The Book of Virtues is truly a great volume to flip through and I was doing just that a few days in a row, ago. Reminiscing. You see, its rather like a very good friend that I met up with after a long absence as I hadn't read through it for quite a spell of time.
Its chock full of the most wonderfully wholesome and winsome of stories and poems. Stories and poems that not only tell a good story but twin up and have moral rhyme and reason (ahem, after all, some are poems). With this collection of writings from so many different authors, some of whom were rather famous for other reasons, one can spend a mesmerizing swathe of time imbibing therefrom. To name some of those wordsmiths, there are: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. Then there was Aesop himself; something from the Boy Scouts and even Aristotle, among a host of others. A gentleman by name of William J. Bennett edited this book and added tidbits of commentary.
One can instruct one's children and grandchildren, young nieces or nephews, or even Sunday School children without them even realizing what came over them and could open up meaningful discussions on a variety of good character and attitude qualities in a more natural unforced manner. This is because the point of these writings are categorized into several sections and delineate a diversity of those excellent character qualities such as: self-discipline; responsibility; courage; loyalty; faith; work and so on.
Target group, per se, is children. However, parents and other significant caregivers must be engaged. This is where the nostalgia and friendship with this book come in for me. Having been there and done just that with my own children as they were growing up; so this comes well recommended.
The parent (grandparent, etc) reads the story and either straight out to the child, or as I often found more effective for some of the stories, was to read for myself and then share and explain in my own words, emphasizing the aspect deigned relevant to the child(ren) at the time and situation. Kind of like living and breathing along with the story characters and quality needing to be addressed.
Very helpful.
Well received.
It's a thick-ish sort of tome so one can 'browse' through it to glean the best benefit per occasion. It would not disappoint.
Arm yourself with a copy, cozy up with your children or your coffee and regale yourselves towards Christ-like behavior to garner more outstanding offspring who grow in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.
So be it, Father God.
~ERC December 2020~
The Bible, of course should be the primary source of Holy Spirit fruit. Nevertheless, this Book of Virtues would be excellent supplemental support. Here's a list of some of the other contributing authors which by no means exhausts the list:
Leo Tolstoy; A. E. Housman; Carolyn Sherwin Bailey; Hans Christian Anderson; Jesse Lyman Hurlbut (retells several); William Shakespeare; Alfred Tennyson; Margery Williams; Oscar Wilde; Willa Cather; Robert Frost; Rudyard Kipling; Charles Edison; Winston Churchill; P.T. Barnum; and so many more.
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