as in all other duties.  What then?  Blessed be God, the Gospel has a provision for erring parents.  If Sinai thunders, Calvary whispers peace.  For men, as sinners, the righteousness of Christ prevails, and for sinners, as parents, not less shall it be found sufficient.  Line and plummet can soon measure the extent of human perfection, but they cannot fathom the merit of that righteousness, and when laid side by side with the most holy law, there is no deficiency.  If, then, we find ourselves daily coming short of the terms of that covenant which God has made with us as parents, we need not despair of his fulfilling his part, for we can plead our surety’s work, and that is ever acceptable in his eyes, and answers all his demands.

Let not, however, the negligent and willfully-ignorant parent conclude that the spotless robe of the perfect Savior will be thrown as a shield over his deficiencies and deformity.  Let not those who have blindly and carelessly entered on parental duties, without endeavoring to ascertain the will of God and the requirements of his law, expect that the blessing of obedient and sanctified children will crown their days.  Let not those who suffer their children to grow up around them like weeds, without religious culture or pruning, who demand no obedience, who command no reverence, who offer no earnest, ceaseless prayer, let them not suppose that the blessing of the God who spoke from Horeb will come upon their families.  “He is in one mind and who can turn him.”  Not an iota has he abated from his law since that fearful day.  Not less sinful in his eyes is disobedience to parents now, than when he commanded the rebellious son to be “stoned with stones until he died.”  Yet, how far below His standard are the ideas even of many Christian parents?  “How different,” says Wilberforce, “nay, in many respects, how contradictory, would be the two systems of mere morals, of which the one should be formed from the commonly-received maxims of the Christian world, and the other from the study of the Holy Scriptures;” and we are never more forcibly impressed with this difference than when we see it exemplified in this solemn subject.

The parents who stood at Horeb learned that God required them to train their children to implicit and uncompromising obedience, and he who closely studies the Word of God can find no other or lighter requisition.  How will the received opinions and customs of this age compare with the demand?

We ask our young friends, who may perchance glance over these pages, to pause a moment and consider:  If capital punishment should now be inflicted on every disobedient child, how many roods of earth would be planted with the instruments of death?  If every city were doomed to destruction in which the majority of sons and daughters “set light by father and mother,” how many would remain?  To every child living comes a voice, “Know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.”