The living stream of this sympathy is given by Christ in His address to the

weeping daughters of Jerusalem: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me,

but weep for yourselves and for your children!" The following is also its

living utterance: "My son, if thy heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice,

even mine." We have also a beautiful exhibition of it in the touching

history of Ruth, in the life of Joseph, and in the mother of Samuel. Peter

describes it when he says, "Be all of one mind, having compassion one of

another; love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous." Esther expresses it

in the exclamation, "How can I endure to see the destruction of my

kindred!" Paul gives utterance to it when he says, "I would be accursed for

my brethren and kindred's sake." Jesus exemplifies it in His intercourse

with the family of Lazarus; He shows its emotion and its active charities

when He stands on the grave of that friend, and weeps, and calls him from

the dead. His sympathy for a lost world is the true pattern of

home-sympathy. It was disinterested, superior to all selfishness,

self-denying, active, and prompting Him to do and suffer all that He did.

It was not measured by the merits of the object after which it yearned. He

sympathized with all,

"For each He had a brother's interest in His heart."

And its softening influence fell, like morning dew, upon the heart of

adamant, melting it into contrition and love.

"In every pang that rends the heart,

The Man of sorrows had a part;

He sympathizes in our grief,

And to the sufferer sends relief."

See Him bend over the bed of Jairus's daughter; see Him opening the eyes of

the blind, healing the paralytic, comforting and feeding the poor widow,

and cheering the bereaved and troubled heart. Wherever He went He was "a

brother born for them in adversity." See Him on the cross, when weltering

in blood and struggling with the pangs of a cruel death, He casts His

languid eye upon His aged mother who is there weeping her pungent woes, and

makes provision for her comfort. His sympathy now for all is the same.

"None ever came unblest away;

Then, though all earthly ties be riven,

Smile, for thou hast a Friend in heaven!"

It is this sympathy which makes Him a member of every Christian home. And

when the sympathy of its members is the reproduction of His, they will,

like Mary, sit in loving pupilage at His feet, each becoming the agent of

blessings for all the rest. The wife will seek the salvation of her

husband; the mother will labor with unwearied diligence for the redemption

of her child.

Thus when home-sympathy is purified and developed by Christian faith and

love, it opens up the most elevated of all home-feeling and solicitude, and

becomes the most effectual safeguard against impending ruin. No family can

be true to its privileges and mission without it. It allures to the cross,

leads all the members in the path of the sympathizing one, and prompts them

to say, "Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after

thee; for whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will

lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest

I will die, and there will I be buried; the Lord do so to me, and more

also, if aught but death part thee and me."

What would the Christian home be, therefore, without such sympathy?

Powerless, amoral desolation! We read in God's Word, of men losing natural

affection, and of mothers forgetting their sucking children. But these were

worse than brutes. What shall we then say of Christian parents being devoid

of spiritual sympathy,--shedding no tear of anguish over their moral ruin,

nor showing the least concern about their salvation? Such parents do not

rejoice even over the return of their children to God. They are a disgrace

to the Christian name, and bring infamy upon the Christian home.

Some parents do not proceed quite so far. They indulge in the feeling of

sympathy for their children; but alas! that feeling is never expressed in

efforts to save them. It is all expended in vain and fruitless

lamentations, and is, therefore, at best but a morbid sentimentalism,--but

a cloak behind which are lurking parental hard-heartedness and religious

apathy; proving plainly the great truth advanced by Adams, in his Elements

of Christian Science, "that an indulgence in the feelings of sympathy

without carrying them out to the relief of actual distress, produces

hardness of heart to such a degree that the most pitiless and cruel, the

most licentious and unnatural, and ungrateful conduct shall be joined with

the most overflowing and deeply thrilling sentiment."

Let those parents who are ever lamenting the wickedness of their children,

but do nothing to make them better, ponder well this sentiment, and see it

in the grin, of their own hypocrisy, and the desolation of their injured

home and children. Let the other members, as well as the parents, take the

timely warning. Let the pious wife here see the character of her sympathy

for her impenitent husband. And let each see that their pious sympathy

"always issue forth in actions." Let that sympathy give not only eloquence

to the tongue, tears to your eye, and sighs to your heart, but also

faithfulness to your life and holy calling. As the cry of hunger from your

children, and their shivering cold in winter, prompt you to provide for

their natural wants, so let their moral wants impel you to fidelity to

their souls. All will be vain without this. The stern demands of a father's

authority, and the formal teachings of a mother's lip, will fall like the

frost of a winter's morning, upon their tender hearts,--only to sear and to

harden and to freeze up the heart against God. For

"He will not let love's work impart

Full solace, lest it steal the heart."

But when pure and holy sympathy goes out, in its softening influence after

the young;--

"Then, feeling is diffused in every part,

Thrills in each nerve, and lives in all the heart."

Such sympathy has a saving influence upon both the parent and the child.

It softens and refines the former, while it forms and allures the latter.

The child fondly leans upon the parents, looks up to them for support and

enjoyment, and is led by them in whatever path they choose. By its

influence the feeling of natural and spiritual helplessness becomes

developed in the child; the sense of dependence on a superior is awakened;

and with these, all those feelings of confidence and veneration, which lay

the foundation of religious affections, are unfolded. The parent's

influence, both as to kind and degree, depends, therefore, upon the

character of home-sympathy. If it is but natural, the parental influence

will not extend beyond the worldly gain and temporal welfare of the child.

The parent will exert no power over the soul. But if it be spiritual, and

extend beyond the mere instincts of natural affection, it will expand the

mind, and develop all the melting charities of our nature. It will pass

with a new transferring and transforming power, from husband to wife, from

parent to child, from kindred to kindred. Wherever it finds its way;

whatever fiber of the heart it may touch, it begets a new and holy

affection, unites the energies, lightens the toils, soothes the sorrows,

and exalts the hopes, of all the members. It reflects a softening luster

from eye to eye, goes with electric flash from heart to heart, glows in its

warmth throughout all its moral courses, accumulates the home-endearments,

stimulates each member to religious exertions for all the rest, and lays

the foundation in each heart for an unbroken home-communion of their

sainted spirits in heaven! It cements them together in their tent-home,

creating a sweet concord of hearts and hopes and joys; and then elevates

them unitedly in fond anticipation of reunion in their eternal home. They

blend their tears together over the grave of buried love, and enjoy the

saintly sympathy of loved ones gone before them.

This is its most lovely feature. Tell me, is there not a bond of sympathy

between Jesus and His people here,--between loved ones in heaven and their

pious kindred on earth? Do not the tears of the Christian home reflect the

tears of Jesus? These are to the heart like the dews of Hermon,--like the

dews that descended upon the mountains of Zion.

"No radiant pearl which crested fortune wears,

No gem that, sparkling, hangs from beauty's ears,

Not the bright stars which night's blue arch adorn,

Nor rising sun that gilds the vernal morn,

Shine with such luster as the tear that breaks

For others' woe, down virtue's lovely cheeks."

Is such, Christian brother, the sympathy of your home? It will be a

safeguard against the follies and the false interests of life. It will

restrict the fashionable taste and sentiments of the age. It will teach

wisdom to the pious mother, and be a sure defense against the dangers and

indiscretions of the nursery and fashionable boarding school. Under its

influence, mothers will not trust the souls of their children to the

guardianship of irreligious nurses, nor expose them to the perils of a

corrupted and heartless fashion. They will deny themselves the ruinous

pleasures of a gay and reckless association with the world; and with

maternal solicitude, attend upon the opening of those buds of life which

God has committed to them. The pious mother will wield her power over her

children, by the force of this sympathy; for her's is the deepest, purest,

and most saving of all home-sympathy:

"Earth may chill

And sever other sympathies, and prove

How weak all human bonds are--it may kill

Friendship, and crush hearts with them--but the thrill

Of the maternal breast must ever move

In blest communion with her child, and fill

Even heaven itself with prayers and hymns of love!"

CHAPTER XV.

FAMILY PRAYER.

"Hush! 'tis a holy hour,--the quiet room

Seems like a temple, while yon soft lamp sheds

A faint and starry radiance through the room

And the sweet stillness, down on yon bright heads

With all their clustering locks, untouched by care,

And bowed, as flowers are bowed with night,--in prayer.

Gaze on, 'tis lovely--childhood's lip and cheek

Mantling beneath its earnest brow of thought!"

Home-sympathy will prompt to family devotion. The latter is the fruit of

the former. A prayerless home is destitute of religious sympathy. The

family demands prayer. Its relation to God, its dependence and specific

duties, involve devotion. Communion with God constitutes a part of the

intercourse and society of home. The necessity of family prayer arises out

of the home-constitution and mission. Family mercies and blessings; family

dangers and weaknesses; family hopes and temptations,--all bespeak the

importance of family worship. If you occupy the responsible station of a

parent; if God has made you the head of a religious household, and you

profess to stand and live on the Lord's side, then, tell me, have you not

by implication vowed to maintain regular family worship? Besides, the

benefits and privilege of prayer develop the obligation of the family to

engage in it. Is not every privilege a duty? And if it is a duty for

individuals and congregations to pray, is it not, for a similar reason, the

duty of the family to establish her altar of devotion? As a family we daily

need and receive mercies, daily sin, are tempted and in danger every day;

why not then as a family daily pray?

But what is family prayer? It is not simply individual prayer, not the

altar of the closet; but the home-altar, around which all the members

gather morning and evening, as a family-unit, with one heart, one faith and

one hope, to commune with God and supplicate his mercy. "In the devotion of

this little assembly," says Dr. Dwight, "parents pray for their children,

and children for their parents; the husband for the wife, and the wife for

the husband; while brothers and sisters send up their requests to the

throne of Infinite Mercy, to call down blessings on each other. Who that

wears the name of a man can be indifferent here? Must not the venerable

character of the parent, the peculiar tenderness of the conjugal union, the

affectionate intimacy of the filial and fraternal relations; must not the

nearest of relations long existing, the interchange of kindness long

continued, and the oneness of interests long cemented,--all warm the heart,

heighten the importance of every petition, and increase the fervor of every

devotional effort?"

