"If my children turn out badly, it will be through no fault of mine; so I am not going to worry," said a friend to me to-day.
"That's a good resolution," I answered, "for I don't think the Lord loves to see His people worry; but, my dear friend, I can not but fear that there should be more importance attached to the early training of our children, and to the influence with which we surround them while their characters are forming."
"Yes, that may be, but I believe that if a child has a natural inclination toward good, he will be good; if he naturally inclines toward evil, he will be evil in spite of his parents." I reached and took my Bible from the shelf, and quickly opened it. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old—" I paused a moment and looked earnestly into the clear brown eyes of the little woman beside me. "When he is old," I repeated, "he is quite likely to depart from it!"
"O, no, no! of course it doesn't say that."
"Well, does it say that he may possibly depart from it?"
"O, no,—it says he will not depart from it."
Ah, that is the trouble with so many of us! We believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God, of course, but when it cuts across our track, and we stand condemned in its presence, we wonder if it means exactly what it says. "In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand." Ah, what a time to sow the good seed,—in the morning and in the evening!
"But," says one, "the morning is the busiest time of the day, and in the evening we are too weary." Never mind; if the Lord has taken the pains to tell us when is the best time for sowing the good seed of the kingdom, surely He knows best. What would we think of the farmer who would defer the planting of his corn or the sowing of his wheat until midwinter, because he was too hurried to attend to it in season? Would he expect a good crop of corn or a luxuriant harvest of wheat? Ah, if we would reap, we must not be too busy to attend faithfully to the sowing.
The earnest prayers of father and mother around the family altar have many and many a time proven like strong cords to lead the wayward son or tempted daughter back to the paths of virtue and honor, even tho they have wandered far away among the mountains of sin.
One day I was passing the window of a florist. Suspended by a cord from the ceiling, was a strange, ugly-looking root. Dry and dead, without beauty or fragrance, shriveled and withered it seemed, and I wondered that the florist had taken the pains to hang it in his window. A few days afterward, I looked in at the same window. Where was the ugly root? it had disappeared, and in its place grew a lovely plant. The long trailing branches were delicate and graceful, and the fresh, tender leaves were beautifully green. The florist had only placed the root in water—that was all; and I thought: Ah, those prayers morning and evening sent up to the throne of God by a godly father or mother, or a devoted sister, when watered by the tears of love shall never die! they will grow greener and more beautiful as the years go by. And as faithful memory recalls those earnest prayers which, perhaps at the time, seemingly fell upon dull ears, another link is added to the chain which leads the wanderer toward home and heaven.
"Many and many a time in the last half century," mused Grandpa Blake, "I have had cause to thank God that I had praying parents. Many a time have I been kept from the follies of sin by the thought that my name was upon mother's lips at the hour of prayer. 'I shall always think of you at the set of sun, John,' she said, 'and you must remember that I am praying for you. Father and I will never forget you, no matter where you are, at our evening and morning prayers.'"
"One evening, while I was a sailor, in mid-ocean a fearful temptation came to me. I had almost yielded. No one would be apt to find me out, and it would mean great worldly advantage. Almost the words 'I will do it!' fell from my lips,—almost. Suddenly, as tho a voice from heaven had spoken, I heard my name. The setting sun cast a halo of gold and crimson over the sky, which was reflected in the waters, and a single star shone like the eye of an angel in the far-off heavens. It was the hour of evening prayer in my boyhood home. 'John, my son, we are praying for you!'"
"Then there arose in my memory a picture of the old home. Far away over the hills I could hear in fancy the echo of the Sabbath bells, and almost catch the fragrance of the lilacs that grew by the window. Almost I could hear the voices of loved ones as, at the sacred hour of evening worship, they joined in the sweet refrain—
'O'er the hills the sun is setting,' then the gentle, pleading voice of my mother: 'Merciful Father in heaven, keep my boy from temptation. Send the angels from Thy presence and let them be as a wall of fire round about him.'"
The old man continued, "I could not yield to the tempter, with that sweet voice sounding in my ear;—and thus I was kept by the power of my mother's prayer."
O fathers and mothers, let not Satan hinder your faithfulness at the family altar! The seed may be a long time germinating; but it is good seed, and if it be watered with many tears and by the dew of heaven, it will some day yield a blessed harvest; for "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap;" and "as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it to bring forth and bud; . . . so shall My word be that goeth forth out of My mouth; it SHALL NOT return unto Me void, but it SHALL accomplish that which I please, and it SHALL prosper in the thing whereto I send it."
Ah, sometime, sometime we shall receive an answer to our every prayer of faith, and such an answer as shall cause our hearts to throb with happiness, and our tongues to take up a song of victory.
Then sow thy seed in the fresh heart's soil,
And water it well with tears;
We shall see the harvest of all our toil
In the light of eternal years.