Civility to Children

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Nov 6, 1879

Civility to Children.

A lady and gentleman were speaking of another's Christian character. The gentleman said, "He was once my Sunday-school teacher, and although I have no doubt he is a Christian, yet no word of his could ever have any influence upon me."

"Why?" asked the lady, in great astonishment.

"He would talk very earnestly and seriously to me in Sabbath-school, but if he passed me on the street a dozen times during the week, he never took the least notice of me; therefore all his words were lost upon me."

"I do not want to be in Miss R.'s class any longer," a boy said to his mother.

"Why not, my son?"

"Because she is too proud to speak to me if she meets me on the streets, and I do not want to go to Sunday-school to be in her class."

A friend once said, "I had rather fail to recognize older persons on the street than children; for they always give me such a wistful look before I speak to them, and such a gratified one afterwards, that it pays well."

"Oh, it is only a child," says some: "she will not mind if I did not speak to her!" But children do mind, and they are often more critical and appreciative than older persons.

Children are always required to express gratitude and thanks for favors bestowed upon them: but do we often express ours to them? How many little favors they bestow upon us during a week or month? How many times their little feet run "up stairs, down stairs, and in the ladies' chamber," but do we think it anything?

Certainly it is the parent's or the teacher's duty to command, and the child's to obey; but are there not times when a milder form than "Do this, do that" (with some threat attached), would be an improvement and a kindness? They must always say please, and cannot we say this to them sometimes? I remember a dear little girl who struggled nearly all day with her wilful little heart before she could say please to her dear mother; but at last the victory was final and complete.

Children usually copy the manner and tone of older persons, and their treatment of others is very similar to that they receive.

There are two aged gentlemen who are frequently in contact with a particular set of boys. One of these gentlemen can ask and obtain a favor from them at almost any time, and he always receives great courtesy and kindness from them; but the other would not dare to ask a favor, and I am sorry to say he frequently receives rude, disrespectful words, and even nicknames from them. What makes the difference? The first old gentleman is always kind, grateful, and courteous to these boys, while the other never speaks to them without a snarl and a sneer, and gives them nothing but frowns and threats.

How many little ones in this beautiful world hardly know what a kind word or a smile is! Then let us give them, and all other children, the courtesy we can; let us brighten their skies and smooth their paths all we can, for to them all there must come, some time in life, storms and hedged up ways—then the memory of pleasant events in childhood will be a comfort and cheer. Let us also show them that the religion we profess and recommend is, in itself, attractive and desirable, that it makes life better and kinder. A writer of the present day, who does not care for the Christian religion, has lately said, "Some Christians act as if they thought that when Christ said, 'Suffer little children to come unto me,' he had a drawn sword under his mantle."