What scene can be more lovely on earth, more like the heavenly home, and

more pleasing to God, than that of a pious family kneeling with one accord

around the home-altar, and uniting their supplications to their Father in

heaven! How sublime the act of those parents who thus pray for the blessing

of God upon their household! How lovely the scene of a pious mother

gathering her little ones around her at the bedside, and teaching them the

privilege of prayer! And what a safeguard is this home-devotion, against

all the machinations of Satan!

"Our hearths are altars all;

The prayers of hungry souls and poor,

Like armed angels at the door,

Our unseen foes appal!"

It is this which makes home a type of heaven, the dwelling place of God.

The family altar is heaven's threshold. And happy are those children who at

that altar, have been consecrated by a father's blessing, baptized by a

mother's tears, and borne up to heaven upon their joint petitions, as a

voluntary thank-offering to God. The home that has honored God with an

altar of devotion may well be called blessed.

"Child, amidst the flowers at play,

While the red light fades away;

Mother, with thine earnest eye

Ever following silently;

Father, by the breeze of eve

Called thy warmest work to leave;

Pray!--ere yet the dark hours be,

Lift the heart and bend the knee."

The duty thus to establish family prayer is imperative. It is a duty

because God commands it, and the mission of home cannot be fulfilled

without it. It is a duty because a privilege and a blessing, and the

condition of parental efficiency in all other duties;--because the moral

and spiritual growth of the child depends upon it. It is one of the most

effectual means of grace. All the instructions, all the discipline and

example, of the parent will be in vain without it. Hence both natural

affection and Christian faith should suggest its establishment. Parents are

bound to do so by their covenant vows, by the obligations of baptism, by

all the interests and hopes of their household. They have dedicated their

children to God, and pledged themselves to educate them for Him, and to

train them up in His ways. Tell me then, can you be faithful to these vows

and obligations without family prayer? Can you fulfil your covenant

engagements, hope to receive your reward, and see your children grow up in

the nurture of the Lord's vineyard, without rearing up a family altar?

The promised blessings of family prayer show that every faithful Christian

home must have its family altar. These are unspeakable. It is a sure

defence against sin; it sanctifies the members, and throws a hallowed

atmosphere around our household. The child will come under its restraining

and saving influence. A mother's prayer will haunt the child, and draw it

as if by magic power towards herself in heaven:

"He might forget her melting prayer,

While pleasure's pulses madly fly,

But in the still, unbroken air,

Her gentle tones come stealing by,--

And years of sin and manhood flee,

And leave him at his mother's knee!"

It affords home security and happiness, removes family friction, and causes

all the complicated wheels of the home-machinery to move on noiselessly and

smoothly. It promotes union and harmony, expunges all selfishness, allays

petulant feelings and turbulent passions, destroys peevishness of temper,

and makes home-intercourse holy and delightful. It causes the members to

reciprocate each other's affections, hushes the voice of recrimination, and

exerts a softening and harmonizing influence over each heart. The dew of

Hermon falls upon the home where prayer is wont to be made. Its members

enjoy the good and the pleasantness of dwelling together in unity. It gives

tone and intensity to their affections and sympathies: it throws a sunshine

around their hopes and interests: it increases their happiness, and takes

away the poignancy of their grief and sorrow. It availeth much, therefore,

both for time and eternity. Its voice has sent many a poor prodigal home to

his father's house. Its answer has often been, "This man was born there!"

The child, kneeling beside the pious mother, and pouring forth its infant

prayer to God, must attract the notice of the heavenly host, and receive

into its soul the power of a new life.

"Who would not be an infant now,

To breathe an infant's prayer?

O manhood! could thy spirit kneel

Beside that sunny child,

As fondly pray, and purely feel,

With soul as undefiled.

That moment would encircle thee,

With light and love divine;

Thy gaze might dwell on Deity,

And heaven itself be thine."

And yet the neglect of family prayer is a very general defect of the

Christian home. No home-duty has indeed been more grossly neglected and

abused. Some attend to it only occasionally; some only in times of

affliction and distress, as if then only they needed to pray to God; some

only on the Sabbath, as if that were the only day to commune with Him. Some

perform it only in a formal way, having the form without the spirit of

prayer, as if God did not require the fervent, in order to the effectual,

prayer that availeth much.

As a general thing, at the present day, not more than three or four

families out of a whole congregation, have established the family altar.

The parents may engage in closet prayer, but their children are strangers

to the fact. Their devotions they seem zealous to conceal, as if they were

ashamed of their piety. Can this be right? Is this the will of God? No!

methinks if the parent is faithful to the duty of private prayer, he cannot

omit the duty and privilege of family devotion. But why neglect family

prayer? Are you ashamed of your children? Have you no time? Then you are

unworthy of a family, and should not profess to act towards them as the

steward of God. Think you that God will not answer and bless your prayers?

What more could you do and hope for your children than to offer up

supplications for them to God?

"What could a mother's prayer,

In all the wildest ecstacy of hope,

Ask for her darling like the bliss of heaven?"

Many seek by the most frivolous excuses, to justify their neglect of family

prayer. Some will urge the press of other duties, alleging that other

engagements prevent it. This is false. God lays upon you no engagement that

is designed to supersede the necessity of prayer. Besides, you will find

that you really waste more time than it would require for family devotion.

And further, can you spend your time to better purpose than in family

prayer? I think not. It is the best husbandry of time. Says Philip Henry to

his children, "Prayer and provender hinder no man's journey." But another

pleads incapacity. He has not the gift of speech, and cannot make an

eloquent prayer. This is no excuse. Prayer is the gift of the Holy Spirit;

and if you have the spirit of prayer, you will find words for its

utterance. Besides, eloquence does not condition the efficacy of prayer.

Where there is a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath,

and not according to that he hath not.

"When we of helps or hopes are quite bereaven,

Our humble prayers have entrance into heaven."

We have the capacity to ask for what we earnestly desire and feel the need

of. The anger of God will kindle against you for this excuse, as it kindled

against Moses for a similar one. When He called him to be his messenger to

Israel, Moses said, as you do, "O my Lord, I am not eloquent,--I am slow of

speech, and of a slow tongue. And the Lord said unto him, who hath made

man's mouth? or, who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind?

Have not I the Lord? The anger of the Lord was kindled against him."

Let me, therefore, urge upon you, Christian parents, to make prayer a

prominent element of your home. You should be a priest unto your family,--a

leader in home-communion with God. Your children have a right to expect

this from you. If you are a church member, how strange and startling must

be the enunciation in heaven, that you are a prayerless Christian, and your

home destitute of the altar! And do you think that, continuing thus, you

will be admitted into that heavenly home where there is one unbroken voice

of prayer and praise to God? Do you not tremble at the prospect of those

tremendous denunciations which the Lord has uttered against those who

neglect and abuse the privilege of prayer? "Pour out thy fury upon the

families that have not called upon thy name." Oh then, make your home a

house of prayer; lead your little flock in sweet communion with God.

Establish in them the habit of devotion: Shape their consciences by prayer.

In this way you shall secure for yourself and them the blessing of God: His

smile shall ever rest upon your household: Salvation shall be the heritage

of your children; they will grow up in the divine life; and will live amid

the blessing's of prayer, and be faithful to its requisitions:

"Hold the little hands in prayer, teach the weak knees their kneeling;

Let him see thee speaking to thy God; he will not forget it afterwards;

When old and gray will he feelingly remember a mother's tender piety,

And the touching recollection of her prayers shall arrest the strong man

in his sin!"

CHAPTER XVI.

HOME-EDUCATION.

SECTION I.

THE CHARACTER OF HOME EDUCATION.

"Scratch the green rind of a sapling, or wantonly twist it in the soil,

The scarred and crooked oak will tell of thee for centuries to come;

Wherefore, though the voice of instruction waiteth for the ear of reason,

Yet with his mother's milk the young child drinketh education."

We come now to consider one of the most important features of the Christian

home, viz., as a school for the education of character. This is important

because of its vital bearing upon the interests of home. The parent is not

only king and priest, but prophet in the family. It is the first school. We

there receive a training for good or for evil. There is not a word, nor an

emotion, nor an act, nor even a look there, which does not teach the child

something. Character is ever being framed and moulded there. Every habit

there formed, and every action there performed, imply a principle which

shall enter as an element into the future character of the child.

What is home-education? It is the physical, mental, moral, and religious

development of the child. To educate means to draw out as well as to instil

in. It means the evolution of our nature as well as the communication of

facts and principles to us. The home training does not, therefore, consist

of simple information, but is a nurture of body, mind and spirit. From this

we may infer the frequent mistakes of parents, in substituting mere

book-learning for a training up and nurture, dealing with their children as

if they had no faculties, and making the entire education of their children

mechanical and empirical. Home training involves the development of all

their faculties as a unit and in their living relation, causing the body to

move right, the mind to think right, the heart to feel right, and the soul

to love right; changing your children from creatures of mere impulse,

prejudice and passion, to thinking, loving and reasoning beings. To educate

them is to bring out their hidden powers, to form their character, and

prepare them for their station in life. Thus home-education means a drawing

out and also a bringing up,--a training for man, and a bringing up for God;

a training and nurture for the family, the state, and the church,--for

time and for eternity. These must be done together; they involve but one

process, and are conditioned by each other. We cannot separate a secular

from a religious education, neither can we separate a training from a

bringing up. While those faculties of the child which exist in a state of

mere involution, are being developed, its nature must be supplied with

appropriate food; and every element of its education must possess the

plastic power of evolving and giving specific form to its future character

and destiny. Thus the parent, in teaching, must have a forming influence

over the child; and his instructions must correspond in character, kind and

extent, with the nature, wants, and destiny of the child.

What are now the different kinds or parts of home-education?

