The Benediction of Noble Parents

A son given in answer to prayer--not an unwanted child. There was rejoicing in the home when little John was born (Luke 1:57). The names of these parents are indicative of lives dedicated to the Lord, Zacharias meaning "God's remembrance," and Elizabeth meaning "God's covenant." Of them it is written, "They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless" (Luke 1:6). When John had grown to manhood and was preaching to multitudes, Jesus said of him, "He is a burning and shining light" (John 5:35), and declared, "Among them that are born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist" (Matthew 11:11).

When a man like John the Baptist appears in the world, we expect to find that he came of a good family. Seldom does one rise to greatness who cannot look back and say, "My father was a noble man and my mother was a pure and good woman."

Being the parent of a child is the greatest responsibility a man or woman can have. A boy gets his first ideals of manhood from his father; his first ambition is to be like his father and to walk in his footsteps. "Papa, I want to have my head shaved," a boy said to his father. The father, who was a deacon in my church, was astonished, and asked, "Why?" "I want to look like you," the boy answered. The father was baldheaded. He let the boy have his head shaved, had their picture taken together, kept it on the desk in his office to be a daily reminder of the fact that his boy aspired to be like him.

Great is the responsibility of fatherhood. Greater still is the responsibility of motherhood. No other influence makes such a deep and lasting impression upon plastic childhood as that of a mother. It would seem then that a mother, of all beings in the universe, ought to be the purest, the best, the sweetest. A good, sweet mother is the greatest inspiration a child can have in life. The worst handicap a child can have is godless, impious mother.

Study the characters of men and women, and you will find reflected therein the characteristics of their parents. Of all life's benedictions, the greatest is the benediction of a noble parentage.