What Does He Hear? by Max Hill

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Dec 18, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 51.

What Does He Hear?

By Max Hill

TODAY I saw a little boy out in the barn-yard with a number of men. The little fellow stood in the circle, hands behind his back, eyes turned attentively up to the face of one of the men who was telling the others something—I hoped it was something that the little man might listen to safely. At the conclusion of the narrative, the men burst into a hearty laugh, the little man with the rest. Then I wondered more than ever about that story. It may have been pure. There are pure stories that are funny, exceedingly funny, but there are so many more that are not that it pays to be suspicious.

Is it safe for little boys to listen to all that is said in a promiscuous company of men? Is it safe for large boys? When you see a little fellow drinking in something that an older one is telling to an attentive crowd, or to him alone, be sure the story demands investigating. Impurities of thought and word and action are the stock in trade of more men and boys than it is pleasing to think of. They never tell them in the house in the company of ladies, nor do they tell them to self-respecting men; instead, they gather about them men and boys of another sort altogether, on the street, in the alley—in the saloon eventually—and pour into their ears unspeakable stories of soul-destroying filth.

It pays to know what the little folks hear, for there is far more understanding in the mind of a child than it is given credit for. An evil thought finds easy lodgment in an undeveloped mind, and from that little may grow a character as low and offensive as sin can make. It pays a thousandfold to know what the little ones hear.

MAX HILL.