It must be physical. The child has a physical nature, physical wants, and

is related to the material world; and should, therefore, receive a physical

education. The object of this is to ensure that sound, vigorous frame of

body which is not only a great blessing in itself, but an essential

concomitant of a sound state and vigorous development of mind. It refers to

the proper management of the health of the child, its diet, habits of

exercise and recreation. Parents should teach their children the nature of

the body, its dangers, and bearing upon their future happiness. They should

teach them to govern their appetite, and train them up to habits of

exercise and early rising. This part of home-education begins in the

nursery,--in the cradle, and is not complete till the body is brought to

maturity in all its functions. Neglect of it will result in physical

imbecility, and often in mental derangement. The object secured by it is,

the preservation of the health and constitution of the child. In this we

see its importance. What is your wealth, your station, your influence, if

through your neglect of your children, they are deprived of health, and

grow up with the seeds of immature death springing up in their system?

In the physical training of children due regard should be had to

cleanliness, exercise, diet and dress. Without this all will be vain. Many

parents keep them within doors, never let them enjoy the pure air, nor

exercise the muscular system, keep their bodies cooped in clothing too

small, and feasted upon a diet unwholesome; and as a consequence, they show

a sickly growth, and become unfit either for the burdens or for the

enjoyments of life.

The importance of exercise in the open air, and abstemiousness in diet, is

proven from the health of those nations that train their children in all

the exercise of riding, leaping, running and fencing, and subject them from

infancy to the most frugal diet. Thus the perfect forms and vigorous health

of the Greeks, the Romans and Persians were the fruit of national attention

paid to physical education. Every home should have its suitable gymnasium.

How many parents, by their violation of the laws of health, prostitute the

strength of their children to profligacy and indolence.

Home-education must be intellectual. Much of human character and happiness

depends upon the education of the mind, both as respects the development of

its faculties and the application of legitimate truth. The mind is the man.

It is not, as Locke declares, like a blank sheet of paper or a chest of

drawers; but has an intuitional as well as a logical consciousness, innate

ideas as well as capacities of receiving truth; while all its faculties

involve a unity, and exist in the child in a state of involution; the abuse

and neglect of one of which will have their bearing upon all the rest; and

the mind without proper culture in its undeveloped state in the child, will

show the symptoms of its abuse in the man. The character of the mind in the

man will indicate the character of its education in the child. This

education should begin properly with the first symptoms of consciousness.

All the powers of the intellect should be unfolded. Parents should be the

Principals in the mental training of their children. The manner and means

of such training will be considered in another place. Our purpose here is

simply to state this as a part of home-training. From the important part

which the mind acts in the great drama of human life and destiny, we think

that no intelligent parent would presume to repudiate its education.

Home-education must be moral. The family should develop the moral nature

of the child. The will should be educated; the sense of right and wrong

trained; the emotions cultivated; the passions and desires ruled; the

conscience and faith developed. The necessity of this is seen in the fact

that our nature is fallen and perverted. The means of educating the moral

nature of the child, are natural and revealed. Both are of divine

appointment. The former are those which lie within the circumference of our

abilities, and will be of no avail without the latter, which are found in

the scriptures and church. What are some of these means?

1. Parents should place their children in circumstances calculated to form

a good moral character. They should surround them with a moral atmosphere,

that they may, with their first breath, inhale a pure moral being, and

escape the contamination of evil. This has been called "the education of

circumstances." Much of character depends upon position and the

circumstances in which we are placed. This is seen in the difference

between those children who have enjoyed the true christian home, and those

who have not. Hence the first thing parents should consider in the moral

training of their children is, the home in which they are to be trained.

This home should afford them circumstances the most favorable to their

moral culture.

2. They should remove all temptation. Evil propensities are called forth by

temptation; and a child loses the power to resist in proportion to the

frequency of the temptation. Hence the exposure of our children to

temptation but educates and strengthens their propensities to evil. On the

other hand, if we remove temptation, these propensities will not be called

into activity, and will lose their tenacity. Never allow your children to

tamper with sin in any form; teach them how to resist temptation; inspire

them with an abhorrence and a dread of all evil. In this way you prepare

them for the reception and reproduction of moral truth.

3. Another means of moral education is example. This has been styled the

"education of example." This has more power than precept. The efficiency of

this means is based upon the natural disposition of the child to imitate.

Children take their parents as the standard of all that is good, and will,

therefore, follow them in evil as well as in good. Hence the parent's

example should be a correct model of sound morality. The child will be the

moral counterpart of the parent. You can see the parent's home in the

child. He is the moral daguerreotype of his parent. This but shows the

importance of good example in his moral training.

4. But one of the most effectual means is, by moral training, by which we

mean, to draw out and properly direct the moral faculties, and to habituate

them to the exercise of moral principle. Without this, all mechanical

education will be fruitless. To call forth muscular power you must

exercise the muscles. So you give the child moral stamina by developing its

moral faculties, and establishing in them the habit of moral action. This

training has its foundation in the law of habit. It is given, with its

results, in the Word of God. "Train up a child," &c. Also in the old maxim,

"Just as the twig is bent, the tree is inclined."

"Scratch the green rind of a sapling, or wantonly twist it in the soil,

The scarred and crooked oak will tell of thee for centuries to come!"

The power and pleasure of doing a thing depends much upon habit. Our nature

may become habituated to good or evil; we become passive in proportion to

the habit. How important, then, that the moral powers of our children be

trained up to principles and action until habits of good thought, feeling,

and conduct, are established. Then they will not depart from them; and

their moral life will be spontaneous and a source of enjoyment.

The feelings, appetites and instincts of children should be thus specially

trained. According to Dr. Gall, there are two classes of feelings,--the

selfish, yet necessary for the preservation of the individual; and the

unselfish, or those which are directed to objects apart from self, yet

liable to abuse and misdirection. Both of these demand a home-training. The

parent should give to each its true direction, restrain and harmonize them

in their relations and respective spheres of activity, and bring them

under law, and place before each its legitimate object and end. Then, and

then only, do they become laws of self-preservation. The natural appetites

are subject to abuse, and when unrestrained, defeat the very ends of their

existence. Thus the appetite for food may be over-indulged through mistaken

parental kindness, until habits of sensualism are established, and the

child becomes a glutton, and finds the grave of infamy.

How many children have been thus destroyed in soul and body by parental

indulgence and neglect of their natural feelings and appetites. The feeling

of cruelty, revenge, malice, falsehood, tale-bearing, dishonesty, vanity,

&c., have, in the same way and by the same indulgence, been engendered in

the children of Christian parents. The same, too, may be said of the

unselfish feelings. These have been called the moral sentiments; and upon

their proper training depends the formation of a positive moral character.

The conscience comes under this head. The parent should train that

important faculty of the child. It should be taught to act from the

standpoint of conscience, and to form the habit of conscientiousness in

word and deed. This includes the training of the motives also, and of all

the cardinal moral virtues, such as justice, honor, chastity, veneration,

kindness, &c. "Teach your children," says Goodrich in his Fireside

Education, "never to wound a person's feelings because he is poor, because

he is deformed, because he is unfortunate, because he holds an humble

station in life, because he is poorly clad, because he is weak in body and

mind, because he is awkward, or because the God of nature has bestowed upon

him a darker skin than theirs."

This early education should commence as soon as the necessities of the

child demand it. A child should be taught what is necessary for it to know

and practice as soon as that necessity exists and the child is capable of

learning. Scripture sanctions this. Our fathers did so. It was the

injunction of Moses to the children of Israel: Deut. vi., 6-9. God commands

you to break up the fallow ground and sow the good seed at the first dawn

of the spring-life of your children, and then to pray for the "early and

the latter rain,"

"Teaching, with pious care, the dawning light

Of infant intellect to know the Lord."

Home-education should be religious. As the child has a religious nature,

religious wants, and a religious end to accomplish, it should receive from

its parents a religious training. Religion is educational. We are commanded

to teach religion to our children. The admonition to "train up a child in

the way he should go," and to "bring him up in the nurture and admonition

of the Lord," is a scripture sanction of religious education. Nature and

the bible are the text-books for such a training. The child should be

taught natural and revealed religion. Such education involves the

development of the child's religious nature, and the diligent use of those

means by which it may become an adopted child of God.

Education should be suited to the wants and the destination of the child.

Religion is its first want,--the one thing needful, the chief concern; and

should, therefore, be the first object of attention in home-training. The

fear and love of God should be the first lesson taught. This is the

beginning of wisdom. Teach your children to love Him above father and

mother, sister and brother. The child is capable of such ideas of God.

Children can possess the sentiment of God; and when this is instilled and

developed as a rudiment of their character, they have a preparation for the

grace of God. What is the mere secular, without such a religious education?

It is education without its essence; for piety is the essence of all

education. Irreligious training is destructive,--a curse rather than a

blessing,--only a training up to crime and to ruin. "The mildew of a

cultivated, but depraved mind, blights whatever it falls upon." "Religion,"

says Dr. Barrow, "is the only science, which is equally and indispensably

necessary to men of every rank, every age, and every profession." "The end

of learning," says Milton, "is to repair the ruins of our first parents, by

requiring to know God aright, and out of that knowledge, to love Him, and

to imitate Him."

We see, therefore, that religious training is the only true palladium of

your children's happiness and destiny; and should be the great end of all

home-teaching. Tinge all their thoughts and feelings with a sense of

eternity. Train them up to build for another world. Stamp the impress of a

future life upon their tender hearts. Beget in them longings after

immortality. See that their designs extend beyond this world. As the

Spartan mother gave character to her nation by the instructions she gave

her child, so you give character to your religion, your church, your home,

by the spiritual culture of your offspring. Let the jewels you give them be

the virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost,--the ornaments of a meek and

quiet spirit.

"Take the germ, and make it

A bud of moral beauty. Let the dews

Of knowledge and the light of virtue, wake it

In richest fragrance and in purest hues."

