Parenthood

PARENTHOOD. BY DR. GEORGE H. BRIMHALL, OF THE BRIGHAM YOUNG ACADEMY, PROVO, UTAH. A loving worm within its clod, Were more divine than a loveless god.—Browning. Herbert Spencer, in his treatise on Education, points out the necessity for formal instruction in what might be termed the science of parenthood. The Latter-day Saints are the first people in the world, so far as we are aware, to make the theory of parenthood a part of their higher education. In no other system of training, have courses in parenthood been included as part of the academic curriculum. Students graduating from institutions where such instruction is given, go forth inspired with an ambition to become parents of a high type. Nor have they alone ambition; for they carry with them a fund of information essential to their equipment for such responsibility. And so keenly do the Latter-day Saints feel the necessity for such knowledge, that mothers' classes and clubs, not uncommon elsewhere, have developed into parents' classes among them. In this manner, the community in general is occupied in considering the subject of parenthood. A new era in education has dawned; and we may hope that the near future will give to the world some direct literature on this paramount theme of life. Parenthood is legalized progenitor- ship; it means more than propagation and care. It cannot exist in its perfect form without the sanction of reciprocal love. Par- ents must love each other, or the chances are greatly against their issue being possessed of the power of love, a characteristic that must enter into the nature of one who would be successful

422 IMPROVEMENT ERA. in life. For success in life, in its highest sense, is pure, helpful, and progressive enjoyment. Enjoyment coming from any other source than that of love—lofty, pure, and undefiled—is death- dealing to all those qualities that make man more than an animal. Parenthood must have the sanction of recognized law. The union of the sexes should be love and law. The more perfect the love and the higher the law, the more nearly divine is that union. In wedlock, the binding force of God's law is as much above that of man's, as human love is above mere animal passion—hence, a church marriage is, in essence, more binding than that which the civil authority alone ratifies. Marriage, in its very nature, is more than a civil contract. Unions, unlegalized, are nothing short of sexual anarchy. To be the cause of circumstances and conditions, that disturb the legal order of births, is a crime, second only to becoming the illegal in- strument by which a spirit is sent on its passage back to God. The discord, at either end of the line of life, interferes with the harmony of God's social universe, to an extent that demands severe punishment for those guilty of it. It may be urged that one act is natural while the other is not. But when we examine the nature that prompts each of the acts, we shall find them both natural, but it is a naturalness of which the animal is possessed, nothing more. The brutes come together by natural instinct and impulse in killing each other, as well as in perpetuating their kind. Man's conduct should be above that of the brute, just to that extent that his intelligence is higher. He is to have dominion over all the animals, and that dominion in- cludes his own animal nature. In parenthood, man's nearest approach to the tree of life is sanctioned by the divine Father; for he is made a legal instru- ment in the production of a creature in the image of a God. A creature with a body, suited as the earthly home of a spirit, fresh from the household of divinity, where it has passed an infancy, a childhood, a youth, and arrived at spiritual maturity. This new body, under the pressure of the expanding spirit and outward care, grows and develops to be an essential part of a soul. The prophet asserts that the provision made for parenthood is one of the means whereby the "Godhood" is attained. "The man is not

