d quarrelsomeness, and by their excessive competitiveness
and jealousy. Sometimes the scenes around the family table are far
different from our image of what Christian family life and fellowship
should be. We wonder where we have failed, grow discouraged, and fail
again. We are embarrassed by the contradiction that our children see
between the things that we say and the things that we do.

Parents and teachers who, like Mrs. Strait, live by the law, either have
to blind themselves to what's going on in their relationships or else
become profoundly discouraged. And if we are like Mr. Churchill, our
decision will be to ignore human problems and to turn ourselves to a
devotion of God, as if that were possible! Dr. Manby would wait for time
to take care of the matter, and Mr. Knowles would frantically cram more
knowledge about the Bible into the minds of parents and children in the
hope that, somehow or other, knowing about God and Christian teaching
would produce the necessary changes. Mr. Clarke, of course, would turn
the whole "mess" over to the clergy.

Implicit in the situations we have been discussing is a concept of
success, the assumption being that if we love God and our neighbor
everything we do will turn out all right. My grandfather always
maintained that his business prospered because he kept the laws of God.
When we stop to think about it, we realize what a faulty concept this
is. After all, it was not easy for Christ to accomplish the purposes of
love in this world, and there is no reason why it should be any easier
for us. It is not easy to maintain the dialogue of life; it is not easy
to call forth the being of others; it is not easy to regain the freedom
to love even when we respond to the spirit of love. We recognize the
credibility and promise of all these principles, but wonder at the
difficulty of their application.

_The Work of Love_

We need to remember that even God, with all of His power and wisdom,
does not give His love to us in ways that take away our freedom of
response. He leaves us free to say Yes or No to Him, to love, to our
families, and to all the responsibilities of life. This means, as we saw
earlier, that we are to speak the word of love and leave the other
person free to make his response. We cannot expect a guaranteed response
from him. We cannot prevent him from making a wrong response any more
than we can make him give the right response. Our children are free, and
we must r