FATHER
And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child …
—Matt. 10:21
1622 Success In Hogs Not Son
Some years ago at a fair in Dallas, Texas, an interesting and yet tragic exhibition attracted many: a sallow-faced, emaciated boy was displaying a prize-winning hog. The boy seemed intent on seeing how many cigarettes he could smoke in the shortest period of time. The owner of the prize-winning hog was the father of the boy. He was a success at raising hogs, but a dismal failure at raising a son!
1623 Kill A Daughter For Insurance
In Aomori, Japan, a bankrupt businessman hired two men to run down his nine-year-old daughter with a car in order that he might be able to collect $70,000 in insurance. The child was hit from behind and killed, while walking with her father and her seven-year-old sister.
1624 Three Hairs And Lost Influence
A strange dog came to a preacher’s house, and his three sons soon became quite fond of it. It so happened that there were three white hairs in the animal’s tail. One day an advertisement was seen in the newspaper about a lost dog which fitted that description perfectly. “In the presence of my three boys,” said the minister, “we carefully separated the three white hairs and removed them.” The real owner discovered where the straying canine had found a home and came to claim him. The dog showed every sign of recognition, so the man was ready to take him away.
Quickly the minister spoke up, “Didn’t you say the dog would be known by three white hairs in its tail?” The owner, unable to find the identifying feature, was forced to leave. The minister said later, “we kept the dog, but I lost my three boys for Christ.” His sons no longer had confidence in what their father professed. He hadn’t practiced what he preached.
—Our Daily Bread
1625 Run Away, Boy!
Doctor Potter tells the story of a young man who stood at the bar of a court of justice to be sentenced for forgery. The judge had known him from a child, for his father had been a famous legal light and his work on the Law of Trusts was the most exhaustive work on the subject in existence. “Do you remember your father?” asked the judge sternly, “that father whom you have disgraced?”
The prisoner answered: “I remember him perfectly. When I went to him for advice or companionship, he would look up from his book on the Law of Trusts, and say, ’Run away, boy, I am busy. ’ My father finished his book, and here I am.” The great lawyer had neglected his own trust, with awful results.
—T. De Witt Talmadge
1626 Go Back! You’re Too Young
My father was the senior elder in our church for many years. When I was a boy, eleven years of age, an evangelist held a series of meetings in our church. One night he asked every Christian to come forward and also asked those who desired to confess Christ to come with them. My father, of course, went up, and, as I felt the call of God, I followed after him.
Just as he reached the front he turned around, and seeing me, said, “Johnnie, you go back; you are too young.” I obeyed him, as I had been taught to do, and at thirty-three I came again, but I did not know what I was coming for as clearly at thirty-three as I did at eleven. The church lost twenty-two years of service, while I lost twenty-two years of growth because my own father, an officer in the church, had said, “Go back.”
—Wilbur E. Nelson
1627 At Least An “Oh!”
An eminent clergyman sat in his study, busily engaged in preparing his Sunday sermon, when his little boy toddled into the room, and holding up his pinched finger, said, with an expression of suffering, “Look, Pa, how I hurt it!”
The father, interrupted in the middle of a sentence, glanced hastily at him, and with the slightest tone of impatience, said, “I can’t help it, sonny.” The little fellow’s eyes grew bigger, and as he turned to go out, he said in a low voice, “Yes, you could; you might have said, “Oh!”“
—Selected
1628 Reverse Roles Sunday Morning
A little girl, with shining eyes and little face aglow, said, “Daddy, it is almost time for Sunday school. Let’s go! They teach us there of Jesus’ love, and how He died that we might all have everlasting life by trusting in Him!” “Oh! no,” said Daddy, “not today. I have worked so hard all the week. I am going to the woods, and to the creek. There I can relax and rest. I must have one day to rest, and fishing is fine, they say. So run along. Don’t bother me. We’ll go to church some other day!”
Months and years have passed, but Daddy hears that plea no more: “Let’s go to Sunday school!” Those childish years are over and when Daddy is growing old, when life is almost through, he finds time to go to church. But what does daughter do? She says, “Oh, Daddy, not today. I stayed up almost all last night, and I’ve got to get some sleep!”
—The Bible Friend
1629 Father’s Day Phone Calls
The Illinois Bell Telephone Co. reports that the volume of long-distance calls made on Father’s Day is growing faster than the number on Mother’s Day. The company apologized for the delay in compiling the statistics, but explained that extra billing of calls to fathers slowed things down. Most of them were “collect.”
FATHER’S LOVE
1630 “The Day We Visited Our Son’s Tomb”
O New York, O Brooklyn, O Cypress Hills!
At last we found the tomb of our son!
Amidst heavy rains and spring chills,
We can’t help but let our tears run.
Today we come from thousands of miles away,
With trembling hands, I plant chrysanthemums on the soil;
While your Ma, brother, and sisters sobbingly pray,
I recall how your childhood days were spoiled.
We all missed you for more than one-and-a-half years,
Each day I think of you twenty-odd times;
Countless occasions did I secretly shed tears,
Terribly missed is when morning sun climbs!
Ah graveyards, more graveyards we come across!
They are old ages, ancients, and horrors;
You are so young, promising, and robust,
Why select all these as your neighbors?
Day and night you are lying here as an alien soul.
By great continents and oceans we are far segregated;
When is the day your ashes we may retrieve and haul
Back to Loyola where your new tomb has been erected?
