tihvavy of Che theological ^tminavy PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY PRESENTED BY Rufus H. LeFevre MAV 21 11^52 THE FAMIL^^^^MoAkiaSS^ The Home and the Training of Children BY l.'bookwalter, d.d. WITH AN APPENDIX The home Schooi. BY REV. I. L. BOOKWALTER AN INTRODUCTION BY G. A. FUNKHOUSER, D.D. DAYTON, OHIO United Brethren Purmshing House 1894 Copyright, 1894, By W. J. Shuey, Publisher. All Bights Reserved/, PREFACE. These lectures, delivered at the request of the Faculty of Union Biblical Seminary, Dayton, Ohio, before its students, were prepared with no thought of their being presented to the public. But after they had been delivered, a request came from the Seminary that their contents might be put into permanent form and given a larger hearing. After the lapse of some months, time has been found to add a chapter addressed especially to parents, the three lectures, with slight exceptions, being left as originally delivered. The many imperfections of these addresses, pre- pared in the midst of the ever-pressing duties of a large pastoral charge, are not unknown to the author; but it is hoped that even so imperfect a contribution to the discussion of the important subject treated will awaken increased interest and accomplish good. There have been added, also, some extracts from articles written during recent years by my father, Rev. I. L. Bookwalter, under the title, " The Family School," and published from time to time in the Religious Telescope. These together make what I consider a valuable appendix to the book. L. Bookwalter. Dayton, Ohio, August, 1894. '4Q Strength and Hope of the Church - - - - 52 CHAPTER IV. WORDS TO PARENTS, pecific Instructions not Needed as Much as a Deep Sense of Duty — Material Comfort not Sufficient — Attention to Character Necessary — Order Essential — True Method of Government — Ruling by Authority Fundamental— How to Maintain Authority — Pun- CONTENTS V PAGB ishment of Children — Reason and Affection not to be Discarded — Love the Life and Soul of the Family — Sympathy with the Children — Over-Governing to be Avoided — Proper Freedom of the Child — Cultiva- tion of Self-Control and Development of Self-Depend- ence — Right of the Child to the Good Example of the Parents — Agreement and Cooperation of Father and Mother — Genuine Piety Essential to Religious Train- ing—The Home Atmosphere— "The Parents' Associ- ation of America" 71 APPENDIX. THE FAMILY ^^CHOOL. By Rev. I. L. BooTcivalter. I. A New Movement Needed - - - - 91 II. False Methods of Securing Obedience - 94 III. The Duty of Ministers ----- 97 IV. Self -Denial 99 V. Little Things . 103 VI. A Good Mother 106 INTRODUCTION. God has ordained three institutions for the wel- fare of mankind — the family, the church, the state. The most important and responsible is the family, because it furnishes the foundation on which the others must build, the subjects with whom they must do their work ; the more respon- sible in that it does its part first, and failure here can be remedied only in part ; the more responsible because, while the state looks to civil rights and the church to spiritual culture, the fjxmily, the first ordained, has the care of the physical, the men- tal, and the moral. It has to do with being as well as with relations It is under heavy bonds for the proper structure, even to the furnishing and beau- tifying, of each of the three stories of man's nature and of all of them together, while the church has the contract only for one, — the spiritual, and only the finishing of that as begun in the home, — and the state merely stands guard as the work is being done by the others. The family is the more important and respon- sible because it is possible for it to meet all of its obligations without either of the others. Its work well done leaves almost nothing for them to do. If so responsible, why so little said by public teachers, ministers, editors, statesmen, authors, as to how to construct, dignify, and beautify the home? vii VIU INTKODUCTION How Jesus, the great teacher, touched and up- lifted the home. He had little to say about other agencies. He purified the stream in the fountain. He blessed the parents and the children. Is there any connection between the pallid face and exhausted movement of that mother, because of the insubordination of her boy, and her willful disrespect of her own father and mother a genera- tion ago, or between the grief and disappointment of that father over the carelessness of his daughter, just blooming into womanhood, and his own disre- gard of moral beauty when she was young and impressible? The fruit is bitter, not less because it is of their own planting and they have eaten of it for twent}^ and thirty years. Unequally yoked, ^ God's order set at naught, tells the story. This book will be an inspiration to fathers, mothers, and children, the married and unmarried, because God's ideal of family life is held up. It is suggestive rather than exhaustive. It is plain on delicate points of the subject. The author, by nature and grace, by the home from which he came, by knowing how to rule well his own house, by his experience and success as a public teacher, is fitted to speak on this too much neglected subject, and deserves a large hearing. The added words by the father of the author, the promoter of these lectures to the students of the Seminary, are from a man of prayer, piety, S3^mmetry, and experience. G. A. FUNKHOUSER. Union Biblical Seminary, Dayton, Ohio, August, 1894. THE FAMILY; OR, The Home and the Training of Children. CHAPTER I. FIRST LECTURE THE FAMILY AS AN INSTITUTION. Gentlemen of the Seminary: — Perhaps in no more intelligible and appropriate way could both the subject and speaker be intro- duced than by the reading of the following letter recently received by me from the President of your Faculty : — Dayton, Ohio, November 21, 1892. My Dear Brother: It has been a long-cherished desire of your father to have some lectures delivered to the stu- dents in the Seminary upon "The Responsibilities of the Home" or "Duty of Parents to Their Children." For this, if given due attention and kept up from year to year, he desires to give some money. I think Brother Miller has given him the desired assurance. And now the Faculty desire that you should fill this place first, giving two or three prepared lectures upon such phases of the above- named subject as would be most pleasing to your father and most beneficial to the students. An early acceptance and compliance will please your fellow-workers, and Yours truly, G. A. FUNKHOUSER. 