THINE ONLY SON 
 
 OR THE 
 
 STEWARDSHIP 
 OF FAMILY LIFE 
 
 By 
 
 EDWIN M. POTEAT, D.D. 
 
 INTERCHURCH WORLD MOVEMENT 
 OF NORTH AMERICA 
 
 45 WEST 18th STREET NEW YORK CITY 
 
Price, 2 cents each, 20 cents 
 per dozen; $1.50 per hundred 
 
THINE ONLY SON 
 
 Or the Stewardship of Family Life 
 
 By EDWIN M. POTEAT 
 
 n E HAD left his home in the heart 
 of a great civilization. He had 
 gone into a strange land to start 
 life over again. He had tithed 
 his gains; but the real test of Abraham’s 
 loyalty to his calling came later, after 
 Isaac had opened the fountains of love 
 in his father’s heart. 
 
 The family is complete only in the child, 
 the union of father and mother in one 
 new creation — bone of their bone and 
 flesh of their flesh — their own personal- 
 ities projecting themselves in the com- 
 posite personality in whom they are 
 blended in indissoluble union. They are 
 declared one flesh in the wedding cere- 
 mony; they become one flesh in reality 
 first and only in the child. *It is for this 
 reason that “forever the Master sets the 
 child in the midst as the symbol of His 
 kingdom,” since the child is the fulfil- 
 ment of the sacrament of love and the 
 bond of union of souls which have ac- 
 tually .become one in him. “Lo, children 
 are a heritage of the Lord, and the 
 fruit of the womb is his reward. As 
 arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so 
 are the children of youth.” (Psa. 127 :3, 4). 
 
 Yes, Abraham loved Sarah, but great 
 stretches of his nature were like a desert 
 
4 
 
 THINE ONLY SON 
 
 waste till Isaac came. Then he knew, but 
 not till then, what life could mean — what 
 enlargement of heart, what expansion of 
 outlook, what fear and hope. Ask a 
 mother what is the sweetest music she 
 ever heard, and she will answer: “The 
 first cry of my first born.” And here in 
 a letter to his own mother is a young 
 father’s account : “It was splendidly 
 done, and in an incredibly short time 
 there was that bursting into new life with 
 a cry that spelled success. When his 
 mother waked, I whispered to her that a 
 son had come, and she, of course, bless 
 her, just closed her tired eyes and wept 
 for the joy of her first born. And so did 
 I. That was about all there was to it. 
 When things were all straightened up and 
 for one fleeting moment we three were 
 left alone in the room, I knelt by the 
 bed and gave him back to the Lord, and 
 thanked Him for his fine strong body, and 
 for his safe arrival, and asked that he 
 might be used always for His glory, and 
 of course we had to cry a little more, as 
 the indescribable little grunts and gurgles 
 came from under the little blue blanket 
 in the basket. At ten-thirty I came back 
 into the city. All the kindling ecstacies 
 of pride and happiness made me fairly 
 burst as I came along; . . . the old 
 
 man who carries water for us straight- 
 ened up as he passed, and there was a 
 genuine twinkle in his old cross-eyes as 
 he offered his congratulations.” 
 
THINE ONLY SON 
 
 5 
 
 God’s gifts are manifold, but the best 
 of them all is the child, in whom He per- 
 petually renews the life of the world, 
 keeping it young, and in whom He keeps 
 love’s fountains full flowing, fresh and 
 clean. 
 
 Now it follows from all this that the 
 Christian demand is never met until all 
 the family and all its life and interests 
 are surrendered to God. 
 
 A pastor on reaching home after the 
 Sunday morning service was met in the 
 hallway by his daughter in the* full fresh- 
 ness and beauty of young womanhood. 
 She said : 
 
 “Father, I was much impressed by 
 your prayer for missionary recruits this 
 morning, and my heart said, why 
 shouldn’t I go?” 
 
 “But I didn’t mean you, my child!” 
 
