Life and Literature Part 22

Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time.

283

Children are like the to-morrow of society.

--_Whately._

284

Children think not of what is past, nor what is to come, but enjoy the present time, which few of us do.

--_Bruyere._

285

_Children_--I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from G.o.d, love us.

--_d.i.c.kens._

286

Love of children is always the indication of a genial nature, a pure and unselfish heart.

287

MY CHILDREN.

What use to me the gold and silver h.o.a.rd?

What use to me the gems most rich and rare?

Brighter by far--aye! bright beyond compare-- The joys my children to my heart afford!

288

Children need models rather than critics.

--_Joseph Joubert._

289

_Spurgeon said_: "With children we must mix gentleness with firmness; they must not always have their own way, but they must not always be thwarted. If we never have headaches through rebuking them, we shall have plenty of heartaches when they grow up. If you yield up your authority once, you will hardly ever get it again."

290

Parents deserve reproof when they refuse to benefit their children by proper discipline.

291

My dearest pastime is with children.

292

Children are poor men's riches.

293

Nothing has a better effect upon children than praise.

--_Sir P. Sidney._

294

_Their Little Needs_--It is often a.s.serted that both men and women would be selfish beings but for children. They call out, and refine, and soften the best feelings of the parental heart. Their little needs are so many, and their simple ignorance so affecting, and their very caprices so winning, that love and attention flow out to them almost instinctively.

That must be a hardened nature which can be unmoved by the soft touch, the playful childishness, and the hundred little pranks of a baby.

--_Unknown._

295

You can not expect better manners from your children than you teach them. They imitate instinctively.

296

Children should be taught early to sympathize with the deformed, the crippled, and otherwise unfortunate beings: A little dwarfed girl in one of our great cities committed suicide a few years ago because she was so weary of being laughed at and ridiculed by her a.s.sociates in the streets and at school.

An old street pedlar was set upon by school children and so annoyed and misused that he became insane.

297

MY CHILDREN STILL.

A young preacher recently called upon an eminent Divine, and in the course of conversation asked him how many children he had. "Four, sir,"

was the reply. At the supper-table, the visitor perceived two beautiful children seated by the side of the mother. Turning to his host, he said, "I thought you had four children, sir: Where are the other two?" Lifting his eyes, the holy man of G.o.d pointed upwards, while a sweet smile broke over his countenance. "They are in Heaven," he repeated slowly and calmly; "yet my children still: not dead, but gone before."