FOR PARENTS TO PONDER

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 20, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 40.

FOR PARENTS TO PONDER.

It is generally without thought, seldom with intention to inflict pain, that a child's past misdemeanors are kept fresh in his memory when they should be forgotten; but that this very often is done by those who should do better, sometimes even by parents, no careful observer can doubt. That the harm thereby done to the child is unrealized, makes it none the less real. In some natures a hard sullenness is engendered; in others an unhealthy tendency to brood over their own failures, and a sense of discouragement as to the future. Forgiveness which does not forget, nor allow the offender to forget, is of small value. It brings no peace. It will be prized lightly, and slowly sought, by any keen-witted child.

"Let bygones be bygones" is a maxim won from the wisdom of the ages. What need to probe a well-healed wound? If the discipline which follows a child's offense is wise, and his own repentance is sincere, the lesson has entered into his life. That is enough. He has taken a step forward, but it was by a rough, hard road. Let him forget the path as far as he can. Do not keep vivid before his mind the thought that he has been naughty, and therefore can be again. He will soon begin to feel that he is rather expected to be so, and he will be prompt to fulfill the expectation. Your child will find out soon enough that he is one of a race of "poor, miserable sinners," without your taking care to emblazon the fact upon the walls of his inner consciousness. Make him feel that rectitude is expected to be the rule of his life; that lapses from it are not to be tolerated, only as the exceptions which shall prove to him the beneficence of the rule. Their lessons learned, they are to be cast behind his back—and yours.—Babyhood.