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This article is from the Lutheran Witness, March 20, 1917 and is in the public domain. Feel free to do whatever you want with it.

Children.

Did you ever notice that the first words God said to Adam and Eve were words of blessing, and that these words referred to children? We are told: “God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” It is, therefore, in full accord with Scripture to say that a home is blessed with children. Furthermore it is written: “Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is His reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.”

So, in God’s opinion children are a blessing and a source of happiness to the home. In truth, a home is not fully furnished if there is not heard in it the prattle of little voices and the patter of tiny feet. No harm if occasionally there also appear little muddy tracks across the floor and finger-marks in unexpected places. God’s bension on the little feet and fingers and on their cheery owners! How much sunlight and brightness they bring into our lives! and how gray and monotonous the earth would be without them!

Well may our hearts go out in pity to those wedded couples who sorrow, “seeing they go childless.” May these lonely ones remember that, when the priest Zacharias and his wife were well stricken in years, they received a son in answer to prayer. Sincere prayer, however, is as mighty to-day as it was in those last days of the Old Covenant. It has also been noted that many couples who despaired of offspring, and who adopted a little one, have then had children of their own. Apparently the mother-lover bestowed on the little stranger often removes the disability to have children.

But what shall we say of those couples who want no children, and who deliberately prevent their coming? The usual excuse is that the wife is not strong enough to pass through the ordeal. In nine cases out of ten that is a mere subterfuge, and the real reason is selfishness on the part of the woman— unwillingness to face the pains and trials of childbirth, and unwilling to forgo ease and pleasure for the sake of children. Is it any wonder if those who set God’s purposes at naught lead married lives that are unhappy because they are unblessed of God? — if the husbands lose all interest in their homes and their wives because these wives deny them the children for which they yearn? — if the wives, instead of assuring themselves care-free and pleasant lives, become nervous and physical wrecks? Whoever refuses the happiness that God offers him will seek other happiness in vain. Empty pleasure he may find and hollow enjoyment, but true happiness will avoid his threshold.

It is beyond question that the more closely a marriage conforms to God’s plan, the more happiness will attend it. Do you, therefore, my friend, welcome to your heart and home the children which the Lord may give you? Receive them gratefully as the most precious gifts that can fall to your lot. Consider yourself joint-owner with the Lord, and therefore lead them early to their Father in heaven; keep them before the throne of grace in your prayers, and seek counsel and guidance for their training from the Fountain of all wisdom.

They may, indeed, cost you many an anxious hour and many a sleepless night, but they are well worth it. You may have to deny yourself many things for their sake, but if you are made of the right material, such sacrifices for your own flesh and blood will give you sweeter and rarer pleasure than any amount of self-indulgence. To work and plan for them will not be an irksome tasks, but a blessed privilege that yields you untold happiness.

In a home blessed with children, husband and wife will be drawn together by the common love and care of the offspring. Each child will be a tie that binds them close to each other. There is a good reason for the fact the divorces and separations are most frequent among couples which are childless or nearly so. The parents of children have so many more interests in common. They have less time for bickerings. They have also more opportunity to learn to respect each other; for what husband’s heart will not be soften toward the wife who, in beautiful self-forgetfulnesses, ministers untiringly at the sick-bed of his children? What wife will not be ready to overlook the little faults and failings of him who is the father and provider of her little ones? How often will the petty disagreements and difficulties which else might ripen into serious quarrels be put aside by both for the sake of the children whom they both love.

If, therefore, you would see real happiness that fills and warms the heart, seek it, my friend, in Christian homes blessed with children. There you will find it, though the home itself will often be poor and humble. There you will also find the most beautiful traits and the finest development of character of which are fallen nature is capable. To such homes the Sacred Word delights even to compare to the Church of God, calling it the family in heaven and earth whereof God Himself is the Father, who comforts His own as a mother comforteth, and who pities them in the distress as a father pitieth his children.

WAYFARER