What is at first
involuntary, painful, and a self-denial to us, wall when it passes into a
habit, become agreeable, because the habit bends our nature to it, chains
us down to it, infatuates the will, and thus becomes, as it were, a second
nature. If so, it is very plain that our habits are either a blessing or a
curse. When good they are a safeguard against evil, give stability to our
character, and are the law of perseverance in well-doing. Such habits in
the Christian home form, an irresistible bulwark against the intrusions of
temptation and iniquity. But when they are bad, they chain us to evil, and
impel us onward and downward to ruin. Hence from his habits we can easily
estimate the merit or demerit of a person, know all his weak points and
idiosyncrasies, and what will be the probable termination of his existence.
The same may be said of the habits of a family. They enter into its very
constitution, rule and direct all its activities and interests. They cling
to each member with more than magic power, and become interwoven with his
very being; and by them we may easily ascertain the moral and spiritual
strength of that family; we can tell whether the parents are faithful to
their mission, and whether its members will be likely to pass over from the
home of their childhood to the church of Christ. Who has not felt this
power of habit? Who has not wept over some habits which haunt him like an
evil spirit; and rejoiced over others as a safeguard from sin and a
propellor to good? Is it not, therefore, a matter of momentous interest to
the Christian home, that it establish habits of the right kind and quality?
It should never be forgotten by Christian parents, and they cannot be too
careful to impress it upon their children, that habit engenders habit,--has
the power of reproducing itself, and begetting habits of its own kind,
increasing according to the laws of growth, as it is thus reproduced.
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