Image: Scene from 2018 VBS at CRBC
In doing some preparation this morning for a bio message on
Benjamin Keach (1640-1704) for a conference this fall, I ran across the quote below in
Austin Walker’s The Excellent Benjamin
Keach (Second Revised Ed., Joshua Press, 2015). In his chapter six on Keach’s
literary works, Walker notes that many of Keach’s works were especially focused
on young readers. This quote which introduces the chapter seemed timely with
the completion of our annual children’s Bible school this week:
Consider the advantages
of early age; religion now is most likely to make the deepest impression, and
holy habits to be sooner acquired….that ground that hath long lain barren or
unploughed, is hard to be broken up, or it [is] not so easy to manure. A plant
set but the last year, is sooner plucked up than an old tree; a colt is sooner
broke than if you let him run wild til he become an old horse; you can bend a
twig sooner than a great arm of a tree: also we put our children to learn any
art or mystery when young, because youth can learn sooner than elder persons.
And may not all these things convince you, that this is the best time to learn
the mysteries of religion and godliness? (p. 139).
JTR
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