| Home Making |
Chapter 4 |
Page 2 |
Our homes would be very cold and dreary without the children. Sometimes we weary of their noise. They certainly bring us a great deal of care and solicitude. They cost us no end of toil. When they are very young they break our rest many a weary night with their colics and teethings, and when they grow older they wellnigh break our hearts many a time with their waywardness. After they come to us we may as well bid farewell to living for self and to personal ease and independence, if we mean to do faithful duty as parents. There are some who therefore look upon the coming of children as a misfortune. They talk about them lightly as “responsibilities.” They regard them as in the way of pleasure. They see no blessing in them. But it is cold selfishness that looks upon children in this way. Instead of being hindrances to true and noble living, they are helps. They bring benedictions from heaven when they come, and while they stay they are perpetual benedictions.
“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.
“What the leaves are to the forest,
With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
Have been hardened into wood,–
“That to the world are children;
Through them it feels the glow
Of a brighter and sunnier climate
Than reaches the trunks below.”
When the children come what shall we do with them? What duties do we owe to them? How may be discharge our responsibility? What is the parents’ part in making the home and the home life? It is impossible to overstate the importance of these questions.
“It is no little thing when a fresh soul
And a fresh heart, with their unmeasured scope
For good, not gravitating earthward yet,
But circling into diviner periods,
Are sent into this world.”
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