The influence of a son over his parents' happiness
It is impossible to estimate the tremendous influence which children have on the happiness of their parents. The unfortunate thing about it is that the children are the last to realize it. It may be that a misplaced modesty inclines them to imagine that their course in life cannot be of much consequence to any one. In many cases, unhappily, gross selfishness engenders sheer indifference to the feelings of those who have most claim upon them, so that they never give a thought to the pain they are inflicting. But behind these special points there is the universal fact that no one can understand the depth and overpowering intensity of a parent's love until he becomes a parent himself. Then, in the yearning anxiety he experiences for his own children, a man may have a revelation of the love which he had received all the days of his life without ever dreaming of its wonderful power. But surely, up to their capacity for understanding it, children should realize the great trust that is given to them. They are entrusted with the happiness of their parents. After receiving from them life, food, shelter, innumerable good things and a watchful, tender love throughout, they have it in their power to make bright the evening of their father's and mother's life, or to cloud it with a deep, dark gloom of hopeless misery.
I. THE SECRET OF THIS INFLUENCE IS IN THE MORTAL CONDUCT OF THE SON OR DAUGHTER. "The wise son" - "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;" "the foolish son"—the fool in the Bible is more morally than intellectually defective. In the infancy of their children fond parents often dream of the earthly prosperity they would wish for them—a brilliant career, success in business, wealth, renown, happiness. But as life opens out more fully they come to see that these are of secondary importance. The mother whose brooding fancy prophesied a young Milton in her wonderful boy is perhaps just a little disappointed as by slow degrees she undergoes disillusion, and sees him develop into an ordinary city clerk; but she will not confess her disappointment to herself, and it is soon swallowed up in just pride and delight if he is upright and kind and good. But if she is not mistaken about the genius of her child, but only under an error as to the moral direction that genius will take; if her Milton becomes a Byron, then, though the world rings with his lame, she—supposing her to be a true, wise mother—will be broken-hearted with grief. It is not the dulness, nor the failures, nor the troubles, nor the early death of children that bring a father's "grey hairs with sorrow to the grave." It is their sins. If these sins show direct unkindness, the grief reaches its saddest height. Then the father may well say, with poor Lear—
"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!"
It is heart rending for the mother to part with her infant if he dies an early death. But the grief she feels when she looks at the little grave, and thinks of her child quietly sleeping, safe with the God who called the children to himself—this grief is calm and endurable compared with the awful, crushing agony she would have experienced if the child had lived and had fallen into sin and brought shame upon his head. Parents are foolish as well as unsubmissive when they pray too positively for their children's lives. Our one great Father knows what is best. Perhaps it is safest for all that the child should be taken from the evil to come. But, of course, if he can be spared to live a life of usefulness and honour, this is most to be desired, and the parents' prayers should chiefly go out for the safe preservation of their children's better life.
II. THE POSSESSION OF THIS INFLUENCE SHOULD BE A STRONG INDUCEMENT TO WORTHY LIVING. It furnishes a new element in the obligations of right. The son has it in his power to make his parents happy or miserable. So great a trust involves a serious responsibility. "No man liveth unto himself." Besides his higher obligations, the son has a life in regard to his father and mother. He is not at liberty to run riot as he chooses, because he thinks his own future only is at stake. By all the terrible pain he inflicts, by the deep gladness he might have conferred, the guilt of his sin is aggravated. Should not such considerations urge strongly against yielding to temptation? If the mad young man cares little for abstract righteousness, if he has lost the fear of God, still is it nothing that every new folly is a stab in the heart of those who have done most for him and who would even now give their hoes to save him? It is not unmanly to say to one's self, "For my mother's sake I will not do this vile thing." It is devilish not to be capable of such a thought. Similar considerations may help us in our highest relations. God is our Father. We may "grieve" his Spirit by sin. When the prodigal returns God rejoices in the presence of his angels. Shall we not hate the sins that made Christ mourn, and seek to do better for the sake of the love of God?