And the Glory of Children Are Their Fathers

“Children’s children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.” This, from Proverbs, suggests comment on a law of privilege and responsibility. Every man born of woman has the right to be taught wisely, to be nurtured and sustained, loved and cherished, and provided for until he, himself, is able to assume his own obligations and support. He then in turn has the obligation to rear children of his own, to make a good home for them, to nurture and counsel and instruct, until they shall grow in wisdom and arrive at the age and ability to do for themselves the needful things of life. But beyond what a man may rightfully expect to receive from his parents, and beyond what he may be privileged to give his children, he has also an obligation to the home in which he was born and nurtured and to those who have reared him. The moment a man feels no obligation to his parents, or the moment a parent feels no obligation to his children, the moment there is no feeling of interdependence and responsibility to brothers and sisters the spirit of irresponsibility and selfishness has taken over. In some places in this world and generation of ours there has been a tendency to remove these obligations of home and family. But the family is the strongest unit of society because it is the unit of highest responsibility, and to break down this strength is ultimately to break down civilization itself, because if men are not made to feel their obligations to home and family, they cannot be made to feel their obligations to anyone or anything⎯and soon this selfishness and irresponsibility make their inroads upon communities and nations. The obligations of parents to children, the obligations of children to parents, and the obligations of brother to brother, are socially, economically, and spiritually sound, and morally irrevocable⎯and any society in which the family is not the measure of strength has fallen upon evil ways, and is marked for weakness and disintegration. “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers . . .”