THE FATHER'S OFFICE

BY MRS. S. M. I. HENRY

THE changes have been rung on the “love of the mother” and the “beauty of her ministry,” until it seems that nothing new can be said in song or story; while the father's office has been almost ignored. It is a fact, however, that nowhere is the beauty of the divine arrangement more perfectly revealed than in the relation between a true father and his boys and girls. No love of woman can surpass that which is truly fatherly. The  sweet spontaneity of the mother finds its fitting support in the deep-hearted, though often silent, love of the good father for his children; and often, when most silent, that love is most to be trusted.

It is a pity that the influence of business life should so often produce those habits of repression that make many a great heart, filled with unspoken longings and outreachings, seem cold and stern to wife and children ; and that by these externals he should be judged, instead of  by the real loving nature within. Many a man, with the pathetic story of a lifelong struggle, such as only love could have made possible, written in many crossing lines on cheek and forehead, sits silent in his home, his presence a shadow and restraint, his thoughts undreamed of, himself misunderstood, simply because he has never learned the art of sympathetic speech. The more deeply his heart is stirred, the more gruff and forbidding may be his tone and glance. Under the pressure of some family crisis, such as the leave-taking of a son who is stepping out into the world, when the mother, practiced  in caresses, knows just how to say unforgettable things, appropriate and sweet,, the father, awkward under the awfulness of realization which experience forces upon him, may be because of the swift rush of feelings which he does not know how to express, and too sick of heart to make even a sign, turns away, to be again misunderstood.

To be able to reveal itself, the heart in the breast of the average father—himself a development of the unknown and unappreciated boy — must be lifted, on the swift, strong tide of some great emergency, out of itself entirely, or be so nearly crushed under some great weight of feeling that it must cry out or break. The father,  silent except when command or reproof demand speech, growing rapidly old in the midst of his family, is one of the most pathetic sights ever seen in social life. Pitiful in the extreme is the shy restraint of his children in his presence, the awkward shamefacedness which so soon takes the place of the happy freedom of infancy in their intercourse, accompanied, as is sometimes the case, with a look of stiffled appeal in the father's eyes, which few are able to interpret or answer.

It is not so much in his heart that he is different from the mother, but in the power of giving and calling forth those little forms of expression that mean so much to the comfortable and safe home. The influence of a tender, fatherly presence cannot be estimated.  It clothes life with a dignity and strength that can come from no other source. He may be unlettered, weather-beaten, without anything that could pass as culture; he may wear his best suit very poorly, and look more unkempt in his satin necktie on Sabbath than with his unbuttoned shirt-band in the harvest-field; but if he has learned from the indwelling Heavenly Father the secret of living outwardly the inner love, he can never be less than the “dearest, old dear”  to his daughters, and the “grandest old hero of them all” to his sons.

The father's office is especially sacred, is the representative of God, vested with authority to govern the little world of his home. He stands as chief of his tribe, answerable, in a large degree, for all that transpires in its affairs. His influence to make or mar is equal to that of any other ruler, in proportion to the extent of his kingdom. He has the opportunity, on the one hand, of being an absolute despot; and, on the other, the most revered friend and companion. Love can make the dignity of such a ruler the most gracious thing in the world.

In his office the true father can so lead his children to love the name which he bears, that, as applied to God, it shall command their reverence forever. Clothed with the gentleness of God, he may restore enough of Eden to this sad earth, in his own home, to make it a safe anchorage against any storm that may sweep by on life's sea. Not even the memory of the sweet mother, is so strong to hold a man to purity as that of a tender father.

But there is a shoal of rocks to be shunned, a danger-point to be safely passed. Paul saw it, and left it marked on his chart so that it would not be mistaken by any who should follow him in any sort of Christian service. It is found in his Roman letter (15:18), in these remarkable words: “For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath, not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed.” The whole dark history of persecution by church and state and by mismanaged homes has resulted from recklessly going in the way which Paul did not dare take; i. e., putting the words and authority of man in the place of power which belongs alone to God, doing things which Christ would never have done, speaking words which could never have fallen from his lips. All failure in “bringing up a family” is from this cause, to say nothing of those of the church and the nations. ~

ADVENT REVIEW & SABBATH HERALD

Jan. 26, 1897 Vol. 74, No. 4

 (Written from the Sanitarium in Battle Creek, MI)