Childhood is the period in which the principles of Christianity can be the

most effectually engrafted in our nature. Its pliability at that period

insures its free assimilation to the spirit and truth of religion. "Would

to God," says St. Pierre, "I had preserved the sentiment of the existence

of the Supreme Being, and of His principal attributes, as pure as I had it

in my earliest years!" It is the heart more than the head that religion

demands; and you can fill the young heart with sentiments of God better

than if you wait till it grows hard as adamant in sin. You can elevate the

soul of your child to God, and teach it to raise its little hands and

voice in prayer to the Most High. You can teach it this from the book of

nature and of revelation,--from the daisies that spring up among the grass

upon which it frolics, by the mellow fruits after which it longs, by the

stars that shine in unclouded luster above it, and by the breezes which

ruffle its silken curls, and bring perfume to its smiling face.

To the mother especially, is committed the religious education of the child

at home. She is eminently adapted, if herself a Christian, for such a work.

Her love, her piety, which breathes in every word, in every look, makes her

instructions effectual and pleasing.

"'Tis pleasing to be schooled by female lips and eyes,

They smile so when one's right, and when one's wrong,

They smile still more; and then there

Comes encouragement in the soft hand

Over the brow, perhaps even a chaste kiss--

I learned the little that I know by this."

They can better reach and train the heart. Religion is heart-wisdom. "My

son, give me thy heart!" We may use the head as an avenue to the heart, yet

nothing is done in the religion of our children until the heart be carried.

It is only in that inner shrine that there can be deposited the wisdom that

is from above, and only then will they be made wise unto salvation. And who

is better able to storm and carry that inner citadel, and lead its subdued

inmates to the Cross, than the pious, tender-hearted, soliciting mother!

Some parents object to the religious training of their children,

"because," say they, "there is danger of having their minds biased by some

particular creed; they should be left, therefore, to themselves till they

are capable of making a choice, and then let them choose their creed." This

is all a miserable subterfuge, and in direct opposition to the explicit

command of God and the whole tenor of the gospel plan of salvation. It goes

upon the assumption that religion is but an opinion--a subscription to a

certain creed, learning certain doctrines--a mere thing for the head. Tell

me, is it worse to bias their minds to a particular creed, than to let them

grow up biased to the world, to the Devil and all his works? Is it all of

home, religious culture to bias them to a particular creed? Besides, is it

not the right, yea, the duty of parents to bias their children in favor of

the religious creed of the parental home? It shows, therefore, that those

parents who, for this reason, object to religious training, have but little

love for, and confidence in, their own creed, or they would not shrink from

biasing their children to it.

To encourage Christian parents to give their children a good religious

education, God has given them numerous examples, from both sacred and

profane history, of conversion and eminent piety in the age of childhood,

as the direct fruit of early parental instruction. Look, for instance, at

the child Samuel worshiping the Lord. Look, too, at the case of Moses and

of David, of Joseph and of John the Baptist. Dr. Doddridge, we are told,

"was brought up in the early knowledge of religion by his pious parents."

His mother "taught him the history of the Old and New Testaments before he

could read, by the assistance of some Dutch tiles in the chimney of the

room where they commonly sat; and her wise and pious reflections on the

stories there represented were the means of making some good impressions on

his heart, which never wore out." An eminently pious minister thus writes

to his parents, confirming by his own blessed experience the early fruits

of religious training: "I verily believe that had my religious training

been confined to the gleanings of the Sabbath school, instead of the steady

enforcement of the Mosaic arrangement at home by my parents, I might now be

pursuing a far different course, and living for a far different end. Many,

very many times, as early in childhood as I can recollect, has the Spirit

of God convicted me of sin, as my father at home has taught me out of the

scriptures, and I cannot easily forget that the same high-priest of the

home-church once tore from me the hypocrite's hope. And that dear place had

another to carry on the work; gentler but not weaker; and memory recalls a

mother pressing her face close to mine as she often knelt with me before

the mercy-seat. I will not cast reproach on any institution which has been

productive of good to myself and to others, but with profound gratitude

will say, home was the place of my spiritual nativity, and my parents were

God's instruments in leading me to Christ!"

The eminent piety of Dr. Dwight stands on record as the fruit of a mother's

faithful religious training; for "she taught him from the very dawn of

reason to fear God and keep His commandments, and the impressions then made

upon his mind in infancy, were never effaced." The mother of young Edwards

is another example of early piety as the fruit of religious home-culture.

The aged Polycarp, when under arrest during the persecution under Marcus

Aurelius, in reply to the injunction of the pro-consul, "Swear, curse

Christ, and I release thee!" exclaimed, "Six and eighty years have I served

Him, and He has done me nothing but good; and how could I curse Him, my

Lord and Saviour?" Thus showing himself to have been a Christian at the

early age of four years! It was through the instructions of his grandmother

Lois, and his mother Eunice, that young Timothy "knew from a child the holy

scriptures, which made him wise unto salvation."

And what an effectual antidote are such instructions against vice and

temptation! How many have by them been arrested from the devouring jaws of

infidelity and ruin! Thus it was with John Randolph, who said that in the

days of the French revolution, when infidel reason took the place of God

and the bible, and infidelity prowled unmolested throughout France, he

would have become an infidel himself, had it not been for the remembrance

of his childhood days, when his pious mother taught him to kneel by her

side, and to say, "Our Father, who art in heaven!" Thus, too, with the

pious and learned J.Q. Adams, who daily repeated the little prayers his

mother taught him when a child.

Thus, then, we see that parents are encouraged by the most brilliant

examples of history, to teach their children religion at the home-fireside,

"when thou liest down and risest up." Oh, let the gentle courtesies and

sweet endearments of home engrave the Word and Spirit of God upon their

tender hearts. Wait not until they are matured in rebellion, and sin lay

beds of flinty rock over their hearts; but let them breathe from infancy

the atmosphere of holiness, and drink from the living fountains of divine

truth. See that your homes become their birth-place in the spiritual

kingdom of Christ.

Such religious training will be the guardian of their future life, and will

fortify them against impending evil. What made Daniel steadfast amidst all

the efforts to heathenize him during his captivity in Babylon? His early

religious culture. It was the means of his preservation. The truth had been

deeply engraven upon his heart when young, and nothing could ever efface

it. His early home-impressions glowed there with pristine freshness and

power amid all the terrors which surrounded him in the den and before the

throne of his implacable foe. These home instructions may be silenced for a

time, but never destroyed. They may be overshadowed, but not annihilated.

Says Dr. Cumming, "The words spoken by parents to their children in the

privacy of home are like words spoken in a whispering-gallery, and will be

clearly heard at the distance of years, and along the corridors of ages

that are yet to come. They will prove like the lone star to the mariner

upon a dark and stormy sea, associated with a mother's love, with a

father's example, with the roof-tree beneath which they lived and loved,

and will prove in after life to mould the man and enable him to adorn and

improve the age in which he is placed."

Be faithful, therefore, in the spiritual culture of your children. Give

them "line upon line and precept upon precept, here a little and there a

little." Lead them on by degrees to Christ until each indelible impression

becomes an established habit. In the morning of their life sow the seed;

and God will give the increase; and then in the day of judgment your

children will rise up and call you blessed!

SECTION II.

NEGLECT AND ABUSE OF HOME-EDUCATION.

"Accomplishments have taken virtue's place,

And wisdom falls before exterior grace;

We slight the precious kernel of the stone,

And toil to polish its rough coat alone.

A just deportment, manners graced with ease,

Elegant phases, and figure formed to please,

Are qualities that seem to comprehend

Whatever parents, guardians, schools intend;

Hence all that interferes, and dares to clash

With indolence and luxury, is trash!"

Home-education in all its parts is most sadly neglected and abused at the

present day. Many parents think that the office of teacher is not included

in the parental character and mission. The neglect of home-training seems

to arise out of an existing-prejudice against it. Some think that education

will unfit their children for industry,--will make them indolent and proud.

They regard mental culture as an enemy to both industry and virtue. Strange

delusion! The mind is given to use, not to abuse; and its abuse is no

argument against its proper use. God has given the mind, and intends it to

be developed and cultivated. If, therefore, its training has made it

indolent and dissipated, it only proves its education to be spurious. You

might, by a parity of reasoning, blindfold the eye that it might not he

covetous, or tie up the hand lest it pick a man's pocket, or hobble the

feet lest they run into evil ways, as to keep the mind in ignorance lest it

become wicked.

Besides, we find more real indolence and wickedness among the ignorant than

among the educated; for man will be educated in something. If you do not

educate your child in the truths of nature and religion, be assured he will

become trained in falsehood and in the ways of Satan. "Uneducated mind is

uneducated vice." A proper education is a divine alchemy which turns all

the baser parts of man's nature into gold. Without it all is discord and

darkness within and without. Besides, ignorance leads to misery because it

leads to wickedness. Dr. Johnson was once asked, "Who is the most miserable

man?" He replied, "That man who cannot read on a rainy day!" It has well

been said by Edmund Burke that "Education is the cheap defense of nations."

Why? Because it prevents vice, poverty, misery, and relieves the state of

the support of paupers and criminals. "A good education," says Miss

Sedgwick, "is a young man's best capital." Says Governor Everett to

parents, "Sow the seed of instruction in your son's and daughter's minds.

It will flourish when that over-arching heaven shall pass away like a

scroll, and the eternal sun which lightens it, shall set in blood." Says

the Rev. Robert Hall, "I am persuaded that the extreme profligacy,

improvidence, and misery, which are so prevalent among the laboring classes

in many countries, are chiefly to be ascribed to the want of education."

What indeed can we look for but wretchedness and guilt from that child that

has been left by its cruel parents to grow up "darkening in the deeper

ignorance of mankind, with all its jealousies, and its narrow-mindedness,

and its superstitions, and its penury of enjoyments, poor amid the

intellectual and moral riches of the universe; blind in this splendid

temple which God has lighted up, and famishing amid the profusions of

Omnipotence?" And, parents, let me ask you, if you thus neglect the proper

education of your children, and as a consequence, such pauperism of estate,

of mind, and of morals, come upon them, will you not have to answer for all

this to God?

"Oh, woe for those who trample on the mind,

That fearful thing! They know not what they do,

Nor what they deal with!"

Your children, thus neglected, will become victims to inordinate passion,

without power to discern between reality and illusion, ignorant of what is

true happiness, living for mere sense, with their moral nature enclosed in

the iron mail of superstition, while the good seeds of truth sown upon

their hearts "wither away, because they have no depth of earth."