PARENTHOOD. 423 without the woman, nor the woman without the man, in the Lord." What can this saying mean other than the following: No man without the woman; no woman without the man, can attain to the state of a God, or receive an appointment or ordination pertain- ing to "Godhood." "Whoso forbiddeth to marry is not of God;" This statement would jus'.ify the saying that the encouragement is of God. The tenderest title of Deity is, "Our Father." It is the household name of him who rules the universe. He has many official titles, but the one by which he would have his children ap- proach him, is stripped of its awe, and filled with reverence and love. And—whence came that title. Father? Certainly in no other way than through parenthood. ■In the heavens, are parents single! No; the thought makes reason stare. Truth is reason, truth eternal Tells me, I've a mother there. The scriptures contain intimations of the "Godhood" state of Abraham. He was called the friend of God, and the father of the faithful. Could he ever have felt or known what it is to sacrifice a son, but for his patriarchal parenthood? What made it possible for him to do as his God had done before him, or at least had planned to do? Who can comprehend the Father in this most gracious act of his for us? The childless person, by giving his own life, may in a measure comprehend something of the sacrifice of the Son; but was not the sacrifice of the Son by the Father a greater sacrifice? Both were willing, but which of the two comprehended best the terrors of it all? Jesus said, "I do noth- ing except that which I have seen my Father do?" We are capable of understanding the experience of others through our own experience. And where is the father or mother who would not rather suffer by reason of his own sacrifice than by that of his child? When we ponder in our heart the saying, that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son," we are led to marvel at the price of our freedom. As the sorrows of our Savior pass before us, and the scene of his agony in Geth- semane comes to our minds, we are led to inquire who in that hour of terrible trial suffered most? He who cried, "Father, if it be

424 IMPROVEMENT ERA. possible, let this cup pass," or he who, with a loving Father's ears,, heard that cry? Again, during the crucifixion on Golgotha, when the great Redeemer, the Son of God, in agony cried out, "My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me!" what must have been the feeling of the Father? The Father, who turned his face from the sufferings of his Son, until the consummation of that terrible tragedy. Often people, in their enthusiasm for the work of the Son, are heedless of the Father's connection. Overflowing with grati- tude, religionists often call on the name of Jesus, the great Re- deemer, unmindful of the Father. Such f orgetfulness may be due, in a measure, to a lack of comprehension of the Father's part in the great sacrifice, through which redemption came. Jesus, though a God, commands, that in giving thanks, asking favors, ad- ministering and performing ordinances, we shall address the Father in the name of the Son. To do otherwise is an ofl^ense to both Father and Son. Proper respect to Fatherhood, and regard for "Sonhood," causes each to guard jealously the other's rights. What the Father and Son did, in this respect, is a pattern to all modern parents. Parenthood provides the most perfect pleasure, and affords the most prolonged enjoyment, of which earth is capable. Nor is this all, it is a source of eternal happiness and progress. Wealth and fame combined can furnish no such felicity. No days of care- less childhood, or expectant youth, can be so full of joy as those of parenthood, in which men and women love, and in turn are loved by their own offspring. Whoever writes the psalm of love must use the words father, mother, sister, brother. These represent the personnel that can give the most exquisite enjoyment in life. These persons constitute the everlasting social unit—the family. The idea that parenthood interferes with happiness, is not only an erroneous idea of itself, but is also injurious to society* Those who advocate such a doctrine must be classed, we feel, either with the ignorant or among those of evil intention. When we hear the remark, "Alack a day, she's married now, poor thing, her happiness is over," it brings to mind Holmes' famous poem, "The Old Man Dreams," whose theme elaborated might read

PARENTHOOD. ' 425 something as follows: An old man sat trotting his grandson on his knee, singing to him a rhyme of his boyhood. The song aroused old memories of scenes long past, which because they were of the days of long ago, seemed the sweetest of all life's experience. Grandpa sighed and said, "Oh, to be a boy again." An angel overheard him, smiled and said: "You may be, if you wish; I'll make it possible for you to tread back the path of life, and stand once more upon the field of youthful gaiety." "Good," said the man, "let us go at once." The angel said, "I will describe the road, and tell you what must be done in the beginning, as also at intervals along the way.'^ "First," said he, "you must give up your grandson, as he was the last great gift, as you came up the path of parenthood. Then, as you pass along, your children must be taken from you. So must it be with good grandma, your loving wife, she can be yours no more. And again, all that you have learned, the accumulated ex- periences of a life, must be laid down. No youth could carry them." The aged one clung to the child and cried, "No, no, I cannot give them up." Then the angel shouted to the gods and said: "Behold a won- der! A man who would be at once a grandsire and a boy!" The doctrine of single-blessedness, or the theory that married life means much misery and little joy, is indirectly the means of encouraging the sowing of wild oats, as well as the means of fostering directly the sentiment, "I'll go it while I'm young," which maxim is the accompaniment of many forms of intemper- ance; and is, therefore, a direct aid to the evil one. The people who advocate a single life belong, according to our best judgment, to one of three classes. First, they are the unthinking; secondly, they are numbered among those who have been unsuccessful in carrying out God's first law to man; and, thirdly, they are persons, who from a selfish motive advance an erroneous doctrine. Happiness that comes through parenthood, is of the highest order; with this idea, progressive philosophy harmonizes. The practical life both of the nation and of the in-

