I could tie his hands by wrapping this small thread around and around, just a few times. At first it could be broken, but after a little it becomes so strong that he is not able to break it at all. So it is with habits. When we do the same things again and again, the habit becomes stronger and stronger day by day, and year by year, until at last Satan has the poor victim bound hand and foot, and he is absolutely helpless. No one is able to come and snap the cords, and set this poor helpless prisoner free, until God in His grace comes and liberates him from the evil habits with which he has bound himself, or with which he has permitted Satan to bind him.
It is very important that in the very beginning of life, we should all form the habit of doing those things which are right. The doing of the right may at first afford us but very little pleasure, yet we are to continue to do right, and after a while it will become pleasant for us to do right.
Feet Bound.
At first it may not be very pleasant for a boy to go to school. He prefers not to exert himself; not to put forth any mental effort. But after he becomes accustomed to going to school, and to putting forth mental effort, it becomes more and more natural to him, and finally he comes to love study. After he has completed his studies in the primary school, he goes to the intermediate, and to the grammar school, and high school, and possibly to college, and continues to be a student all his life.
So it is with going to church; those who begin when they are young and go regularly, Sunday after Sunday, become regular church attendants all their lives.
Habits are formed very much like the channel of a river. Gradually, year after year, the river wears its course deeper and deeper, until finally through the soft soil and the hard rock, through the pleasant meadow and the beautiful woodlands, it has worn out for itself a very deep channel in which it continues to flow to the ocean.
So the mind, by repeated action, marks out its course. Whether the mental effort or manual work be pleasant or difficult, we become so accustomed to it, that we go on day by day, and year by year doing the same thing.
The Bible gives very wise instruction to parents when it says, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov. xxii: 6.) It has also been wisely said, "Sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny."
Be careful, boys and girls, what you do, for by doing anything you are forming a habit. If you do wrong things you will form bad habits, but if you do right things you will form good habits, which are always the best.