Goodbye To Glory - Ichabod # 5

Goodbye To Glory - Ichabod # 5

When a young girl dresses so skimpily they attract the attention of every google-eyed man and boy - do not their mothers the same?

When boys argue over the relative "values" and "quick-stirring" powers of advertised brands of liquor - do not their fathers drink booze and vote for legalizing it, forgetting that you can control a powder can in a fire as easily as you can control booze?

Is there not too much laxness on the part of parents toward spiritual values? Often children are allowed to stay out of Sunday School and to miss church services - to remain in almost complete ignorance of the spiritual values. Is it not perilous to children, this easy-come, easy-go attitude of parents? Is not the use of intoxicating beverages one of the greatest evils responsible for juvenile delinquency?

Are not children from homes where indiscriminate drinking is done sent out to "play the game" with two strikes against them? Do not thinking people believe that youth delinquency would be negligible if it were not for delinquent adults, especially delinquent parents? Can one pass judgment on these young people without indictment of ourselves for failure somewhere down the line?

Do not boys and girls get into trouble when too much leisure time is theirs?

Are not city governments extremely unwise to say they have no money for further improvement of playgrounds while they allot large sums of taxpayers money for the cost of punishing the youth for committing crimes?

Is it not shortsightedness bordering on imbecility to pay so much for the cost of juvenile delinquency and so little for its prevention?

Some months ago Judge Edmond P. Mahoney, Municipal Court, Portland, Maine said: "Any law should be so framed to penalize the delinquent parent as well as the delinquent child... We must first give God His rightful place in the American home... Until the cardinal principles of God are implanted in the hearts of the youth of our nation...until there is instilled in the hearts of the parents of these youth of our nation a God-like sense of responsibility in that home, we shall continue to experience wave upon wave of crime, mounting and growing steadily day by day, until it reaches a magnitude beyond the scope of the law-enforcement agencies and the American people to control."

But if parents distinguish themselves by the profession of truth, the worship of God, the practice of virtue, they will be sure to draw others after them; whereas if they are irreligious and un-Christian, they are infested fountains that poison. Parents can no more dispense with personal piety without malicious influence on children than a tree can dispense with sap and bear fruit.

Adam and Eve sinned! And Cain became a murderer. Had they not sinned, Abel would have lived. If a rock is a quotation from the quarry, if a flower is a quotation from the garden, if a tree is a quotation from the forest, if a bird is a quotation from the flock, if every child is a quotation of his parents - what sort do the children make make?

Today the situation is desperate. Character is at a premium in the land. Criminality of all kinds is rampant. The daily prints are filled with record of deeds almost too revolting for public consumption.

An ever-rising wave of lawlessness is hurling its weight against the bulwarks of the nation. Much of this is because of godless homes - because too many fathers and mothers have abdicated.

Now parents ought to rejoice for the opportunity of living close to God, of hearing the motion of angel's wings in the patter of little children, and of being Christlike in the home.

Glory in the home is made secure when Christian conduct is evident. Unless you serve God yourselves as parents you will plant vines on which will grow grapes of bitterness. "What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge?" (Ezekiel 18:2).

Nothing is so infectious as example: "We can do more good by being good than in any other way". "A father who whipped his son for swearing and swore while he whipped him, did more harm by his example than good by his correction". "Noble examples stir us up to noble actions". "Live with wolves and you will learn to howl."

A drinking or drunken father is a poor preacher of sobriety to sons. A proud father is a miserable recommender of humility to sons. They will do as you do rather than as you say. Your example will counteract all the effect of your counsel - and all the convictions you would fix in the mind will fall like arrows from an impenetrable shield. You should therefore begin "both to do and to teach."

You should be able, in a humble measure, at least, to say to those under your care: "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ..." "Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonorest thou God? (Romans 2:21-23).

If parents suffered their children to go naked, to beg their bread, to lie unattended in sickness, to perish with hunger in a ditch, they would be shunned as monsters. But parents act a far more criminal and a far more infamous part by disregarding their spiritual and everlasting welfare.

Doubtless Herod, after killing the infants in Bethlehem, was viewed and shunned with horror. But he was far less cruel than some modern parents. He only destroyed the body.

"But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." (1 Timothy 5:8).

Let us remember and teach others to remember - lest glory depart from our dwellings - that there is a difference in a house and a home: that a house is built by human hands but a home is built by human hearts, that a house is built of visible materials but a home is built of the invisible things of the Spirit; that a house may be destroyed, but fire and flood and earthquake and storm can not destroy a real home; that there is only one calamity can ruin a home, the death of love; that the real food of a home is not meat and bread but thoughtfulness and unselfishness.

The basis for Christianity in the home, the preventative of departed glory, is Jesus and the Church.

~Robert G. Lee~

(continued with # 6)