Parents cannot, therefore, neglect the education of their children without

incurring disgrace and guilt before God and man. They will meet a merited

retribution both here and hereafter. The justice of this is forcibly

illustrated in a law of the Icelanders, which makes the court inquire, when

a child is accursed, whether the parents have given the offender a good

education? And if not, the court inflicts the punishment on the parents.

This but expresses the higher law of God which holds parents responsible

for the training of their children. Listen to the threatening voice of God

in history. Crates, an ancient philosopher, used to say that if he could

reach the highest eminence in the city, he would make this proclamation:

"What mean ye, fellow-citizens, to be so anxious after wealth, but so

indifferent to your children's education? It is like being solicitous about

the shoe, but neglecting entirely the foot that is to wear it!"

We would reiterate that proclamation in this age of superior intelligence.

To the pious parent there is a pleasure in training the young and tender

heart for God. What a beautiful tribute did Thompson yield to this pleasure

in the following lines:

"Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,

To teach the young idea how to shoot,

To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,

To breathe enlivening spirit, and to fix

The generous purpose in the glowing breast!"

But home-education, at the present day, is as much abused as it is

neglected. The criminality of the former is perhaps greater than that of

the latter. This may have more reference to the female than to the male

portion of the family. The abuse here consists of the want of a training up

to wisdom. We see this in what is called the fashionable, instead of the

Christian, education, received at some of our fashionable boarding schools.

Here the child is sent with no home-training whatever, to be trained up a

fashionable doll, fit to be played with and dandled upon the arms of a

whining and heartless society, with no preparation for companionship in

life, destitute of substantial character, with undoctrinated feelings of

aversion to religion, fit only for a puppet show in some gay and

thoughtless circle; kneeling before fashion as her God, and giving her hand

in marriage only to a golden and a gilded calf.

According to this abuse of home-education, "a young maiden is kept in the

nursery and the school room, like a ship on the stocks, while she is

furbished with abundance of showy accomplishments, and is launched like the

ship, looking taut and trim, but empty of everything that can make her

useful." Thus one great abuse of home-education is to substitute the

boarding school for home-culture,--to send our children to such school at

an age when they should he trained by and live under the direct influence

of the parent. This generally ends in initiated profligacy, and alienation

from home, while at best but a dunce after his course of training is

ended.

"Would you your son should be a sot and a dunce,

Lascivious, headstrong, or all these at once?

Train him in public with a mob of boys,

Childish in mischief only and in noise."

Too often is it the case that the artifices and refinements of our

fashionable boarding-schools, have a most withering influence upon body,

mind and soul, enfeebling and distorting the body, producing depraved

stomachs, whimsical nerves, peevish tempers, indolent minds, and depraved

morals. They become but wrecks of what they were when they first entered

the school. This has been called "the stiff and starched system of muslin

education," and is the nursery of pale, sickly, listless, peevish children.

But this is not the only abuse of home-education. Even when the training is

begun at home, the very idea of education is often abused, because

inefficient, destitute of true moral elements, and partial both as to the

mode and as to the substance of it. The true resources of life are not

developed; there is no instruction given in the principles and conditions

of temporal and eternal well-being; there is no discipline of the mind, or

body or morals. But the great idea and aim of education with many parents

now, is to teach the child to read and write and cipher as a means of

making money and getting along in this world,--not, of course, to prevent

them from cheating others, but others from cheating them. All is

prostituted to money and business. Character and happiness are left out of

view. What have our schools now to do with the propensities, appetites,

temperaments, habits and character of the pupils? And how are the parents

who send their children to school to have them trained up with reference to

these! All that is now looked at, is that learning which will fit the child

for business. As a consequence most of our schools are a disgrace to the

very name of education. More evil actually results from them than good. The

mind and heart are injured,--the one but half trained; the other corrupted.

Mental and moral training are divorced; hence one-sided, and the very end

of education defeated. The child has no incentive to a virtuous and a noble

life, and sinks down to the groveling drudgery of money-making. It is

educated for nature, but not for God,--for this, but not for the next life.

If we would not abuse home-education we must not separate the moral from

the mental,--the secular from the religious; for in doing so, we expose the

child to rationalism and infidelity on the one hand, and to superstition

and spiritualism on the other. This course is generally taken by parents

when they educate their children for mere worldly utility and fashion, when

they have not the welfare of the soul in view, and look only to the

advantage of the body.

The duty then of Christian parents to give their children a true

home-education may be seen from the consequences of its neglect and abuse

on the one hand, and from its value and importance on the other. They

should furnish them with all the necessary means, opportunities, and

directions, of a Christian education. Give them proper books. "Without

books," says the quaint Bartholin, "God is silent, justice dormant, science

at a stand, philosophy lame, letters dumb, and all things involved in

Cimmerian darkness." Bring them up to the habit of properly reading and

studying these books. "A reading people will soon become a thinking people,

and a thinking people must soon become a great people." Every book you

furnish your child, and which it reads with reflection is "like a cast of

the weaver's shuttle, adding another thread to the indestructible web of

existence." It will be worth more to him than all your hoarded gold and

silver. Make diligent use of those great auxiliaries to home-education,

which the church has instituted, such as Sabbath schools, bible classes and

catechisation.

Home-education does not imply a system of parental training isolated from

the educational ministrations of the church; but is churchly in its spirit

and in all its parts, and should in all respects be connected with the

church. Home training is a duty you owe to the church. By virtue of your

relation to her, she has the authority to demand of you such a training of

your child; and by virtue of your relation to the child, he has a right to

such an education, and can demand it from you. It stands on the basis of

parental duty imposed on you by God Himself. It is a prime necessity. It is

your children's birthright, which they themselves cannot sell with

impunity, for the pottage of gold or silver or pleasure: neither can you

neglect or abuse it without guilt before God.

It is, therefore, a duty which you cannot shake off, and which involves

both for you and for your child, the most momentous consequences. Christian

parents! be faithful to this duty. Magnify your office as a teacher; be

faithful to your household as a school. Diligently serve your children as

the pupils that God has put under your care. Educate them for Him. Teach

them to "walk by faith, not by sight." Cultivate in them a sense of the

unseen world,--the feeling of the actual influence of the Spirit of God,

the guardianship of his holy angels, and of the communion of saints. Teach

them how to live and how to die; and by the force of your own holy example

allure them to the cross, and lead them onward and upward in the living way

of eternal life. You are encouraged to do so by the assurance of God that

"when they grow old they will not depart from it."

CHAPTER XVII.

FAMILY HABITS.

"Dost thou live, man, dost thou live, or only breathe and labor?

Art thou free, or enslaved to a routine, the daily machinery of habit?

For one man is quickened into life, where thousands exist as in a torpor,

Feeding, toiling, sleeping, an insensate weary round;

The plough, or the ledger, or the trade, with animal cares and indolence,

Make the mass of vital years a heavy lump unleavened."

Much of the character, usefulness and happiness of home depend upon home

habits. No one is without habits, good or bad. They have much to do with

our welfare here and hereafter. Hence the importance of establishing proper

habits.

Habit is a state of any thing, implying some continuance or permanence. It

may be formed by nature or induced by extraneous circumstances. It is a

settled disposition of the mind or body, involving an aptitude for the

performance of certain actions, acquired by custom or frequent repetition.

There are habits of the body, of the mind, of action; physical, mental,

moral and religious habits. All these are included in the term home-habits.

Habit has been considered an "ultimate fact," that is, one of those

qualities of life which are found to exist, and beyond which no

investigation can be made. Habit may be referred to the law of action which

pervades all vital being. Nature demands the repetition of vital action,

and habit arises from this demand and from the manner in which it is

supplied. It is the fruit of the operation of the law of repetition of

action in all life. Hence it is, that habit becomes a part of our very

existence, and that the well-being and happiness of our existence depend so

much upon it.

The facility of action depends upon habit. In proportion as the actions of

life become a habit, they will be easily performed, and performed with

pleasure. The capacity to establish habits is the consequence of the power

given us to promote our own welfare. This capacity is designed to bind us

to that course of action which will accomplish the purposes of our

existence. If rightly used, it is the guardian of our happiness; but if

misused it will be our certain ruin. It will delight and fascinate until it

subjugate our will, and lead us on, as in the case of the drunkard and the

gambler, to infamy and to hell.

Home-habits are easily formed and established. Some kind, either good or

bad, are being established every day. They are often secretly and

unconsciously formed. All the principles and rules of conduct there

introduced become at once the nuclei of future habits. Those increase in

power and supremacy as they are formed. We see this in the use of tobacco

and intoxicating drink. These are, at first, disagreeable, and the victim

has the power of repelling and overcoming them; but soon the habit is

formed, when their use becomes pleasant, and he is made a willing slave to

them.

The same may he said of the habits of industry, of study, of frugality,

yea, of all the moral and religious acts of the Christian. It is easy to

form such habits in children. Evil habits are more easily established,

because we are naturally inclined to all evil; and when once formed, no

parental interposition can break them up. Hence the importance of an early

training up to good. If parents but leave their children to their own ways,

they will run into evil habits; for sin is an epidemic. Profanity and

falsehood and all other outrages against God will soon become the

controlling habits of their lives. But when taken early, parents have

complete power over their offspring. It is, therefore, a gross abuse of the

Christian home when parents become indifferent to the formation of habits.

It is their duty to crush every evil habit in its incipient state.