426 IMPROVEMENT ERA. dividual, each puts its seal of successful approval upon the married state; and to the poet, it appeals as a panacea: When the black letter list to the Gods was presented, A list of what Fate for each mortal intends, At the long string of ills, a kind angel relented, And slipped in three blessings, wife, children, and friends. In vain surly Pluto declared he was cheated; For justice divine could now compass her ends. The scheme for man's sorrow, he said, was defeated, For earth became heaven with wife, children, and friends. If the stock of our bliss is in stranger hands vested. The funds ill secured oft in bankruptcy ends. But the heart issues drafts that are never protested, When drawn on the firm of wife, children, and friends. The soldier whose deeds live immortal in story. Whom duty to far distant latitude sends. With transport would barter old ages of glory, For one single hour with wife, children, and friends. Though valor still lingers in Life's daily embers, The death-wounded tar who his colors defends. Drops a tear of regret, as he dying remembers How blessed was his home with wife, children, and friends. Though the spice-breathing gale o'er his caravan hovers, And around him the wealth of Arabia descends, Yet the merchant remembers the woodbine that covers The bower where he sat with wife, children, and friends. The day-spring of youth, unclouded by sorrow, Alone on itself for enjoyment depends. But dreary's the twilight of age, if it borrow No warmth from the love of wife, children, and friends. May the breath of renown ever freshen and nourish The laurels that o'er its fair favorite bends. O'er me wave the willow, and long may it flourish, Bedewed with the tears of wife, children, and friends. This parenthood is the gateway to Godhood; for through it, in his own family, God has given to man redemption; thereby ex- ercising one of his highest powers. And as parenthood is the source of the most perfect human happiness, it follows that there

PARENTHOOD. 427 is a necessity, for man's sake, of its perpetuity in heaven. Mar- riage for eternity, then, is natural. It must needs be, that it ex- tend into the life beyond, past the powers of death, where our yearnings go in spite of us. The covenants and contracts which love and God's law sanction on the earth, hold husband and wife, parents and children, together, while governments are changing and nations are rising and falling into decay. The Lord's household is one in which the prattle of infancy, the cheery call of childhood, the mirthfulness of youth, the care- ful tone of adult life, make one constant chorus, as sublime as the music of the spheres which, heaven-sent, echoes back from earth. When I leave this frail existence, When I lay this mortal by, Father, mother, may I meet you, In your royal courts on high ? Marriage, from a Latter-day Saint point of view, is the or- ganization of an everlasting kingdom, and people who truly love each other, and have the light of the gospel, with the privilege of its holy ordinances, should entertain no thought of forming tem- porary alliances in wedlock. Those who shun the responsibilities of parenthood are of two classes, the physically and mentally fit and unfit. The latter class includes all persons the perpetuation of whose moral, mental, or physical personality, would be an injury to the race. Of the former class, there are several types. First of all, we note those who are without the courage to take upon themselves the responsi- bility of this high order of activity and happiness. Such persons lack heroism. Another type eligible to parenthood, includes the careless. Such persons are indifferent to their own highest inter- ests, as also to the highest interests of the race. They are of the "Happy-go-lucky" sort; always selfish; better fitted as subordi- nates in society than as leaders. For such, no doubt, eternity has suitable employment. God moves laws that can not pause. In all his vast domain; Who'll not obey high law, must stay Where lower law must reign. There still remains another type who shirk the responsibility