EARLY IMPRESSIONS

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 27, 1880

EARLY IMPRESSIONS.

The importance of early right impressions upon the mind has been dwelt upon by numberless writers, but it is not on that account to be passed by. The three millions of fathers and mothers in our land need to be constantly reminded of it. Happy would it be for our land, and for the world, if putting them in remembrance could secure right action on this most important subject.

Dr. John D. Godman, the distinguished professor of anatomy and student of natural history, was bereaved of both his parents when he was about a year old. His aunt took care of him till he was six years old, when she died. She was a woman of uncommon piety, and the impressions made upon his mind were never effaced. It is true that he was for a season led into infidelity; but those early impressions, though obscured for a time, were at length the means of leading him to Christ. He became an eminent Christian as well as an eminent scholar. During his last illness, he was often heard to speak in raptures of his aunt, and to say, "If I have ever been led to do any good, it has been through the influence of her example, instructions, and prayers." That influence, be it remembered, was exerted before he was six years old!

Dr. John D. Godman

It is greatly to be regretted that Dr. Godman was not spared to execute a plan which he had formed. "This was," said he, "to relate a few curious incidents from among the events of my most singularly guided life, which could not have failed practically to illustrate the importance of inculcating correct religious and moral principles, and improving the mind therewith from the very earliest dawn of intellect, from the very moment that the utter imbecility of infancy begins to disappear."

Christian parents, are you taking care to make right impressions upon the minds of your children? Has it been your object to have the first ideas they are capable of forming, connected with God and duty? Have you done all you could by example, instruction, and prayer, to make upon the infant mind impressions which may lead them to the Lamb of God? — Christian Counselor.