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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 5

Be Patient with Children

Be Patient with Children.

"There is another thought," says Mr. Beecher, "that I wish to urge—the transmissableness of moral qualities from parent to child. But in training the child, the harder it is to train him so as to give him the right character, the more earnestly should you work to do it; because that which we superinduce by training on his constitution, either of body or mind, he will transmit to his offspring. If your child inherits a nature that is just and generous and good, while it will be easy for you to bring him up, he and his offspring to later generations will have the benefit of that moral constitution which you have handed down to him. But even if your child is bad, you can form a habit on him which shall make it likely that his child will be better than the father. So that the education which you bestow upon your child, and which taxes your strength and patience, is not for him alone, but for his babe, and for generations in the time to come. And if you, by the touch of a prophet, could see the airy forms of the future, and hear their voices, you would see many holding up imploring hands, and would hear them say, 'Be faithful to your child, for our destiny hangs on his; and what you do for that child, you do not for him alone, but for multitudes that are unborn.' And if the work be hard, think how long its effects will remain, and how far its blessings will reach.

"Be patient, then, with children—poorly organised children, nervous children, irritable children, that tend to fret and grieve. Be patient with children that are obstinate and ugly, whose basilar nature seems to be more developed than their coronal. Be patient, page 18 that, if possible, you may be able to counteract, or restrain, or bind, that evil in them which otherwise may come rolling over with accumulations to curse coming generations.

"And, moreover, when you are saving them, you save yourselves: for the very discipline and self-restraint and self-denial which are required to train those who are difficult to train, reacts and makes you better. And oh, how glorious will be the meeting of parents and children in the kingdom of heaven, where dear and loving parents have had dear and loving children! But oh, how much more glorious will be that meeting, when the children that have lain on you like a nightmare meet you in heaven, and say to you in the light of God's presence, You were twice my father: from you came my life, and from you my immortality.'

"It may be that you have your sorrows and troubles, and that you will have a thousand times more than you have had; but if it is hard to bear with your own children, how much harder is it to bear with other people's children! Perchance they are vagabonds, and have no one to care for them; but they are someboby's children; and if you never see their father and mother to get their thanks, remember that Christ will say, 'In as much as ye did it unto one of the least of these my poor and despised little ones, ye did it unto me.' Be patient, and God shall give you your reward by-and-bye, and enough of it."