The Ten Commandments, the foundations of all law, both religious and civil, among civilized nations, are divided, all are aware, into two tables: the first treating of duties relating directly to God--the second treating of duties relating to man--the two covering the essential grounds of religion and morals. The command to honor father and mother begins the second table of the Law. Why should it not? for what so fitly stands at the head of the moral code, as the law that puts order into the household? The family is the form of government, first in time and first in importance. Home is older than church or court; a parent's authority prior to that of priest or judge. With the family, social order began--without family union, social order must end.
There is something striking in the transition from the first to the second table--the transition from Jehovah's assertion of his own sovereignty to his tender regard for the welfare of men. We seem to be looking down from the awful mountain with its barren crags into the peaceful valley with its pleasant homes and grassy lawns, rejoicing that the summits pealing with thunder send down refreshing breezes and fruitful showers into those plains below.
Looking up to God, who claims of us supreme homage as his due, and then in his own sovereign right urges upon us to fulfil our dues to each other, we speak now of the duties of children or the honor to be rendered by them to parents.
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Do any ask what are the grounds of the Commandments? The grounds are obvious, and the law, which God enacts, instead of being an arbitrary decree, is in entire harmony with the nature of things. It would perhaps be needless to dwell on these grounds, were there not something in the temper of our times, that calls them in question--in fact, certain notions of intellectual liberty among theorists, that combine with the passions and caprices of youth to unsettle many a household, and threaten the peace of society itself. Against the sentimentalist, who makes light of all natural ties to glorify the individual's own intuitions or affinities, and against the little rebel, who comes to the same conclusion by a much shorter process, we urge the Divine law, "Honor thy father and thy mother."
Honor them, because God bids it, and bids it not merely in the written code, but by the whole order of his providence, by the very constitution of society. However we may dispute about the best form or true foundation of government--maintain monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, to be the best form--declare Divine law, social compact, or popular will, to be the true foundation, all must agree in the Divine origin of the family and the Divine right of parental government. The instincts of nature, the words of revelation, the dictates of experience and expediency, all agree in this, and all illustrate the mind of God, the Creator of the family. The mind of God himself speaks or should speak through the parent to the child, so, that filial obedience is fitly another name for piety; so, that prayer itself borrows its most hallowed word from the reverence nurtured at home.
Trace out the law of dependence, and see how fully it urges the commandment--the law of dependence that rests with parents so much of the welfare of the child. Not merely food, clothing, and home, but all the higher goods of life, experience, wisdom, virtue, are to be looked for thus. As a general rule, benignant Providence itself has its chosen almoner in father and mother, and the gifts are blessed as they are received in reverence. We may indeed suppose monstrous cases, in which unnatural parents exact such folly or wrong, that obedience ceases to be a virtue. Such cases are not frequent enough to alter the general law, and even in these, a true child, in refusing to conform to what is evil in the sight of God, will do it in such a way as still to keep the commandment, and treat tenderly even a perverse father, and expostulate with his tyranny in a temper fitted more to subdue than irritate its violence. Such monstrous cases need little notice in any Christian community, where parents are generally ready enough to do the best, and give the most in their power for their children. In fact, for them, the Decalogue has no law, as if nature needed no decree to enforce parental love, and the affections of themselves pressed heavily enough downwards. The great need was and is of enforcing the obligation, that looks upward from child to parent. Our modern culture, with all its scope and refinement, has no substitute for this obligation; nay, needs it more than ever to check the wilfulness and laxity so likely to come from precocious fancy and unbridled temper. Experience is constantly showing, that even the external promise connected with the commandment meets the wants of our own times also, and now, as of old, filial obedience secures an efficient life and peaceful civilization,--"that it may be well with thee, and that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God shall give." How many bright and dark chapters of recent history show how close is the connection between stability of society and filial respect--between allegiance to every worthy institution and the discipline that learns to regard a superior authority at home. This outward sanction the Gospel accepts, and carries it into the spiritual kingdom. By many a precept the apostles enforce the command, and by word and example, by the beatitudes of the mount, and the obedience of the cross, our Saviour imparts new blessing and worth to its observance.
