul, and neither time nor doubt had power to dim its radiance. That, nothing could obscure; that, nothing can obscure. Here is the power which God has given to those who train the little ones. Perhaps neither mother nor teacher can lead the child into the knowledge of the world's deeper wisdom; but a few simple, earnest words for God and good, from either, may do far more—they may enter into the very being of the child, to be a strength in weakness, a refuge in temptation, and a cherished memory in the long, hard conflict of earthly life. This is not the wisdom which is taught by the speculative thinkers; but it is the best and most enduring wisdom, nevertheless.—Sunday School Times.