The forming of a good habit may not at first be congenial with our

feelings. It may be irksome. But if we persevere in it, that which at

first was painful and difficult will soon be a source of enjoyment. Thus

the habit of family prayer may at first be repulsive even to the Christian

parent; a feeling of delicacy and the sense of unworthiness may, at the

family altar, repress the feelings of enjoyment experienced in the closet;

but soon the habit of this devotion will be formed, when it will be enjoyed

as an essential part of home. To abandon it would be like breaking up the

tenderest ties which bind the members together. The same may be said of the

omission of a duty. How easily can the Christian form the habit of omitting

family prayer or any other duty! Every such omission but forms and

increases the habit, until it gains an ascendancy over our sense of duty,

and at last exhibits its sovereign power in our total abandonment of the

duty. Each omission has the power of reproducing itself in other and more

frequent omissions. In this way Christian homes insensibly become

unfaithful to their high vocation, and degenerate finally into complete

apathy and estrangement from God. That indulgence which the misguided

sympathy of too many parents prompts to, and which does away with all

parental restraint, is the cause of children coming under the curse of evil

habits. In this way parents often contribute to the temporal and eternal

ruin of their offspring. This indulgence is no evidence of tender love, but

of parental infatuation. It shows a blind and unholy love,--a love which

owns no law, which is governed by no sense of duty, and which excludes all

discipline; and hence unlike the love of God, who "chastiseth every one

whom He loveth and receiveth."

The force and influence of home-habits will teach us the importance of

establishing such only as receive the sanction of God. Habits, as we have

seen, are much more easily formed than broken. When once established they

enslave us to them, and subject our character to their iron despotism. They

become the channel through which our life flows. The stream of our

existence first forms the channel, and then the channel rules, guides and

controls the current of the stream. The deeper the channel is wrought, the

greater is its moulding and controlling influence over the stream. Thus our

habits become our masters, and are the irrevocable rulers of our life. This

is true of good, as well as of bad habits. We come into voluntary

subjection to them, until we shrink from the first proposal to depart from

them.

"Habit," says the Rev. C.C. Colton, "will reconcile us to everything but

change, and even to change, if it recur not too quickly. Milton, therefore,

makes his hell an ice-house, as well as an oven, and freezes his devils at

one period, but bakes them at another. The late Sir George Staunton

informed, me, that he had visited a man in India, who had committed a

murder, and in order not only to save his life, but what was of much more

consequence, his caste, he submitted to the penalty imposed; this was, that

he should sleep for seven years on a bedstead, without any mattress, the

whole surface of which was studded with points of iron resembling nails,

but not so sharp as to penetrate the flesh. Sir George saw him in the fifth

year of his probation, and his skin then was like the hide of a rhinoceros,

but more callous. At that time, however, he could sleep comfortably on his

bed of thorns, and remarked that at the expiration of the term of his

sentence, he should most probably continue that system from choice, which

he had been obliged to adopt from necessity."

This illustrates the force of established habit, and the pliability of our

nature in yielding a voluntary subjection to it. What is at first

involuntary, painful, and a self-denial to us, wall when it passes into a

habit, become agreeable, because the habit bends our nature to it, chains

us down to it, infatuates the will, and thus becomes, as it were, a second

nature. If so, it is very plain that our habits are either a blessing or a

curse. When good they are a safeguard against evil, give stability to our

character, and are the law of perseverance in well-doing. Such habits in

the Christian home form, an irresistible bulwark against the intrusions of

temptation and iniquity. But when they are bad, they chain us to evil, and

impel us onward and downward to ruin. Hence from his habits we can easily

estimate the merit or demerit of a person, know all his weak points and

idiosyncrasies, and what will be the probable termination of his existence.

The same may be said of the habits of a family. They enter into its very

constitution, rule and direct all its activities and interests. They cling

to each member with more than magic power, and become interwoven with his

very being; and by them we may easily ascertain the moral and spiritual

strength of that family; we can tell whether the parents are faithful to

their mission, and whether its members will be likely to pass over from the

home of their childhood to the church of Christ. Who has not felt this

power of habit? Who has not wept over some habits which haunt him like an

evil spirit; and rejoiced over others as a safeguard from sin and a

propellor to good? Is it not, therefore, a matter of momentous interest to

the Christian home, that it establish habits of the right kind and quality?

It should never be forgotten by Christian parents, and they cannot be too

careful to impress it upon their children, that habit engenders habit,--has

the power of reproducing itself, and begetting habits of its own kind,

increasing according to the laws of growth, as it is thus reproduced. A

habit in one member of a family may produce a like habit in all the other

members. The habits of the husband may be engendered in the wife, and those

of the parents, in their children. If so, then are we not responsible for

our habits? And shall any other kind save Christian habits, be found in the

Christian home? These we cannot give in detail. It is plain that those

habits only are Christian, which receive the sanction of God's Word and

Spirit, and find a response in the Christian faith and conscience. Here,

for instance, is a habit being formed,--habit of thought: is it pure? Here

is a habit of conversation: is it holy? Here is a habit of action: is it

godly? And if not, it does not belong to the Christian home.

See, then, ye members of the Christian home, to the habits you are forming.

Form the habit of "doing all thing's decently and in order." Let the work

and duties of each day be done according to method. This is essential to

success in your pursuits and aims. Without this, your Christian life may be

blustering and stormy, but you will accomplish little, and will be as

unstable as water. One duty will interfere with another. You may have

family prayer and instruction to-day, but something will prevent it

to-morrow. Establish the habit of Christian industry. Be diligent; not

slothful in business. Industry must be the price of all you obtain. You

must be instant in season. The Christian home cannot be an indolent, idle

home. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might. Press

forward.

It is said of Rutherford that "such was his unwearied assiduity and

diligence, that he seemed to pray constantly, to preach constantly, to

catechise constantly, and to visit the sick, exhorting from house to house,

to teach as much in the schools, and spend as much time with the students

in fitting them for the ministry, as if he had been sequestered from all

the world, and yet withal, to write as much as if he had been constantly

shut up in his study." Such should be the industry of each Christian home.

Without it, temptation will beset the members. "A busy man is troubled with

but one devil, but the idle man with a thousand."

Establish the habit also of perseverance in well-doing. "Be steadfast,

immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord." "Be not weary in

well-doing." Let the strata of your home be made up of the immovable Rock.

He only that continueth unto the end shall be saved. Having done all,

stand! Let your motto be, _Perseverando vinces_. Form the habit of

contentment with your home and condition in life. "Godliness with

contentment is great gain." If your home is humble, and not adorned with

the embellishments and luxuries of life, yet it may be holy, and hence,

happy. Avoid all castle-building. Do not fancy a better home, and fall out

with the one you enjoy. Never permit the flimsy creations of a distorted

imagination to gain an ascendancy over your reason and faith. Live above

all sentimentalism and day-dreaming; and in all the feelings and conduct of

your household, submit to the guidance of a superintending Providence,

walking by faith and not by sight, assured that your present home is but

probationary and preparatory to a better home in heaven.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HOME-GOVERNMENT.

"Alas! for a thousand fathers, whose indulgent sloth

Hath emptied the vial of confusion over a thousand homes.

Alas! for the palaces and hovels, that might have been nurseries for

heaven,

By hot intestine broils blighted into schools for hell;

None knoweth his place, yet all refuse to serve,

None weareth the crown, yet all usurp the scepter;

The mother, heart-stricken years agone, hath dropped into an early grave;

The silent sisters long to leave a home they cannot love;

The brothers, casting off restraint, follow their wayward wills."

Home is a little commonwealth jointly governed by the parents. It involves

law. The mutual relation of parent and child implies authority on the one

hand, and obedience on the other. This is the principle of all government.

Home is the first form of society. As such it must have a government. Its

institution implies the prerogatives of the parent and the subordination

of the child. Without this there would be no order, no harmony, no

training for the state or the church; for--

"Society is a chain of obligations, and its links support each other;

The branch cannot but wither that is cut from the parent vine."

The relation of the parent to the child is that of a superior to an

inferior. The right of the parent is to command; the duty of the child is

to obey. Hence it is the relation of authority to subordination. This

relation includes the principles of home-government. The parent is not the

author of his authority. It is delegated to him. Neither can he make

arbitrary laws for home; these must be the laws of God. It is as much the

duty of the parent to rule as it is for the child to be ruled.

The principle of home-government is love,--love ruling and obeying

according to law. These are exercised, as it were, by the instinct of

natural affection as taken up and refined by the Christian life and faith.

This government implies reciprocity of right,--the right of the parent to

govern and the right of the child to be governed. It is similar in its

fundamentals to the government of the state and church. It involves the

legislative, judicial and executive functions; its elements are law,

authority, obedience, and penalties. The basis of its laws is the Word of

God. We may consider the whole subject under two general heads, viz.,

parental authority, and filial obedience.

1. Parental authority is threefold, legislative, judicial and executive.

The two latter we shall more fully consider under the head of

home-discipline. The legislative authority of the parent is confined to the

development of God's laws for the Christian home. He cannot enact arbitrary

laws. His authority is founded on his relation to his children as the

author of their being; "yet it does not admit," says Schlegel, "of being

set forth and comprised in any exact and positive formularies." It does

not, as in the old Roman law, concede to the parent the power over the life

of the child. This would not only violate the law of natural affection, but

would be an amalgamation of the family and state. Neither is the parental

authority merely conventional, given to the parent by the state as a

policy. It is no civil or political investiture, making the parent a

delegated civil ruler; but comes from God as an in alienable right, and

independent, as such, of the state. It does not, therefore, rest upon civil

legislation, but has its foundation in human nature and the revealed law of

God; neither can the state legislate upon it, except in cases where its

exercise becomes an infringement upon the prerogatives of the state itself.

Parents are magistrates under God, and, as His stewards, cannot abdicate

their authority, nor delegate it to another. Neither can they be tyrants in

the exercise of it. God has given to them the principles of

home-legislation, the standard of judicial authority, and the rules of

their executive power. God gives the law. The parent is only deputy

governor,--steward, "bound to be faithful." Hence the obligation of the

child to obey the steward is as great as that to obey the Master. "Where

the principal is silent, take heed that thou despise not the deputy."

