"I have to hang up now, Irma. I hear the baby screaming."
"Why did you say that?" asked her young son. "Nobody is screaming."
"Well, I had to say something; otherwise I'd be on the phone with her all day!"
That is the conversation that took place with a telephoning mother and her small son, as outlined in the first part of a cartoon strip. The last picture shows the little boy in the kitchen with his hand deep in the cookie jar, and with a wide grin on his face. The mother in the next is calling to him.
"What are you doing in there?"
"I'm watching TV."
Young people catch on quickly, and are much inclined to accept the philosphy demonstrated by their parents and their elders. The same tendency seems to persist right into adulthood. By then, we wonder what is happening to the next generation.
"That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The aged women likewise, that they be in behavior as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children" (Titus 2:2-4).
Older people have a serious responsibility. Christianity is not cheap.
~In Gospel Power, Anderson, Alabama, 8/3/97.