—C. B. Lim
NOTE: Mr. C. B. Lim is a close friend of the author. His son was killed in a taxi accident in New York City while journeying from the Philippines to Canada.
1631 It’s A Girl! Out Goes $1 Million
Sir John Waller would have been a million dollars richer if his wife had given birth to a son instead of a daughter.
“But she is the prettiest baby I have ever seen. She is wonderful,” Waller crooned as he cradled the baby in his arms at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in West London.
And Lady Waller proudly declared: “She is perfect. I could not care less about the inheritance.”
The million dollars—actually 500,000 pounds or $1,050,000—go to Waller as soon as he produces a male heir.
1632 Long Distance Reunions
The Manx poet T. E. Brown writes of a lighthouse off the Calf of Man. From the shore of the Calf a long slope runs off to the crest of the island. Near the top of the slope are the cottages inhabited by the families of the lighthouse keepers, their doors opening directly toward the lighthouse, which is separated from the mainland by a stretch of stormy sea. For months at a time the keepers cannot visit their families; but on a clear Sabbath, when the sun shines brightly, they solace themselves by looking through a powerful telescope at their wives and children gathered in front of the cottage doors.
—C. E. Macartney
1633 An Old Soldier’s Prayer
“Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.
“Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee … and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.
“Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high, a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.
“And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom and the meekness of true strength.
“Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, “I have not lived in vain.””
—Gen. Douglas A. MacArthur
1634 Son Gets An Hour A Day
A young successful attorney said:
“The greatest gift I ever received was a gift I got one Christmas when my dad gave me a small box. Inside was a note saying, “Son, this year I will give you 365 hours, an hour every day after dinner. It’s yours. We’ll talk about what you want to talk about, we’ll go where you want to go, play what you want to play. It will be your hour!”
“My dad not only kept his promise,” he said, “but every year he renewed it—and it’s the greatest gift I ever had in my life. I am the result of his time.”
—Moody Monthly
1635 Father’s Day Flower
The official flower on Father’s Day is the dandelion, because the more it is trampled upon, the better it grows.
1636 A Cross-Country Trip
It is a significant fact that John Muir one of America’s greatest naturalists, during the formative period of his life was taken by his father across the American continent. It took the family a year to make the journey. As each sunset and sunrise glorified the skies this old Scotch father would take his bairns out and show them the beautiful skies and tell them that these surely were the robes of God.
Who knows but the sense of reverence instilled in that boy-heart, as he lived in the out-of-doors for a year, made him America’s greatest naturalists and bred in his little soul a love for nature which turned the curves of his life forever, leading to the hills, the glacial meadows and the ice-bound bays of Alaska?
1637 Steady, My Boy, Steady!
It happened some years ago that a most urgent and unusual invitation came to me to visit a military academy, in which the students had mutinied, in the hope that possibly I might be of service to the situation. The students had struck in everything: lessons, study hours, drill. The principal handed me a large number of telegrams which had come from the parents who had been wired regarding the situation. These messages were telescoped through which one could look into the various kinds of boys’ homes and the parental relationships connected with them.
One father wired his son, “I expect you to obey.” Another said, “If you are expelled from school, you needn’t come home.” Still another, “I’ll send you to an insane asylum if you are sent home.” Another said, “I’ll cut you off without a shilling if you disgrace the family.” But the best message was couched in these laconic words: “Steady, my boy, steady! Father.”
There was a man who believed in his boy and probably there is no greater influence upon a boy than a father who respects the spirit of his boy and treats him like a man.
—Selected
1638 Penny’s Father Didn’t Laugh
If it had not been for a crooked groceryman, J. C. Penney might have become the owner of a grocery store rather than the owner of a dry goods chain and the nation’s leading merchandiser.
When he was a teenager, Jim worked for a groceryman in Hamilton, Missouri. He liked the work and had plans to make a career of it. One night he came home and proudly told his family about his “foxy” employer. The grocer had a practice of mixing low quality coffee with the expensive brand and thus increasing his profit. Jim laughed as he told the story at the supper table.
His father didn’t see anything funny about the practice. “Tell me,” he said, “if the grocer found someone palming off an inferior article on him for the price of the best, do you think he would think they were just being foxy, and laugh about it?”
Jim could see his father was disappointed in him. “I guess not,” he replied. “I guess I just didn’t think about it that way.”
Jim’s father instructed him to go to the grocer the next day and collect whatever money due him and tell the grocer he wouldn’t be working for him any longer. Jobs were not plentiful in Hamilton, but Mr. Penney would rather his son be unemployed than be associated with a crooked businessman.
J. C. Penney came that close to becoming a grocer.
1639 Father’s Gift
To you, O son of mine, I cannot give
A vast estate of wide and fertile lands;
But I can keep for you, the whilst I live,
Unstained hands.
I have no blazoned scutcheon that insures
Your path to eminence and worldly fame;
But longer than empty heraldry endures
A blameless name.
I have no treasure chest of gold refined,
No hoarded wealth of clinking, glittering pelf;
I give to you my hand, and heart, and mind—
All of myself.
I can exert no mighty influence
To make a place for you in men’s affairs;
But lift to God in secret audience
Unceasing prayers.
I cannot, though I would, be always near
To guard your steps with the parental rod;
I trust your soul to Him who holds you dear,
Your father’s God.
—Merrill C. Tenney
See also: Mother ; Parental Responsibility.