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"Parents and Children," The Gospel Messenger vol. 15 no. 3 (Mar. 1893)
“Honor thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”—Eph. vi. 2, 3, 4.
It is, perhaps, the observation of most old people that children, as a rule, are failing in that reverence and respect for the counsel, admonition and commands of their parents that prevailed to so great an extent in the early days of this generation. I do not think that the children now have that reverence for their parents that I had for my father, even when I was forty years old. And there is a cause for it, and perhaps many causes. It is a pleasure for me, old and gray-headed as I am now, to remembers the moral and spiritual care my father had for me, even when I was a child; for he had us children to gather around the fireside at night and read the Scriptures; to remember his tenderness when we were ailing, and his correction when we disobeyed him.
My father sometimes laid the rod on my back when I deserved it, and it always increased my love and reverence for him; and it is rarely the case that a “spoiled” child reverences his parents. It is a child’s duty, whether he is a saint or a sinner, to honor his father and mother; it is his duty because God has commanded it, and he sins against his parents and against God and his fellow creatures, and against himself, if he does not do it, and will surely reap the reward of his disobedience. Eli failed in his duty to his sons and they brought shame and sorrow to him and reproach to Israel; David perhaps petted Absalom for his beauty and spoiled him, and Absalom drove him from the throne and filled his heart with bitter mourning.
The proper training of children is the foundation not only of domestic happiness, but it has been said, and truthfully, “that the hearth-stone is the corner-stone of the commonwealth.” “The nation which produces bad sons will assuredly not have good citizens.” “Loveless homes,” says Farrar, “very soon produce disorganized societies and dying nations.”
...But let parents be as remiss as they may be, or have been, it is yet, nevertheless, the duty of children to honor their parents; for it is a command with promise. Yea, even though children may have unworthy parents, they should reverence and honor them as the authors of their being. “When Noah lay in shame in his tent, his son and grandson earned an undying curse by their callous mockery; but Shem and Japhet earned an undying blessing for the reverent faithfulness which covered the sin of their father.” |
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