Do as I Say This Day – Sunday, February 25, 1940
So sure and unfailing is the certainty with which remorse follows our misdoings, it is greatly to be wondered that men persist in disregarding the rules of life. Perhaps there may be some who would ask what there is to restrain us or to induce us to do otherwise. Certainly not threat of physical punishment. Fear of physical punishment never made a good man in any land In any age. The most relentless penalties of a man’s misdeeds are things less tangible and more terrible – the accusation that comes from within, the dull heaviness of a heart that knows it is not clean, the dogged pursuit of a conscience that allows no peace and no surcease, the heaviness of spirit that comes with the disapproval of our Eternal Father whose children all men are; these are the real price a man pays for his own misdeeds, as David of Israel testified with heartbreaking conviction when he cried out,. “Hide Thy face from my sins and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, 0 God; and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:9)
There are few, if, indeed, any of us, who are smart enough to convince our children that they should not do things which we make a practice of. And there are few, if any of us, who are capable of convincing our children that they should do things which we neglect to do. The logic of words and the force of argument are not the means by which those who live under the same roof with us acquire their most-fixed impressions and most lasting lessons. Long before a child can understand the burden of a wordy preachment, he can imitate what he sees. It is the manner of our living and not the words by which we would explain It, that makes up the moral fiber of the children God has given us. And no man has taught his children properly, until he has lived his own teachings and proved them to be good in his own life. It is well enough to issue the command. “Do as I say” – but the children of men are inclined to do as their fathers do. This we should know – we who are rearing the generation whose world this will be tomorrow. And we should not be surprised if in our children we see our own counterpart.
February 25, 1940
Broadcast Number 0,549