“What kind of seed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you know whether it is good or bad?”
“No, I can’t tell; but it is seed, that is all I want to know, and I am sowing it.”
You would say that he was a first-class lunatic, wouldn’t you? But he wouldn’t be half so mad as the man who goes on sowing for time and eternity, and never asks himself what he is sowing or what the harvest will be.
Father, what seed are you sowing in your family? Are you setting your children a good or a bad example? Do you spend your time at the saloon or the club, until you have become almost a stranger to them? or are you training them for God and righteousness?
The story is told that a man once said he would not talk to his son about religion; the boy should make his own choice when he grew up, unprejudiced by him. The boy broke his arm, and when the doctor was setting it, he cursed and swore the whole time.
“Ah,” said the doctor, “you were afraid to prejudice the boy in the right way, but the devil had no such prejudice. He has led your son the other way.” The idea that a father is to let his children run wild! Nature alone never brings forth anything but weeds.
One of Coleridge’s friends once objected to prejudicing the minds of the young by selecting the things they should be taught. The philosopher-poet invited him to take a look at his garden, and took him to where a luxuriant growth of ugly and infragrant weeds spread themselves over beds and walks alike.
“You don’t call that a garden!” said his friend.