Covenanter Witness Vol. 53 - Rparchives.org

eligion."claim"civilization."prayer."sin. They have leveled their ideals, dulled theirspiritualsensitiveness, and no longer are keenlyaware of sin. Their tragedy is the death of theirsoul's ideal.Then what happens to growing character? Whenparents compromise the black and white of wrongand right to a patternless neutral gray, the conscience of youth is left in chaos or is lulled to sleep.The resulting disintegration of character may equalthat caused by home examples of dissipation andcriminality. Our children need the sense of securitythat comes from commitment to a clear-cut moralstandard.Needed: Homes with StandardsThe home is the chief agency of moral education,rivaled by no other agency of society in setting thechild's standards of conduct and morals, be they goodor bad. If parents fail their responsibility, througheither their bad example or their weakness in enforcing standards, the school and the church havea heavy handicap in carrying their end of trainingfor character. Should home, church and school allfail, state correctional institutions may restrain butrarely can reform ; and far too often delinquents confined in these institutions are thereby confirmed intheir wickedness and graduate as criminals. Thehome is the place to lay the foundations of characterbeginning at the cradle.An investigation of 1200 children by ColumbiaUniversity several years ago discovered an agreement in character ideals between children and parents closer by far than the agreement of these children with the ideals of other groups with which theywere closely associated. The index of agreement was.55 with parents, with playmates, .35 .14 with clubleaders, and .03 with teachers. And of the two parents, the mother's influence was the stronger withthe index of agreement of mothers and children threetimes that of fathers and children.The hand that rocks the cradle rules (or wrecks)the world!Needed: Christian HomesEarly home training in morals is essential, butthe home should be more than moral it should beChristian. Morality without Christianity will soon bedepleted, for after all morality is the fruit and notthe root of the good life.For many years the Protestant home has largelybeen barren of spiritual culture. And Protestantparents seem not as concerned that their families situnder the church's instruction as are Catholics andJewish parents. The moral and spiritual indifferenceof our age seems to have paralyzed much of Protestantism which, we fear, has tried to pass over tothe secular school a large measure of the home's andthe church's responsibility for moral and spiritualculture. Roy E. Baber (in Annals of the AmericanAcademy of Political and Social Science, March 1948)commends Catholicism for "indoctrinating its children so effectively that their religious beliefs arelargely fixed for life," whereas many Protestantyoung people "know almost nothing of the tenets ofthe faith which they nominally and are "illiterate inEven family worship, so characteristic formerlyof vital Protestant homes, has declined disturbingly,October 27, 1954although recent worship helps for home use undoubtedly have improved the situation in late years.Worship in the home featuring the Bible, prayer andthe great hymns is unquestionably of high value asa means of moral and spiritual culture. Judge LutherW. Youngdahl when governor of Minnesota wrote:"Count me a firm believer in the family altar. I amthoroughly convinced that a widespread return to thepractice of regular worship in the home would workmiracles in meeting the many critical problems ofmodern life. Let the family altar become the centeraround which life revolves and we will regain theare goingspiritual resources so badly needed We . . .to replenish our moral reserves only by strengthening the religious life of the family."Again we quote America's most distinguishedofficer of the law who carries a deep concern for therestoration of righteousness in the nation. "If thereis hope for the future of America," says J. EdgarHoover, ". . .we, as a nation, must return to God andto the practice of daily family And elsewhere he has said, "Families that pray together staytogether."A revival of family religion throughout American Protestantism is needed to cleanse the springsthat are the source of our national life, and thus saveus from the fate of other nations whose life-streamhas been corrupted by the seeping poison of godlessness,greed and lust.Much that I have tried to say with many wordsin this article is compressed into these few lines bymy preacher-friend, Foreman Lincicome: "Ourhomes are just so many streams, pouring themselvesinto the current ofmoral, social and political life. Asthe home goes, so goes the church; as the churchgoes, so goes the nation ; as the nation goes,TOBACCO, ALCOHOL AND OPIUMBy William James Robinson, A.M., D.D.so goesAll quotations in this essay are taken from thewritings of Dr. Charles B. Towns, a world renownedneurologist, if not otherwise credited.Speaking of using drugs he said "the fact is thattobacco not only prepares the way for physical diseases of all kinds, as any physician will tell you, butalso, as long investigation has shown me, for alcoholand drugtaking.""The relation of tobacco, especially in the form ofcigarettes, and opium and alcohol is a very close one.For years I have been dealing with alcoholism andmorphinism, have gone into their every phase andaspect, have minute details of between six and seventhousand cases, and I have never seen a case, except occasionally with women, which did not have ahistory of excessive use of tobacco." This is to me avery severe indictment of tobacco. It proves that itassociates with very reprehensible evils.He goes on to say "for all men, tobacco is an unfavorable factor which predisposes to worse habits.A boy always starts smoking before he starts drinking, because the action of tobacco makes it normalfor him to feel the need of stimulation. He is likelyto go to alcohol to soothe the muscular unrest, toblunt the irritation he has received from tobacco.265