The Children For Christ by Andrew Murray

that he can successfully communicate to others. In the higher sphere of
the life, truth which a parent has to impart, it holds far more good: it is
only the lesson I first teach myself that I can really teach my child. One
of the first laws in the science of home education is, that it depends far
more on example than precept; what parents are avails more than what
they say. There is not one of the great lessons of child-life which the
parent must not first himself learn. Let us look at some of them.
The great aim of education is to give the child, when grown up to
manhood, the perfect mastery and the ready use of all the wondrous
powers God has endowed him with. To this end a wise self control is
one of the first of virtues. As little as a state can prosper if there be no
wise, intelligent ruler to make its laws and provide for its needs as they
arise, can there be happiness in the little empire within man’s bosom,
unless everything be subject to a ruling power. The child cannot be too
early trained to habits of quiet thoughtfulness in speech and act, giving
time and opportunity for mind and will to hold their rule. This training
comes far more through example than precept. It is the atmosphere of a
well regulated home, the influence of the self control which parents
exhibit, which unconsciously set their mark on the child. When parents
give way to impulse and temper, perhaps at the very time when
professing to reprove or restrain the child’s temper, the effect of the
good advice they mean to give is more than neutralized by the evil
influence of the spirit displayed. It is the spirit that influences. The
child may never look up and say, but God’s Word on its behalf says,
`You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? If
parents honestly watch themselves, they will often discover the causes
or the helps to their children’s failings in themselves. Such discovery
ought to lead to very earnest confession before God, to a very hearty
surrender to the teaching of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We can depend
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