Here, then, we have the extent of the parent's authority, and the spirit

and manner in which it should be exercised. His power is grafted on the

strength of another, and should not extend beyond it. Its exercise should

not run into despotism on the one hand, nor into indifferentism on the

other. According to the vagaries of some religious sentimentalists and

fanatics, it is supposed that religion supersedes the necessity of parental

government. They think that such authority runs counter to the spirit and

requisitions of the gospel. But this is asserted in the broad face of God's

Word. The promptings of such sentimentalism are to permit children to do as

they please, and to bring them up under the influence of domestic

libertinism. Honor thy father and thy mother, is a command which explodes

such a gaudy theory; and he who does not obey it, brutalizes human nature,

dishonors God, subverts the principles of constitutional society, throws

off allegiance to the prerogatives of a divinely constituted superior, and

overthrows both church and state. Hence the severe penalties attached, in

the Mosaic law, to disobedience of parental authority. "He that curseth his

father or mother, shall surely be put to death." "The eye that mocketh at

his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley

shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." And hence also that

affectionate obedience which Joseph yielded to his aged father, and that

profound veneration with which he kneeled before him to receive his dying

blessing.

2. Filial obedience is the correlative of parental authority. If parents

have authority, children must yield obedience to it. This is not only

necessary to home-government, but also to the proper formation of the

character of the child. It must be trained up under law and authority to

prepare it for citizenship in the state. This must be the obedience of

confidence and love. It does not imply the subordination of the slave.

As the father's authority is not that of the despot, so the obedience of

the child is not that of the servile, trembling subject. It is not

unnatural,--no infringement upon the rights and liberties of the child. His

subordination to the parent is the law of his liberty. He is not free

without it. The home in which filial obedience is not yielded to parental

authority is "a marvel of permitted chaos," and will soon become desolate,

a scene of anarchy and strife. The members live in a state of lawlessness,

destitute of reciprocated affection,--the parent unhonored, the father and

mother despised and cursed, and the child untrained, uncared for, lawless,

and unfit for the state or the church.

If, therefore, God has constituted governmental relations in the Christian

home, and invested the parent with authority over his children, who will

deny the coordinate obligations of the child to yield reverence, submission

and gratitude to the parent? "Children, obey your parents in all thing's;

for this is well pleasing unto the Lord."

This is called the first commandment with promise. It is one of promise

both to the parent and the child. Children are bound to obey their parents

in all things, that is, in all things lawful and in accordance with the

revealed will of God. The child is not bound to obey the parent's command

to sin,--to lie, steal, or neglect the means of grace; because these are

express violations of God's law; and in such instances the authority of God

supersedes that of the parent. Obey God rather than man.

But, on the other hand, the obligation of the child is, to obey the parent

in all things lawful and Christian. Where this is not done the Christian

home becomes a curse. What an evil is a refractory child! How often does

the parental eye weep in bitterness over such a child! How often have such

children brought their parents down in sorrow to the grave! Let them think

of this. Let parents think of this before it is too late. Let them think of

the fearful criminality which is attached to parental indulgence and filial

disobedience.

We may neglect and abuse the home-government in two ways, either by

over-indulgence, or by the iron rod of tyranny. When we make it lax in its

restraints and requisitions, it becomes merely nominal, and its laws are

never enforced and obeyed. Often parents voluntarily relinquish their right

and duty to rule their household; and as a consequence, their children

abandon the duty of obedience, and grow up in a lawless state; or if they

do command, they never execute their commands, but leave all to the

discretion of their children. They violate their laws with impunity, until

all influence over them is lost, and the child becomes master of the

parent. The self-will of the former takes the place of the authority of the

latter, until at last the home-government becomes a complete farce and

mockery. Such parents are always making laws and giving commands; but never

enforce them; they complain that they cannot get their children to obey

them; and this cannot is but the utterance and exponent of their

unfaithfulness and disgrace.

The opposite abuse of home-government is parental despotism,--ruling with a

rod of iron, making slaves of children, acting the unfeeling and heartless

tyrant over them, assuming towards them attitudes of hard task-masters, and

making them obey from motives of trembling, fear and dread.

There is no christianity in all this. It engenders in them the spirit of a

slave; it roots out all confidence and love; their obedience becomes

involuntary and mechanical. They shrink in silent dread from the presence

of their parents, and long for the time when they can escape their galling

yoke. The parental rod destroys the filial love and confidence. Hence the

obedience of the latter is servile; and home loses its tender affections

and sympathies, and becomes to them a workhouse, a confinement; its

restrictions are a yoke; its interests are repulsive, and all its natural

affinities give way to complete alienation. The children of such homes,

when grown up, are the most lawless and reckless, ready at once to pass

over from extreme servitude to libertinism.

The government of the Christian home lies in a medium between these two

extremes. It is mild, yet decisive, firm; not lawless, yet not despotic;

but combines in proper order and harmony, the true elements of parental

authority and filial subordination. Love and fear harmonize; the child

fears because he loves; and is prompted to obedience by both. "But give thy

son his way, he will hate thee and scorn thee together."

Christian parents! be faithful to the government of your household. Like

Abraham, command your household. Without this, your children will be your

curse and the curse of the state. Wherever they go they will become the

standard-bearer of the turbulent, and brandish the torch of discord, until

at last, perhaps, they will die in a dungeon or upon the gibbet. And then

the curse will recoil upon you. It will strike deep into your hearts. It

will come to you in the darkness of unfulfilled promises and blighted hopes

and injured affections and desolated homes and wounded spirits and

disgraced names and infamous memories! And you, in the face of these, will

go down with bleeding sorrow to the grave, and up to the bar of God with

the blood of your children's destruction upon your skirts, its voice crying

unto you from the grave of infamy and from the world of eternal

retribution. You will then see the folly and the fruits of your diseased

affection and misguided indulgence,--

"A kindness,--most unkind, that hath always spared the rod;

A weak and numbing indecision in the mind that should be master;

A foolish love, pregnant of hate, that never frowned on sin;

A moral cowardice, that never dared command!"

CHAPTER XIX.

HOME-DISCIPLINE.

"In ancient days,

There dwelt a sage called Discipline,

His eye was meek, and a smile

Played on his lips, and in his speech was heard

Paternal sweetness, dignity, and love.

The occupation dearest to his heart

Was to encourage goodness.

If e'er it chanced, as sometimes chance it must,

That one, among so many, overleaped

The limits of control, his gentle eye

Grew stern, and darted a severe rebuke,

His frown was full of terror, and his voice

Shook the delinquent with such fits of awe

As left him not, till penitence had won

Lost favor back again, and closed the breach."

Discipline involves the judicial and executive functions of the

home-government. It is the method of regulating and executing the

principles and practice of government. It includes the rein and the rod,

the treatment of offences against the laws of home, the execution of the

parental authority by the imposition of proper restraints upon the child.

It involves a reciprocity of duty,--the duty of the parent to correct, and

the duty of the child to submit. God has given this discipline; He has

invested the parent with power to execute it, and imposed upon the child

the obligation to live submissively under it.

All must admit the necessity of home-discipline. "It must needs be that

offense come." There is a corresponding needs be in the proper treatment of

these offenses when they do come. Law implies penalties; and the proper

character and execution of these are as essential to the true object and

end of government as is the law itself. The former would he powerless

without the latter. Through the agency of home-discipline the proper fear

and love of the child are developed in due proportion and brought into

proper relations to each other, making the fear filial and the love

reverential. There is, therefore, the same call for discipline in the

family as there is in the state and the church. It is the condition of true

harmony between, the parent and child. "The child that is used to

constraint, feareth not more than he loveth; but give thy son his way, he

will hate thee and scorn thee together."

It is necessary because God commands it; and He commands it because it is

indispensable to the security and well-being of the child, and, we might

add, of the state and the church. "Withhold not correction from the child;

for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat

him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell. He that spareth his

rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes."

Children are by nature depraved, and if left to themselves, will choose

evil rather than good; hence, as foolishness is bound up in the heart of a

child, the rod of correction must be used to drive them from it. He must be

restrained, corrected, educated under law. In the language of Cowper--

"Plants raised with tenderness are seldom strong;

Man's coltish disposition asks the thong;

And without discipline, the favorite child,

Like a neglected forester, runs wild."

There are two false systems of home-discipline, viz., the despotism of

discipline, or discipline from the standpoint of law without love; and the

libertinism of discipline, or discipline from the standpoint of love

without law.

Home-discipline from the standpoint of law without love, involves the

principle of parental despotism. It is extreme legal severity, and consists

in the treatment of children as if they were brutes, using no other mode of

correction than that of direct corporeal punishment. This but hardens them,

and begets a roughness of nature and spirit like the discipline under which

they are brought up. Many parents seek to justify such mechanical severity

by the saying of Solomon, "he that spareth the rod spoileth the child." But

their interpretation of this does not show the wisdom of the wise man.

They suppose the term rod, must mean the iron rod of the unfeeling and

unloving despot. Not so; God has a rod for all His children; but it is the

rod of a compassionate Father, and does not always inflict corporeal

punishment. It is exercised because He loves them, not because He delights

in revenge and in their misery. He uses it, not to have them obey Him from

fear of punishment, not to force them into a slavish service, and to cause

them to shrink with trembling awe from His presence; but to correct their

faults by drawing them to Him in fond embrace, in grateful penitence and

hopeful reformation, under the deep conviction that every stroke of His rod

was the work of love, forcing from them a kiss for His rod, and a blessing

for His hand, the utterance of a sanction for His deed, "It was good for me

that I was afflicted!"

This rod is very different, however, from that of the despot beneath whom

the child crouches with trembling dread, and under the influence of whom he

becomes, like the down-trodden subject, servile, brutish and rebellious.

You will reap bitter fruits from such a discipline, which is but the

exponent of the letter of the law without its spirit, and which has nothing

for the child but the scowl and the frown and the cruel lash. You might as

well seek to "gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles," as to reap

from it a true reformation and religious training. Your child will be

trained to hate the law, to despise authority, and to regard his obedience

as a compromise of true liberty. He will, therefore, seek liberty only in

the usurpation of law and government. He will contemn love, because where

it should have been disinterested, and shown in its greatest tenderness and

purity,--in the parent's heart, it was abused and silenced.

