To Be a Son--to Love a Father

A thoughtful young man once said with grateful, heartfelt sincerity that he had “never spent sweeter or happier hours in life than in his father’s home.” Would that every son could and would say so, for this, in fact, is the pattern of life, and its purpose: to learn well, work well, serve well, with a balancing of life, and then to return to our Father’s house, where once we where. We can recall now some things said and some lessons learned from fathers who were much remembered: Of John Wallace Hamilton a grateful son said: “He was there if anything happened—not just physical mishaps, but those inner things not expressed…” This must be one of the eternal attributes of a father: “He was there if anything happened.” This is true of the father of us all. He is there for us to talk to, to approach Him in prayer. Hamilton said that his father held out strong, workworn hands to the girl he was to marry: “These hands are clean hands,” he said. “I offer them to you.” What a great and blessed thing for a father to offer as heritage for his children—clean, honest hands, with a willingness to work. Thomas Carlyle said this after his father has left his life: “Strange time—endless time: …all rushes on. Man follows…I shall now no more behold my dear father with these bodily eyes…His simple, true counsel and fatherly admonitions have now attained their fit sacredness of meaning. Pity for me if they be thrown away…His trust in me, was great…He did nothing that was not kind and fatherly…I have been a happy son…Perhaps my father…is even now near me, with me…Perhaps, if it so please God, we shall in some higher state of being meet one another, recognize one another… Thank heaven, I know and have known what it is to be a son; to love a father…God give me to live to my father’s honor and to His.” Blessed is the son who could say, “I have spent no sweeter or happier hours than in the house of my father.” And the father who can say, “I have given the world a clean, honest, God-fearing son.”