What Luther was as a father may be imagined from a letter which he wrote when absent at the Diet of Augsburg, to his little boy, aged five years. The mother had written the home news, especially telling the loving father about his first-born, so to him, as well as to her, Luther wrote the following letter, full of fatherly fondness and charming naturalness.
"Grace and peace in Christ, my dear little boy. I am pleased to see that thou learnest thy lessons well, and prayest well. Go on thus, my dear boy, and when I come home I will bring you a fine fairing. I know of a pretty garden where are merry children that have gold frocks, and gather nice apples and plums and cherries under the trees, and sing and dance, and ride on pretty horses with gold bridles and silver saddles. I asked the man of the place whose the garden was, and who the children were. He said, 'These are the children who pray and learn and are good.' Then I answered, 'I also have a son, who is called Hans Luther. May he come to this garden, and eat pears and apples, and ride a little horse, and play with the others?' The man said, 'If he says his prayers, and learns and is good, he may come; and Lippus and Jost [Melanchthon's son Philip, and Jonas' son, Jodecus] may come, and they shall have pipes and drums and lutes and fiddles, and they shall dance, and shoot with little crossbows. Then he showed me a smooth lawn in the garden laid out for dancing, and there the pipes and crossbows hung. But it was still early, and the children had not dined, and I could not wait for the dance. So I said, 'Dear sir, I will go straight home and write all this to my little boy; but he has an aunt, Lene (great-aunt Magdalen) that he must bring with him.' And the man answered, 'So it shall be! go and write as you say.' Therefore, dear little boy, learn and pray with a good heart, and tell Lippus and Jost to do the same, and then you will all come to the garden together. Almighty God guard you. Give my love to Aunt Lene, and give her a kiss for me.—Your loving father, Martin Luther."
What is chiefly wanted in the education of children is a wise mixture of love and firmness. Parental authority should be regarded as vicegerent authority, set up by God and ruling in His stead. A parent is to a child what God is to a good man. He is the moral governor of the world of childhood. Parental government is therefore only genuine when it rules for the same ends as God pursues.
When children accord willing obedience the end of family government is gained. To attain this end a parent should be careful to observe the following rules. First, never to hamper a child with arbitrary restrictions, but, if possible, always to let the reasons of each command or prohibition be apparent; secondly, to let every punishment have some relation to the offence, and so imitate the great laws of nature, which entail definite consequences on every act of wrong; and, thirdly, never to threaten a punishment and afterwards shrink from inflicting it; finally, punishments should be severe enough to serve their purpose, and gentle enough to ensure the continuance of affection. Nor should the child be left alone until he feels that the punishment has been for his own good, and gives assurance of this feeling by putting on a pleasant face.
Human nature requires amusement as well as teaching and correction. One of the first duties of a parent is to sympathize with the play of his children. How much do little children crave for sympathy! They hold out every new object for you to see it with them, and look up after each gambol for you to rejoice with them. Let play-time and playthings be given liberally. Invite suitable companions, and do everything in your power to make home sweet. Authority, so unbent, will be all the stronger and more welcome from our display of real sympathy. If family government were well carried out in every home, children would be happier and better than they are now. Then there would be, even in our own great towns, a partial realization of the words of the prophet Zechariah, in reference to Jerusalem delivered: "And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls, playing in the streets thereof."
The home of our children ought never to be a prison where there is plenty of rule and order, but no love and no pleasure. We should remember that "he who makes a little child happier for an hour is a fellow-worker with God."
It was bitterly said of a certain Pharisaical household that in it "no one should please himself, neither should he please any one else; for in either case he would be thought to be displeasing God." This reminds us of the Scotchman who, having gone back to his country after a long absence, declared that the whole kingdom was on the road to perdition. "People," he said, "used to be reserved and solemn on the sabbath, but now they look as happy on that day as on any other." It is a blessed thing for the rising generation that such grotesque perversions of religion are seldom presented to them now; for every well-instructed Christian ought to be aware that religion does not banish mirth, but only moderates and sets rules to it.
