The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-05-03
THE FAITH OF CHILDREN.
Responsibility of Parents for Training Up a
Child in the Way He Should Go.

Responsibility of Parents for Training Up
Child in the Way He Should Go.
Philade phia Press.
Of course, the father and mother believe that
the one sure basis for the childs life is faith IN
Christ. But what have they actually done to
give it that faith2 At the most, probably,
taught it its prayers when it was baby, told 1t
the stories of Joseph and Samuel and the rest,
sent it to Sunday school and to church. But
how many mothers make themselves at home IN
young girls heart know her hopes and long
ings, her fine, sensitive tancies, and bring her to
the living Savior, who can answer them all, to
put her hands in His2 How many fathers are
intimate friends of their sons or would
venture to say word to them OF that
one Helper who can make their lives strong and
worthy There is strong reticence in most
families reluctance TO speak upon this subject
the tenderest and most profound of all. Yet
the nature of every educated, thoughtful boy and
girl goes through period of cropping uncertainty,
of intoerable loneliness before it finds its place
aad work for life. Who is so fit to stretch out
a guiding hand. then as the father or mother!
If the parent has kept in sympathy with his
grown child as he was with the baby, and if his
own faith is real and warm to him. he will bring
it like water of life to this thirsty, struggling
soul. If he does not who will! Yet, in nine
cases out of ten he shifts his responsibility to the
Sunday-schooB and to the church. Let us see
now how they perform the task.
We have no wish to call in question the gen
eral usefulness of the Sunday school especially
to children who have no religious training at
home. There is an admirable system of routine
teaching use; large sums of money are col
lected from the children for missionary work,
and the discipline of teaching is. no doubt help
full to the young teachers. But is this mechan-
ical system likely to do more at best than to give
the child parrot-llke knowledge OF historical
facts and theological dogmas in the Bible! Is 1t
likely to awaken any fervid, actual wish in the
boy and girl to lead pure, truthful, devout llteE
What real feeling of charity and brotherly help
does it gain from the penny dropped IN
the box for the vague, invisible, unreal
heathenl Are the young lads and girls
who, as a rule, teach in the Sunday school per
sons to whom parents would conhde their I'M
portant business affairs! If not are they fit to be
the chief custodians of chids soul, or to dl-
rect its opinions and beliefs for life on the most
momentous of all questionsl In word, is any
parent who is Christian justified in turning
over its child to the Sunday school for re-
ligious Instruction.
with its services and sound teaching. Let us
come down at once to hard fact. How many
sermons are preached in Philadelphia III the
course of year which would interest. or could
even be understood by, boy or girl Of 10. II or
even 10 years of agel Let our ministers answer to
their own consciences One of our clergymen,
now venerable old man, has been in the habit
of preaching a month to the children OF his
parish. But so unusual was the custom and so
welcome an innovation that these sermons of his
are published and known all over the English
s0eaking world. We know other exceptions to
ole general rule. The boy or girl goes from
Sunday school to the church and sits during the
wearisome discourse Jas uhintelligible to him as
foreign language) with more or less
decent decorum, but his mind is full of
the people or the dresses in the next pew
Why notR He reioices when the moment of es-
cape comes and, as soon as he is old enough to
choose his own course, stays away from the
church where he has been intolerably bored
Whose fault is it,
During fifteen years the childs thoughts, af,
fections and soul are before parent, teacher and
minister, like soft and virgin soil, waiting ready
for the planting If they remain barren, if at
the end we find no crop such as we desire, it is
not the child who is to blame; nor God, who
promised the increase when we did our work
faithfully.