TO WHOM DOES THE CHILD BELONG? by Mary Wood Allen, M. D.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 16, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 11.

TO WHOM DOES THE CHILD BELONG?

By Mary Wood Allen, M. D.

BY MARY WOOD ALLEN, M. D.

II.—TO GOD.

BEFORE parents can claim any right in their child they must first recognize his right to himself, and then God's right to him. First individuality; then religion. It is true that these two cannot be actually placed the one before the other and separate from the other. They are inextricably intermingled, and when we say the child's first right is to himself, we mean that in all things he has a right to claim that his individuality be considered. Even in acknowledging his obligation to his Creator he must be allowed to worship according to his individuality. One may worship with serious earnestness, and his prayers be anxious longings; another may find a joy and gladness in service, and his prayers be anthems of praise and rejoicing. And this violates no moral law. Everybody walks, but each one expresses himself in his gait and carriage; so in service the soul should not be bound by fetters of ceremonials. Reverence for God and obedience to him is a duty. By nature the human being is reverent. The savage has his god and his religion. The infant sees in his parents the highest and best that he knows. They stand to him for God. But early in life he may be made to feel that they themselves obey a power still greater and stronger than themselves; that this power governs not only their deeds but their thoughts, and he begins to feel that he too must yield a loving obedience to this great Being. He begins to feel that he belongs to God. If rightly taught, this feeling will not be one of fear but love, and this strengthens his character. The service of fear is slavery; the service of love is freedom by means of control of self. This self-control should extend to the domain of physical as well as spiritual things.

Very early in life the child can understand God's claim upon him in the care of the body. He can understand that God has a claim upon him by creation and preservation; he can understand that God works with him daily in the keeping of the body in repair. If he eats proper food, it is the divine power that makes of it the tissues and keeps them in health. He learns that in this, as elsewhere, God works by laws which the individual has the power to obey or ignore; but in violating those laws it is always himself who suffers. Children can as readily be taught a bodily religion as a spiritual religion. They can be taught regularity in eating, the avoidance of injurious articles, the keeping of regular hours of sleep, the value of exercise—in short, the obedience of physical law as a duty they owe themselves and their Creator, and to be rendered joyfully. Why should not the child be taught to rejoice in the thought that he belongs to God, and also that God belongs to him?

Thus taught, he will perceive the beauty of the Sabbath as a day different from all others, sacred to the God whom he loves, and will gladly make it a day of rest and worship. Thus taught, he will ever be ready to refer all conduct to the approval of this supreme Judge of right and wrong. He will be anxious to keep his body pure in deed, his mind pure in thought, and his heart pure in its emotions, because the God to whom he belongs is a God of purity.

There may be danger in trying to teach faith in God that the child may obtain the idea that God will make a special interference in his behalf, and overturn natural law, but the instances of absolute faith in the Heavenly Father are often very interesting. A little girl had been taught to pray with perfect faith. She had been naughty, and her mother was taking her away to punish her. As they climbed the stairs, the little one earnestly said, "O Lord, if you ever wanted to help a little girl in your life, now's your chance." It is wiser to teach the child that all human beings belong to God, and he has their best interest at heart, and if we love him and try to obey him, all will be ordered for our good, and sometimes it would not be kind to allow us to escape merited punishment. The absolute trust that accepts the trials of life, as well as its joys, as part of the disciplinary process of life, is the trust that best fits one to bear the part of a noble, patient, undiscouraged scholar in earth's great polytechnic.

What a parent desires a child to be in relation to God, that must the parent be. He must manifest absolute trust, not only in word but in a cheerful, serene acceptance of all the circumstances of life. He must show that he belongs to God every day in the week. Sabbath prayers and week-day bad tempers are not lessons in piety. It is not wise to endeavor to arouse piety through the emotional nature of the child, not through fear, nor even by too constant appeals to the conscience, which may become morbid under such training; but a life of consistent recognition of God's claims and a persistent effort at patterning after the Christ as the only Saviour of mankind, is the true religious training. And, as Jacob Abbott says:—

We must not look for the development of the moral and religious sentiments too soon, nor be too much troubled if in the first two or three years of life the animal sentiments seem to overpower the higher sentiments and principles. No one can possibly know at how early an age that great change which consists in the first faint kindlings of the divine life in the soul may take place, nor with what faults, failings, and yieldings to the influence of the mere animal passions of childhood it may coexist.

Therefore we, as parents, must be patient, sympathetic, loving, gentle, tender-hearted, forgiving, "even as God for Christ's sake" has

forgiven us, believing that it is better to win our children to God through love than to frighten them to him through fear.—The Advance.