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We have a foundation then to build upon, and filial respect rests upon the Word of God, the welfare of the home, the good of society, and the peace of the soul. Let the sentiment be worthy of the Divine foundation. If worthy it will appear first of all as a feeling of affectionate reverence. It will not be worship as with the Chinese absolutist, nor mere friendship, as in the code of many a radical. The parent is of the same nature with the child, and is not to be adored; he is superior in age, experience and authority, and should have more than the friendly courtesy of an equal. Superior in degree, though not in kind, he is to be regarded with affectionate respect and deference. Any subjection more or less than this comes of wrong, and leads to wrong. To exact utter servitude is tyranny--to lower reasonable authority into flattery, entreaty, or apology, is an imbecile indulgence which a child should be as unwilling to ask as a parent to give.
If any hearers are ready to quarrel with us for presuming to define the quality and conditions of one of the great social sentiments, and to say that all the affections are best let alone without any forcing process, we are not troubled for a reply. No modern folly has been more thoroughly put down by analysis and experience, than the sentimentalist's notion, that the affections are wholly their own law, and are not to be trained under reason, conscience and religion. Even in those sentiments which have most of the spontaneous play of genius--those which rejoice in poetry, music, and all the beautiful arts, the perceptions must first be trained to the nicest sense of the truth of things, and the rigid discipline of every true artist shames the folly of the dreamers who would make it appear, that the great art of life, as a school of the affections, is to be left to itself. No--our principles have vast power over our feelings, and they who from the beginning are trained to accept the great loyalties of a divine kingdom, will be loyal in their affections as in their creed, and their affections will come forth and grow up as the vine does by help of the very trellis which overlooks it.
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The filial sentiment thus accepted and nurtured will not be idle, but will show itself in the tone of manners, the rule of conduct, the law of life.
Manners are but lesser morals, and closely connected with the greater morals. Good manners begin at home, and if they do not begin there, the desire for them is apt to end in poor affectation. The soul of politeness is mutual deference, and where should this have its origin but in the respect most directly sanctioned by God? Too often the true filial honor is forgotten, and, perhaps, from thoughtlessness more than disrespect, children are sometimes seen usurping the prerogatives of age, speaking in tones of petulant authority, and crowding themselves into the places of elders. The best place for them is their own place. Their own dignity, as well as that of their parents, is best furthered by the deference, that gives the household its best order and makes it the school of the graces, that adorn society with its pleasing gradations, and cheer the way to its best virtues. Full enough is the temptation, especially in cities, to fall short of this true deference and to rob childhood and youth of their best character. Manners, instead of being nurtured on the Christian root, are left too much to the dancing-master, and there are hosts of boys and girls adept in postures and airs proper for the ballet, and strangers to the reverence and simplicity that most honor them in honoring their elders. Precocious passion for dress and society is the bane of the one, and ridiculous affectation of manhood, especially of its follies, is the shame of the other. The girl, instead of being calmly at rest in a child's healthful slumber, is aping the belle in the ball-room; and the boy is walking the street with his cigar, perhaps boasting of his powers at the bottle, instead of being where he should be, in his bed, getting strength for true manliness, not fevering himself into a ludicrous manikin. "Learn to show piety at home," is thus another form of the ancient law, "Honor thy father and thy mother."
The sentiment so essential to good manners will show itself as a rule of conduct, and filial honor will take the form of obedience. During the years of dependence this obedience is to be entire, for the parent must think and act for the child. No matter what precocity of memory or imagination, what privileges of education or amount of attainments, may seem sometimes to reverse the order of precedence, the child is to follow the parent's counsels, and in so doing will gain alike in wisdom and discipline, for the experience of age is wiser than the pert wit of youth, and submission to a superior will is essential to a true schooling for the vicissitudes of life. It is not well to overstrain prerogative, and to insist on obedience as a sacrifice, where it might be made an attraction, if the reasons of the case are fully set forth. Nor is it well to make obedience wholly dependent upon a statement of reasons, for many things must be done for reasons that youth cannot appreciate, and kindness is never so decided as when the impatient shortsightedness of childhood is overruled by the far-seeing wisdom of maturity. Reason there should be in every request; but if the request were allowed to wait until the reasons could be understood, parental care would cease with the first restraint, and childhood would be left to itself at the first task or pain. God himself is our helper here, for he, who calls us in so many things to walk by faith without sight, has fitted youth for the same discipline, and made mild authority in the end more attractive and efficient than premature argument or feeble flattery.
