The Dowry of Children
The Dowry of Children
They are idols of hearts and of households,
They are angels of God in disguise.
– C. M. Dickenson
Ah! what would the world be to us,
If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us
Worse than the dark before.
– Longfellow
Alittle child is a strong uniting bond between husband and wife. Where there had been signs of alienation, those two tiny hands bring hearts and lives together again, and the two streams unite, blended in mutual and common affection. And where there had been true love, that love is woven tighter than before, as the parents bend together over the little life in which their two natures are expressed, no longer two but one.
“The state of marriage,” says Bishop Taylor, “fills up the numbers of the elect, is the mother of the world, preserves kingdoms, and fills cities, churches, and heaven itself.” This is an aspect of married life that we would be foolish to ignore. What God has cleansed and sanctified, we have no right to call common or unclean. Indeed, there is probably nothing in our human life in which a man approaches so nearly to the great Life-giver as in the passing on of his own life to another. It is a function in our human life that should never be thought of without reverence, or contemplated apart from prayer. And the urgency for this becomes more apparent when we remember that the passion, temper, and disposition of either parent may be so transmitted to the child as to affect its entire afterlife.
If this book were not written for general circulation, I would say more, but I hope that the words already written may be deeply pondered. History, physiology, and experience go to show how inevitably parents impress themselves upon their offspring. If the father wishes the child to be pure-hearted, self-disciplined, strong in character, and godly in aspirations, he must be all that himself. If the mother desires the life, which is so marvelously associated with her own, to attain her ideal, she must realize it herself. What she thinks, the child will think; what she loves, the child will love; what she allows to dominate herself will rule its coming years. For the sake of the child, let her solemnly renounce passion, refuse strong drink, steep her mind in high and holy thoughts, surround herself with sweet sights and sounds, and hold much communion with God.
In the view of God’s Word, a small family is a calamity. It was the Creator’s original command that man should be fruitful and multiply, and the psalmist says that the father of many sons is like a warrior whose quiver is full of arrows. This view is confirmed by history and experience. The decreasing population of France is becoming a disastrous factor in her history, and is arousing the gravest alarm among her statesmen – so much so, that they are making generous gifts and the promise of free education to the children of large families. They know well enough that a nation with a decreasing population can never become a mighty, colonizing force, but will sink to a lower, inferior rank in the governing of the world. It is to the large families of their peoples that the Anglo-Saxon nations owe their marvelous expansive force, and the world is becoming colonized and dominated by their children.
Doesn’t universal experience confirm the verdict of history? What child is so pitiful as an only child, who has been the idol of two people, the spoiled object of their exclusive attention, always associated with their pursuits, and missing the wholesome contact of other children, whether as playmates or fellow students or comrades in adventure? Brothers and sisters refine each other like the pebbles of the sea beach as they roll and tumble with the tides, chipping off corners and rounding the roughest edges into symmetrical shape.
Children of large families usually fare better than an only child. To use the north-country phrase, “They drag each other up.” There is a frank bonhomie, a chivalrous interest in each other’s welfare and a willingness to help each other forward, which are of priceless value in the making of young lives. How good it is for a daughter to have become accustomed to the nursing and care of little brothers and sisters. What an infinite deprivation it is for a girl to never have had a brother, or a brother a sister. Unless the direst considerations of health intervene, no married couple should evade the responsibilities of family life.
Where God sends mouths, He sends the bread to feed them. Those who obey the laws of the Creator may count on Him to provide for them in the results of their obedience to natural law. Sometimes daily bread will be all that He will give, but that is no matter for regret. Rather, it may be counted a crowning mercy if the luxuries which pamper appetite and spoil digestion are withheld. The healthiest families in the world are those that have been reared on little more than oatmeal porridge or good wheat bread.
The nurture of the young child is mostly with the mother. And how sacred the charge! How much she needs of that wisdom that God gives liberally to those who ask! But how certainly may she count on receiving it from Him whose Word said, Take this child . . . and nurse it for me (Exodus 2:9). Mothers, let me be dogmatic.
Never say anything to a child that is not perfectly true. Never promise anything that you are not able and prepared to perform. Never lay down conditions for something that you are not prepared to require. Never threaten a child that you will punish him and then omit the infliction. Never tell a child to do a thing and excuse or ignore his disobedience. Never threaten that you will tell his father, as though you could not assert your own authority, for that makes the thought of him a dread rather than a joy. Never pass over a lie, however trivial, or an act of disobedience, however trifling. The tiny fault of today will become a worse one tomorrow. Never tell a child that if he does such and such an act, God or you will cease to love him; you know perfectly well that love is not turned aside by sin. Woe to us if it were!
So much for the negative. As for the positive, your heart will find the clue. Only be consistent; don’t be all smiles today and full of touchiness and fretfulness tomorrow. Let your child always find you at home and at leisure. Put away your work and reading when the child seeks you. Be sure to hear morning and evening prayers. Take care not to always delegate your children to the nurse or dispatch them to the nursery, but undertake their training with your own motherly patience and affection. It is better to deny yourself to your friends and to society than to your little ones who bask in your smile as warm sunshine but languish in your absence as in the winter’s cold. I am prepared to think that it will better serve a woman’s true happiness if she will give herself to secure the lasting love of her children, than if she were to shine as the central star in the most brilliant constellation that ever sparkled in society.
The father also has an important part to fulfill. It is not his duty to be always at home, but when he is, it should be a festive time. However much he is engaged, he should give at least one evening a week, and always Sunday, to his wife and children. He doesn’t need to always insist on the stronger elements in education, but almost unconsciously he will exercise them. He will mold and guide by what he is, and as the children grow older, he will become their companion and associate to an increasing extent; to be with Father, to be like him, and to do as he does will become the unwritten code of the home. Ah, Father, remember what the lad said when his father and he were climbing the mountainside: “Take the safe path, Father; remember that I am coming.” In your habits and self-indulgences, the children will copy you.
What lessons the children teach us! An exquisite poem of Patmore’s describes bending over the sleeping form of his child who was sent to his bed, unkissed, because for the seventh time he had disobeyed. He tells how he found the slumbering lashes still wet with tears and added his own; he then turned to God with a plea that He would in like manner bend over him, forgiving folly and sin. Our Lord taught us to reason in this way when He said, If ye then, being evil, know . . . how much more shall your heavenly Father give? (Luke 11:13). Our children’s simple trust in our patience and strength, their artless love, their retreat to our side in fear and pain, and our own quick response are mirrors in which we see reflections of things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard (1 Corinthians 2:9), but which enter into the heart of man to understand God and His dealings with us.