BY MRS. S. M. I. HENRY.
GOD never intended that generation should be to death, but to eternal Life. Wherever it has become inevitable that “sin should abound,” he has planned that grace should “much more abound.” Rom. 5:20. In this forethought of God for us is the only possible hope of overcoming our inheritance of sin.
To one looking backward over the experiences of a lifetime, the opportunities afforded during the early periods of child life seem so momentous that one cannot but tremble to see them slipping by, unimproved, out of the hand of those who should appreciate them. Alas, to be twenty years too late in making the effort to understand one's child! And yet we who are grandparents must not forget, that it requires this same backward look, this same lifelong experience, to reveal the importance of the passing days. The best that we can hope for is that we may be able to throw a little kindly light down from the steeps to which experience has led us, by which those who follow after may be able to see some things that were hidden from our eyes.
In the child who is growing up there is being laid the foundation upon which all he is ever to know or to be must rest. As he runs and leaps, chatters, shouts, and romps, or drones and sulks, works and loiters, there is being formed, on the plastic substance of body and soul, that which shall endure as long as life; and these enduring qualities and characteristics are being formed out of that which the home-keepers are, in themselves, and that which they bring into this inner circle of environment, more than by anything besides. Everything which impresses the child, sooner or later hardens into character; and character is destiny. At first all impressions are purely physical, sentient, and as such are recorded on the tablet of consciousness; and the nature of these impressions determines whether the thoughts of the young mind shall lead to purity or impurity of habit and life.
The child knows nothing about his body, and what its sensations and functions mean. He is operated by nature as any bit of mechanism might be by some unseen power to which it had been geared. Some are so bold as to call this nature God, and claim that it is almighty to work out the completed life in itself. But while it is true that nature is of God,—an expression of him,— yet it is also true that when it touches the being of man, it meets another force which may entirely change its God-given course, and pervert, divert, prostitute it, so that all trace of the divine will be utterly wiped out of it.
It is for father and mother to determine the direction which shall be given to this natural force which is the child's first “stock in trade;” and, practically, this decision is made, this direction is given, while as yet the “substance” of the new life is being “curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth,” by Him from whom it can be at no time hidden; whose eyes see it, “yet being imperfect;” and in whose “book all its members are written ;” as well as “in what days they shall be fashioned, when as yet there are none of them” (Ps. 139:15, 16, margin); and who also knows and records the influence of the secret thought of both father and mother on the strangely sensitive organism of the unborn child.
It is during the period of his hidden life that the decision is made beforehand by his parents as to where he shall be especially susceptible to the power of God or of Satan, especially strong to resist either good or evil. The plan of his life-battle is marked out for him by these prenatal influences, not only on that which he is to find in the blood, nerve, bone, and tissue which he inherits, not only on that which enters into his mental constitution, but by the impulses of the moment; by his father's treatment of his mother; the tones in which he speaks; the tempers which he arouses in her; the manner in which she receives all these; the battle which she is compelled to fight, the victories which she gains, and the defeats which she suffers; the faith or unbelief which controls her, the loves and hates, each of which is as an indelible pencil, making its lasting impression on the embryo human being, tracing out the line of his coming battle against sin or against God.~
( To be continued. )
ADVENT REVIEW AND SABBATH HERALD
March 2, 1897 Vol. 74, No. 9
(Written from the Sanitarium in Battle Creek, MI)
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