Obedience, thus considered, will not be servile but filial, and will find its own honor in doing honor to its guardians. It will lead children to ask constantly what they can do for the happiness of the family and the welfare of its members. This duty is too little thought of, especially where there is none of that pressure of want which compels children to help in the maintenance of the family. No matter how great the wealth of parents or the retinue of servants on the watch for every care, there is still place for the earnest co-operation of each member of the family, and no refinements of living have abolished the duty of mutual help, and the grace of mutual deference. In most families the services of the children are needed for many friendly offices of greater or less importance, and none will deny that the comfort of every household is closely connected with what the children do or fail to do for its welfare. So early does the work, the responsible work of life begin, and so early may its springs of beneficence be opened.
Let any true household illustrate what we mean. What beauty in the filial confidence that reveals its troubles and needs, and asks counsel of superior wisdom! What comfort in the countless little services that lighten a father or mother's care, or soothe their troubles! What grace in the unbought courtesies that youth may throw around the home, the refined deference, the kind remembrances too often left to the parade of drawing-rooms, but the proper ornament of the family circle! What power over the pains of sickness, or the languor of convalescence, in the solicitude and consideration which children may show, and showing, may bring to the weary pillow a balm more healing than medical art! And if stinted means require frugal expenditures, or even the active labor of the young, what worth in the filial thoughtfulness that anticipates the necessary economy, instead of repining encourages frugality, and asks to be useful instead of insisting on being indulged.
And when fortune, station, or intellectual eminence reward youthful aspiration, the aspirant never wins more respect than when he makes his parents his confidants and companions. Here our common nature is not at fault, for whenever in any public exercise or examination a young person does remarkably well, we all think at once of the parents, and the pleasure of the assembly is not complete until the people have confirmed their own enjoyment by sympathy with the father and mother. There is great power in this fact, and what it implies--great power in the fact that children honor parents by being truly honorable, and repay best the sacrifices of so many anxious years by making their own lives a credit and comfort to father and mother. This benefit lasts as long as life itself, and the integrity and efficiency of mature years carries out to the limit of existence the affectionate reverence of childhood.
Here the whole world is one, and the human heart is the same in all ages, and history and experience meet. What state of society can be blind to the meaning of the imprecation which was pronounced at the entrance into the promised land, and joined in the same doom the idolator and him who should "set light by his father and mother?" What philosophy can gainsay the sage of the Book of Proverbs, whose sententious moralizing rises into prophetic grandeur as he speaks of the unnatural son: "The eye that mocketh at his father or refuseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." Who needs any interpretation of the feelings of David, or Joseph, or Solomon, in their joy or trial? How heartrending was the grief of the Psalmist over his recreant son--"Would to God, I had died for thee, my son, my son!" What beauty, as well as simplicity in the inquiry of Joseph for his father, when the prime minister of Egypt dismissed his courtly train, and weeping aloud, could only ask "Doth my father yet live?" What grandeur far above its gold and gems surrounded the throne of Solomon, when he rose to meet his mother, and called her to a seat at his right hand. "And the king said unto her, Ask on, my mother, for I will not say thee nay." What pathos and sublimity in the Saviour of men, when, embracing home and heaven in his parting words on the Cross, he commended his spirit to the Eternal Father, and intrusted his mother to the beloved disciple's care. We need no more than this to show how the gospel glorifies the law, and crowns its morality and piety alike in its perfect love--"Woman, behold thy son"--"Disciple, behold thy mother."
Hear the amen that goes from Calvary to Sinai--and Honor thy father and thy mother!
[The end]
Samuel Osgood's essay: Reverence In Children