CHAPTER IX.

PREPARATION FOR FATHERHOOD.

The Command to “Replenish the Earth.”—Preparation for Motherhood More Written About than Preparation for Fatherhood.—Questions Which Would Test the Fitness of Young Men for Marriage.—Parents Should Know the Character of Young Men Who Desire Their Daughters in Marriage.—Many Young Men of Startling Worth.—The Improving of a Good Heritage.—Effects of Bad Morals and Wayward Habits.—Effects of Tobacco and Alcoholics.—How Young Women Help to Contribute Bad Habits in Young Men.—The Years of Rooting and Weeding Necessary.—Attaining the Best.—The Father Reproduced in His Children.

“Be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth.”

Webster defines “Replenish”: To stock abundantly, to make complete or perfect.

“It is a sad fact that many persons assume the responsibility of parents without any clear appreciation of its obligations. To provide a shelter from the storm, a proper amount of rations, and an irregular and spasmodic administration of discipline, chiefly regulated by the nervous susceptibility of the parents, rather than by the deserts of the child, is their idea of parental duty.”

Far more has been written in these latter days concerning the preparation for motherhood, than the preparation for fatherhood. One would almost conclude that no especial fitting were needed to prepare young men to become parents. Because of the lack of strong public sentiment along these lines, the many sons come to marriage with no adequate idea of the duties and responsibilities before them, with no thought or knowledge of what they have, or should have, to give to the next generation.

Suppose a set of questions something like the following were handed to young men the week before their marriage, what think you would be their answers?

Do you bring to your bride the same purity that you expect from her?

What in your life and habits have you hidden, and would you still hide from her?

What mental reservation do you make in respect to your liberties after marriage, to indulge these habits?

What companions have you, whom you would not care to bring to your home or introduce to your wife?

What “wild oats” have you sown that have left their seeds in your constitution to be transmitted to your children, and they in turn to their children down through the generations?

How many hours of thought have you given to the wise, earnest fitting for good fatherhood?

Do you, in the sight of God, consider yourself fit to become the husband, which all this close relation involves, of a pure, sweet, true woman?

These questions are simple questions, and should in every allowable marriage, admit of but one answer. No father or mother should ever give their consent to companionship, much less to marriage of their daughters, with men whom they have any reason to suppose could not answer these questions unblushingly, and with honest eyes, in the presence of the woman they seek as wife.

Dear young woman, you should know, as you value your peace of mind, what the young man really _is_ to whom you plight your troth. What he may _seem_ to be to you, what you have idealized him to be, is not sufficient. You owe it to yourself and to your unborn children, to know what he _really_ is; and if he resents the questioning of your parents, say the “no,” now, rather than live it, in agony, all your after life.

Much that might have been said in this chapter I have already said in the chapter on the choice of a husband, and we will not repeat.

That there are many young men, noble, true, conscientious and pure in their sterling manhood we know; and for such as these the warnings in this chapter are not written. That there are parents who fully realize the necessity of training their children for parenthood, and have all the way along given line upon line, precept upon precept, toward this training, we all know; but that the number is not greater, we sadly deplore.

Young men need to realize that sowing wild oats will never bring a harvest of wheat; and that a bed of thistles will never yield a garland of flowers. Like will produce like, as long as the world stands, and we can never change it.

In preparation for fatherhood there is much that the best among young men would wish to change in their lives, and they have this to comfort them; that by painstaking perseverance any resolute person can do very much toward eradicating inborn tendencies, and hereditary evils. Poor soil well enriched and carefully tended, watered with the dew of God’s grace, will bring a marvelous harvest of good things, and transform all future products; while the best of fields, with the wisest of care and tillage in the years past, may grow to weeds and wastefulness in this generation, if neglected. Therefore, while we have much to be grateful for in a good heritage, and that we have a name which, unlike poor little Patsy’s, will wash, yet too much dependence cannot be placed upon this. “Say not that ye have Abraham to your father; I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.”

Young man, what sort of soil are you preparing for the growth of the next generation, when you allow, for a _little_ time even, looseness of morals and wayward habits? Late hours, tippling, mingling with the unclean, the coarse jest and the coarser practice following, are not good soil for the implantation later on of the higher virtues; the danger is, the desire for such implantation will be lost, or if it in a measure remains, the roots of the old weeds are there, and the soil is cursed with the noisome seeds which will spring up and choke the wheat. Mayhap both may grow together, and a harvest of wheat and tares be gathered, but at what a cost of time and strength, that might have been used in better things.

The use of alcoholics and tobacco enfeeble the mind and constitution, and this enfeeblement accentuated is transmitted to the next generations. Many wives are struggling along in ill health that is directly traceable to the inhaling, night after night, of the breath of the husband, poisoned with nicotine. Many a little one is wailing through its infancy, and if it have strength sufficient, inherited from its remote ancestors, to pull it through, yet will it all its life suffer from its antenatal and postnatal poisoning; and the chances are that as soon as it is old enough it will take up the habit which is already acquired, to pass down along the line a more and more enfeebled heritage.

But the young are not all to blame, they have not been instructed. They have floated along, many times unmindful of the rapids they were nearing, and have not awakened until they were engulfed. And our daughters are not guiltless in _this_ thing even. How many times when the escort asks, “Is tobacco offensive to you?” have our thoughtless girls answered, “Oh, no,” when at heart it was repulsive and sickening. By and by, after months of endurance it becomes bearable, and they can make the reply with a degree of truthfulness; for tobacco, like sin,

“Is a monster of such frightful mien, That to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft familiar with its face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

When our dear girls have strength of character sufficient to say in response to such a query, while lifting frank honest eyes: “Shall I answer your question honestly? then I must say, it is very offensive to me; for I know it does you harm, and I know as well that I cannot breathe the fumes of it _even_ for an hour without physical harm to myself.”

There is not one young man in a hundred, who would not rejoice in the courage of such a girl, and ten chances to one, he would be telling his companions of the brave stand she had made, and exulting in it.

Young men of high attainment and noble purposes, there is still something for you to do, to transmit the best to your progeny. Make the noblest in you still nobler, root out the weeds, attain greater heights every year, seek nobler companionship among books and men, choose for your mate the woman whose desires and ambitions are like your own, and your children will be a blessing to you and the world, and may well “rise up to call you blessed.”

To the other class of young men, we have only to say, there should be before them many years of rooting and weeding and killing out, and hard preparation, before they should dare ask any good women to be their wives. Aye, more, before they should even dare to ask a woman like themselves, for think of the double inheritance of such unfortunate children as might be theirs; and think again how the world is cursed with such disinherited humanity now.

The motto

“Without halting, without rest, Pushing better up to best,”

should be the sentiment of every young man, in view of his preparation for fatherhood. It is a lamentable fact that children have as often reason to lament their parentage, as parents their wayward children. But it is probably a merciful thing that most children of this class never realize it—merciful at least for them and their parents, but not for the coming generations.

Remember you are to reproduce yourself, and in large measure what you are yourself that will your children be. Measure yourself carefully, take account of stock and see what there is that you would have different, what you would make better, what you would eradicate, what new qualities you would engraft. The little children, to be, in your home who are to call you father, are not only to copy you when they are large enough and wise enough in their love to wish to be like you; but they come into existence with inborn tendencies, that perforce make them like you, whether they will or not. Happy the parents whose children never regret their inheritances.

“It isn’t all in the bringing up, Let folks say what they will, You may silver polish a pewter cup, But it will be pewter still.”