 It was not until he had escaped to the 
 solitude of his study that he realized that 
 he had not really meant anybody because 
 he had not meant his own daughter 1 
 
 It was not easy for Abraham to break 
 up housekeeping and business in Ur of 
 the Chaldees, and strike out anew in a 
 strange city; but he did it. It was not 
 easy for him to divide his spoils with a 
 strange king; but he did. But the com- 
 mand to offer his son — “thy son, thine 
 only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest” — fell 
 like a sledge hammer on his heart. Yet 
 the record bears no trace of hesitation on 
 his part; no word of a sleepless night, or 
 
6 
 
 THINE ONLY SON 
 
 of anguished writhing in the terrible 
 dilemma of disobeying God or disbeliev- 
 ing his promise concerning this son. ' No; 
 the record says quite simply that he arose 
 in the morning and set out on the jour- 
 ney. And when they reached the foot of 
 the hill where the Son of God will one 
 day furnish the final demonstration of 
 love that withholds nothing, the son, in- 
 nocent of all knowledge of the meaning 
 of their errand, breaks their long silence 
 with “Father, here is wood and fire; but 
 where is the lamb for the offering?” 
 
 The father bit his lips and choked back 
 his sobs and said, “God will provide a 
 lamb for the offering, my son.” “Behold 
 the Lamb of God” — his own Son — “that 
 taketh away the sin of the world !” 
 
 And because Abraham withheld not his 
 son he is entitled to be called the Friend 
 of God. 
 
 So it is that family life reaches its con- 
 summation when our children, given to 
 God, are given back to us with the halo 
 of usefulness in the kingdom on their 
 heads. 
 
 But we reach this mount Moriah by 
 stages, often slow and painful. We be- 
 gin with casual gifts of money, the loose 
 change in our pockets. Then we write 
 a check in the more deliberate conviction 
 that missions deserve to be supported. 
 Then we set apart a definite portion of 
 income, thus acknowledging a relation- 
 ship to God in our business, and tak- 
 
THINE ONLY SON 
 
 7 
 
 ing, as Lacordaire said, the high road 
 to Christian disentanglement of heart. 
 Then we give our time in personal serv- 
 ice, attend conferences, join study groups 
 on missions. “But do not ask me to give 
 my child !” Then you mean you cannot 
 complete the Moriah journey? 
 
 A hundred years ago a successful 
 young physician went home from the 
 death bed of a little child in New York 
 with a pain in his heart for the millions 
 of children in India sick and dying with 
 no physician to help them. His wife 
 promptly shared the purpose which be- 
 gan to take shape in his mind. But 
 when he told his father about it, that good 
 soul said, “Never!” A month later the 
 son heard his father’s ultimatum ; “The 
 day you go to India, I disinherit you as 
 my son.” John Scudder went to India; 
 and not long ago (1918) some one made a 
 eount of the years he and his children 
 nave given to India, and found that there 
 were a thousand years of missionary 
 service in his loins when over his father’s 
 refusal and protests he went to India to 
 heal the distresses of the poor in the 
 name of Jesus. 
 
 To oiir children God says, “Son, 
 daughter, give me thy heart and thy life.” 
 To us who are parents He says, “Give me 
 thy child.” “Take now thy son, thine only 
 son, whom thou lovest. . . . and get 
 thee into the land of Moriah and oflFer him 
 there for a burnt-offering.” We must be 
 
g 
 
 THINE ONLY SON 
 
 brave enough to tell ourselves plainly 
 that it is not love of our children but sel- 
 fishness which interposes our self-will be- 
 tween them and the will of God for their 
 lives. 
 
 What happens to family life and love 
 when they are subordinated to the will of 
 God and love of His kingdom? We shall 
 find the answer to this question in two 
 sayings of our Lord. In Luke 14:25, He 
 enjoins the subordination of family love 
 — the love of parents, children, brothers, 
 sisters — and in Matthew 12 :49 He tells us 
 that for those who do the will of God fam- 
 ily relationships are transfigured by being 
 lifted up and embraced in the heavenly 
 household in which God is Father and 
 himself is the Elder Brother. In which 
 case parents and children find their high- 
 est happiness in a comradeship of service 
 where both are equally obedient to the 
 holy and gracious will of God. 
 
 “Now I know that thou fearest God 
 seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, 
 thine only son, from me.” (Gen. 22 :12.) 
 
 No. 265 L. W. III. 100, Jan. ’20