In the eighteen hundreds two families from New York State and their descendents were studied by a researcher named Dugdale. What he found further illustrates the truth of Psalm 112:1-2.
1 Praise the LORD. Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands. 2 His children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.
Max Jukes and his brother married sisters. They did not believe in Christian training. They had 1,026 descendants. Three hundred of them died very young. Many others had poor health. At least 140 of them served time in the penitentiary for an average of 13 years each; 190 were public prostitutes; and there were 100 drunkards in the group.
Over a hundred-year period the Juke’s descendents cost the state $1,200,000. With inflation and more liberal welfare programs today, these two brothers and their families could easily cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
Contrast the misery experiences and caused by the Jukes family with another record:
Jonathan Edwards became a Christian and married a girl of like belief. After graduating from Yale in 1720, he became a preacher. From their union, he and his wife had 729 descendants. Among them were 300 preachers, 65 college professors, 13 university presidents, 60 authors, 3 congressmen, and a vice president of the United States. Except for Aaron Burr, a grandson of Edwards who married a girl of questionable character, the family did not cost the state a single dollar.
The mark difference between the two families was the basic training of the children which include both philosophy and practice.
