The Lexington advertiser. [volume] (Lexington, Miss.) 1904-1985, 1948-09-23

q SAdiStidH, ID q man worth our
careful attention. We ask this ques-
ton about him: What made him
what he was?
Faith at Home
COME MEN have to leave home to
- find faith. But perhaps the hap
piest Christians, certainly the most
fortunate, are those who cannot re-
member what 1t was not to have
faith. 1t was the atmosphere they
breathed as children. The first
people they knew were Christians,
prayer and faith were taken for
granted, the name Of Christ was
heard only in reverence and love,
never in jest or anger.
Timothy grew up in such a home.
When he became a mature, work.
ing Christian he had no wasted
years to regret, no wild oats to pull
up. The faith of his adult mind
was not Scared by the acid remains
Of earlier doubt. Timothy's life was
all of n piece. He was born to
idlti, HG grew up III IL.
Homes can do a great deal for
the children who live In them.
But nothing else - physical
health, poise, culture, friends,
ambition-nothing else Is quite
so valuable a gift or quite so
lasting, as faith.
In later years faith may have to
be pounded into a person or shocked
into him; but in childhood faith Is
woven in, welded in, and that Is as
it should be. Happy the Christian
who does not have to turn his back
on his childhood when he turns his
face to Christ!
Book Of Wisdom
GID ELIGION cannot be taught,
IN it can only be caught" is an
old saying. 1t is partly true, for you
cannot set any dozen people at ran
dom down or a bench and teach
them into faith. If teaching religion
were as simple as that, then every
Sunday school could guarantee that
every one of its graduates would
become a saint. Nevertheless, re-
ligion can partly be taught, for in
a book there may be crystallized
the faith of many a generation. A
book may concentrate and preserve
the insight, the inspiration, the as
surance of men and women who
though dead yet speak.
JxxtY. ~ ,ptxL h@A1y1 of Tos%L l. ILL.
living with many families of faith
at the same time. Such a book is
the Bible. And it was the Bible, Or
so much of it as had been written,
the Old Testament, which was the
one Book in Timothy's boyhood
home. Through the Scriptures, the
boys mother taught her son not
merely her own faith but that Of
many a generation before her time.
In our w day, parents may
feel that they come too far short
Of being saints, so they hesitate
about urging their perhaps dim
ly-felt religion on their children.
Yet In our Bible there Is open to
all fathers and mothers a means
Of placing their children In an
atmosphere of intense faith.
Personal religious genius is rare;
but ven though you may be any
thing but a genius, you still can
bring to your child the treasures Of
the Bible. product Of the highest
inspiration and insight the world
has known.
Women Of the Fumily
TIMOTHY'S FATHER was
Il Greek. probably not a Christian.
He and Timothy may neve have
understood each other. II was the
women of the family who nodded
the boys mind and heart, his
mother, Eunice, and his grand
mother. Lois.
It Is always so. II Is the women
Of a family who have most influ-
ence for faith or against it. The
boy knows his mother before he
knows any one else. She teaches
him to talk, he absorbs her atti-
tudes and ideas even before ne I'M
derstands them. If father and
mother differ in religion, it is likely
that children will follow mother
rather than father.
ocopyriqht by the International Council O.
raiicioua Education on behalf OF 20 profext1n