That discipline, therefore, which is ever magnifying trifles, finding

fault, scolding and storming, and threatening and whipping, and falling

upon the child, like the continual dropping of rain in a winter day, casts

a withering gloom over home, makes it repulsive to the child, gives to the

parent a forbidding aspect, until the children become provoked to wrath,

and regard their home as a prison, their life as a slavery, and long for

the time when they may leave home and parents forever. Such discipline

makes the reign of the parent a reign of terror. It reminds one of the laws

of Draco, written in blood. It produces in the child a broken spirit, a

reckless desperation, a hardened contumacy, a deep and sullen melancholy, a

mental and moral hardihood which prepares him for deeds of outrage upon law

and humanity. It is unnatural, revolting to human nature, to beat and

crush, as if with an iron rod, the tender child of our hearts and hopes. It

extinguishes natural affection; and no subsequent kindness can rekindle the

flame. The child becomes forever alienated, and bears the curse of its

maltreatment upon its character and destiny. "Ye parents, provoke not your

children to anger, lest they should be discouraged."

The following quaint anecdote is a good commentary upon such discipline: A

blacksmith brought up his son, to whom he was very severe, to his own

trade. The urchin was, nevertheless, an audacious dog. One day the old

vulcan was attempting to harden a cold chisel which he had made of foreign

steel, but could not succeed; "horsewhip it, father," exclaimed the youth,

"if that will not harden it, nothing will!"

Nothing justifies such cruel discipline. It results in depravity of life.

The most notorious criminals began their career under the lash of parental

cruelty. If rods and stripes and cries and tears and cruel beating are the

first lessons of life we are to learn, then we shall be educated in as well

as by these. The Europeans surpass all other nations in cruelty to their

offspring. The Arab is tender to his children, and rules them by kindness

and caresses. He restrains them by the corrections of wisely exerted love.

Cruelty does not become the Christian home. It is revolting to see a parent

stand with a rod over his child, to make him read the bible or say his

prayers. You cannot whip religion into a child. This is opposite to

humanity and religion.

Home-discipline from the standpoint of love without law, is the second

false system which we have mentioned, and involves the principle of

parental libertinism. It does not consist so much in the want as in the

neglect and abuse of discipline. The restraints may be sufficient, and the

threats abundant, but they are never executed. When the children disobey,

the parents may flounder and storm, loud and long, but all ends in words,

in a storm of passion or whining complaint, and the child is thus

encouraged to repeat the misconduct, feeling that his parents have no

respect for their word. Such a home becomes scolding, but not an orderly

home.

"Discipline at length,

O'erlooked and unemployed, grow sick and died,

Then study languished, emulation slept,

And virtue fled. What was learned,

If aught was learned in childhood, is forgot;

And such expense as pinches parents blue,

And mortifies the liberal hand of love,

Is squandered in pursuit of idle sports

And vicious pleasures."

Parents, through their misguided sympathy, often connive at filial

disobedience. Their kindness is most unkind. Their parental love issues

forth as a mere burst of feeling, unguided by either reason or law. Hence,

their sentimental hearts become an asylum for filial delinquency and

criminality. This is no proof of love, but the opposite; for "he that

spareth the rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him

betimes." Love will thus prompt the parent to chasten his son while there

is hope. Eli was an example of extreme parental indulgence. "His sons made

themselves vile, and he restrained them not." It was the defect also of

David's discipline, and the fruit of this defect caused him to cry out in

bitter anguish, "Oh Absalom, my son, my son, would to God I had died for

thee!"

That parent who cannot restrain his children, does not bear rule in his

house, and as a consequence, cannot bless his household. That parental

tenderness which withholds the proper restraints of discipline from an

erring child, is most cruel and ruinous. It is winking at his wayward

temper, his licentious passions and growing habits of vice. And these, in

their terrible maturity, will recoil upon the deluded parent, "biting like

a serpent and stinging like an adder." Nothing is more ruinous to a child

and disastrous to the hopes and happiness of home, than such relaxation of

discipline. "A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame." How

many mothers have bitterly experienced this, and wept bitter tears over the

memory of their degraded and wretched offspring! It is ruinous to the

parent. He will both curse and despise thee. Your unlawful indulgence,

therefore, is infanticide. Your cruel embraces are hugging your child to

death. The sentiment of love should never crush the reason and violate the

laws of love. Do you permit your sick to die rather than to inflict the

pain of giving them the medicine to cure? This would be madness. And yet

you do a similar deed when you indulge your child in wickedness. He will

grow up lawless, headstrong, rebellious; and these may lead him on to

poverty, infamy, crime and perdition, ending thus in total shipwreck of

character and soul. You thus make for society bad members, drunkards,

blackguards, paupers, criminals; and furnish fuel for the eternal burnings.

And will not the curse rest upon you?

It is wonderful to what an extent this extreme indulgence prevails at the

present day. Many parents seem insensible even to the necessity of any

discipline, and think it is an infringement upon the liberties of the

child. Mistaken parents! Such views are opposed to the laws of God and man.

By them you sow for yourselves and children the seeds of a future

retribution.

Thus we see that there are two dangerous extremes or false systems of

home-discipline, viz., the exercise of parental fondness and sympathy

without parental authority, on the one hand, and the exercise of parental

authority without proper sympathy, on the other. Misguided sympathy and

fondness will produce filial libertinism; and despotic authority will beget

filial servility.

True Christian home-discipline lies in a medium between these. It involves

the union of true parental sympathy and authority, of proper love and

proper law; for affection, when not united to authority and law,

degenerates into sentimental fondness; and authority and law, when, not

tempered with love, degenerate into brutal tyranny, and produce inward

servility and outward bondage. The parents who are, in discipline, prompted

by the first, may be loved, but will not be respected. Those who are ruled

by the second, may be dreaded, but will not be loved. The first does

violence to law, and ends in the insubordination of the child and the

imbecility of the parent. The second does violence to love, makes duty a

task, correction a corporeal punishment, the child a slave, the parent a

despot, and ends consequently in the destruction of natural affection.

Hence, in home-discipline, true severity and true sympathy should unite and

temper each other. Without this the very ends proposed will be frustrated.

True home-discipline repudiates the legal idea of punishment as much as of

impunity. It lies in a medium between these, and involves the idea of

Christian correction or chastisement. We should correct, but not punish our

children. Correction is not the mere execution of legal penalties as such,

but the fruit of Christian love and concern for the child. It does not mean

simple corporeal chastisement, but moral restraints. The impunity is the

fruit of love without law; the corporeal punishment is the execution of law

without love; Christian correction is the interposition of love acting

according to law in restraining the child. Hence, true discipline is the

correction of the child by the love of the parent, according to the laws of

home-government.

Abraham instituted in his household a model system of home-discipline. "I

know him," says God, "that he will command his children and his household

after him, and they shall keep the ways of the Lord to do justice and

judgment." He was not a tyrant; his comrades did not bear the rough

sternness of a despot, neither did his power wear the scowl of vengeance.

But these bore the firmness and decision of love tempered and directed by

the law of Christian duty and responsibility. They showed his station as a

father; they wore the exponent of his authority as a parent, whose love was

a safeguard against tyranny on the one hand, and whose accountability to

God was a security against anarchy, on the other. Hence, his children

respected his station, venerated his name, appreciated his love, confided

in his sympathy, and yielded a voluntary obedience to his commands; for

they discerned in them the blessing; and when offenses came, they bent in

the spirit of loving submission and pupilage, under his rod of correction,

and kissed it as the means of their reformation and culture.

Thus does home-discipline involve the firmness of parental authority united

with the mildness of parental love. Love should hold the reins and use the

rod. Then it will purify and elevate natural affection, and develop in the

child a sense of proper fear, without either disrespectful familiarity or

mechanical servitude.

The efficiency of home-discipline depends upon its early introduction, upon

the decision with which it is administered, upon its adaptation to the real

wants of the child, and upon the manner in which it is applied.

It should be commenced in due season, as soon as the child can understand

its meaning and object. The child should be made to understand that he

lives under authority and restraint. This will prepare him for a profitable

correction when necessary. The great fault of many parents is that they

begin too late to correct their children, and leave them until then in

ignorance of its nature and intent. Hence, the child will not appreciate

the parent's motive, and will lack that pliability of spirit which is

essential to reformation. "The sceptre," says James, in his Family Monitor,

"should be seen by him before the rod; and an early, judicious and steady

exhibition of the former, would render the latter almost unnecessary. He

must be made to submit, and that while young, and then submission will

become a habit; the reins must be felt by him early, and he will thus learn

to obey them."

Home-discipline should be steady, uniform, consistent and reasonable. Both

parents and children should be guided by the dictates of reason and

religion. It should not be administered by the caprice of passion, nor

received in the spirit of insubordination. It should be prompted by a

parent's heart, and inflicted by a parent's hand. Convince the recreant

child that you correct him from motives of love, and for his own good. Let

reason and love be at the bottom of every chastisement; let them hold the

reins and guide the rod; and when the latter is used, let it be from

necessity. Lay no injunction upon your child without the ensurance of a

compliance.

Your discipline should never involve impossibilities or uncertainties;

neither should you permit your child to sport with your injunctions. Every

command should produce either obedience or correction. You should be firm

in the infliction of a threatened chastisement, and faithful in the

fulfilment of a promise to reward. Many parents are always scolding,

threatening and promising, but never execute and fulfil. As a consequence

they run from one extreme of discipline to another.

In home-discipline, parents should act harmoniously and cooperate with each

other. They should be of one mind and of one heart, and equally bear the

burden. The one should not oppose the discipline which the other is

administering. This destroys its effect, and leaves the child in a state of

indecision, leading to prejudice against one or the other of the parents.

It too often happens that parents thus take opposite sides,--the father too

severe perhaps, and the mother too indulgent. Thus divided, their house

must fall. Nothing is more ruinous to the child than for the mother to

counteract by soothing opiates, the admonitions of the father. Children

soon see this, and will as soon hate their father. When one parent thus

holds the reins without the rod, and the other uses the rod without the

reins, the very ends of discipline are frustrated. Sometimes the child is

given over to the mother exclusively till a certain age, when the father

begins to act without the mother. This is wrong. A child is never too young

to be ruled by the father, and never too old to come under the softening

influence of the mother.