9 10 THE FAMILY No thoughtful person will question the impor- tance of this subject. It is important because practical ; practical because it bears directly upon the formation of moral and religious character. But all this will appear, it is hoped, as we proceed with the discussion. It is quite likely, however, that this question of the home — of family government and train- ing— is seen in clearer light, and very probably with more nearly a just conception of its real import, by those of advanced years and extended observation than by us whose personal knowledge is more limited. At least we notice that elderly men and women manifest the most concern re- specting the proper conduct of the home. This fact is worthy of our attention, as justly calculated to give to the matter additional weight. And further, gray-haired fathers and mothers and silver-haired grandfathers and grandmothers have passed through the more active and responsible years of family relations and duties and see both their successes and failures — the latter, no doubt, seeming to them to fill too large a part of their life's picture. They would gladly have something said and done to enable those who come after them to meet their duties with better equipment and better success. So it might be supposed that THE FAMILY AS AN INSTITUTION 11 one whose life covers so much of observation and experience respecting family government as does that of my father would be concerned for the general improvement of family life. He has, no doubt, in common with others of like age, seen and noted many things which have created in him this interest in the subject of the proper and successful training of children — notably, per- haps, the living demonstrations of his own fail- ures. Just here I think I should state that as the time approached that I must reply to the re- quest sent me, I felt hesitancy in complying, because of a want of time to give to the subject that thorough study, and to my remarks that careful 'preparation and finish, which both the subject and my hearers should claim. My min- isterial and pastoral duties are such as to demand well-nigh all my time and energies. My concep- tion of the theme before us is such as to lead to the feeling that its just treatment is no ordinary task. Some men make short and easy their treat- ment of the subject under consideration, as if, by quoting a few passages of Scripture on the mu- tual duties of husbands and wives and on the training of children, and whirling a birch rod in the air, they were setting before an audience the 12 THE FAMILY whole question. Such a conception of the sub- ject is far enough below that entertained by, at least, some of us, and, it may be hoped, by us all. I am reminded that these remarks are not to be directed to a class of hearers such as one is accustomed to address when speaking upon this topic. It were a common and comparatively sim- ple task to discourse to a mixed congregation of fathers and mothers respecting parental duties. But I am speaking to but few such, — and os- tensibly not for such directly, — were even every man before me already a husband and father; though it is hoped that these discussions may prove of much practical value to each, when in the years to come he shall have assumed the head- ship of a home. Rather, it is the aim to reach parents in- directly— through those who are themselves to be the instructors of parents, and who are by direct speech, and contact, and personal example to be the molders and promoters of true Chris- tian family life among the people. So he who here speaks upon the family is supposed to be speaking to the guardians and teachers of the home — to be an instructor of instructors in home government and training. But it will, it is hoped, occur to no one that the THE FAMILY AS AN INSTITUTION 13 aim shall be to merely lay down a sort of outline of rules, to present a list of practical suggestions, touching the subject. Nor does it occur to me that this is the chief thing first wanted, either here or on the part of a pastor with his people. To my mind, the one great thing wanted every- where is interest — real interest in the subject. The immediate aim should be to call definite and in- telligent and continuous attention to this thought, and to thus awaken in it a deeper interest among all classes. It will generally be conceded that this impor- tant and vital subject of the family — with all that that word means, of relations and duties between husband and wife, parents and children, and of its relations to and influence upon society at large — is receiving far too little attention. Even in the most advanced Christian communities, and in professedly religious homes, where family interests are supposed to be most carefully studied and best directed, there is need of much improvement. Nay, it must be said that the public teachers of morals and religion themselves, the ministers of the gospel, are giving to this great question far less attention than its importance demands. Wise and godly instructions by pastors, either from their pulpits or at the firesides of their peo- 14 THE FAMILY pie, are not very often given. It is very seldom that a preacher awakens his congregation and the community to serious thought upon this subject. Why ? Why should ministers so generally fail to give attention to the home-life matters of their people ? Certainly not because it is unnecessary, for the most widespread and grave evils of our time are largely to be attributed to the general looseness in family life and training. It may seriously be asked whether a gospel minister is true to his calling who does not interest and inform himself, and interest and inform his people, upon the subject of true family life, and give to them such instruction as the heads of every household will be interested and blessed in re- ceiving. Before entering upon the more practical phases of our subject, let us stop a short time to consider that institution which is at the very foundation of all — the family. So, "The Family as an Institution " will be our topic this morning. Even a mere glance at its origin, history, relation to the social order, relation to religion, the dangers that threaten it, etc., will be of interest and profit. We are aware that in the minds of many inde- pendent and advanced investigators certain ques- tions relating to the origin of the human race THE FAMILY AS AN INSTITUTION 15 are considered to be unsolved. Such are the questions of the manner, and the place, and the time of the race's beginning, the origin of the various languages, etc. Then, passing on a little farther, the beginning of the family is placed among these unsolved problems, and as one of the most interesting and important. Mr. and Mrs. Thwing, in their valuable work, "The Family : An Historical and Social Study," state the whole ques- tion briefly, thus : " Was the family the original unit of the social economy ; or is it, as a distinguished ethnologist has remarked, the 'product of a vast and varied experience ' ? Was the primal condi- tion of men and women communistic, whence has gradually arisen the modern family ; or was that condition one in which separate and distinct pairs of human beings, of opposite sex, were recognized? Students of prehistoric times belong in general to one of the two classes suggested by these ques- tions. They hold either that communism of the sexes was the archaic state, or that some sort of family first existed. In support of each of these views is evidence." This statement of diverse views respecting this point is not introduced because of any inclination on the part of any of us to look upon it as an " unsolved problem," but to broaden our view of 16 THE FAMILY this great question. There is here, too, the solemnly significant and practical suggestion, If not the family, then what ? But it is a fact that the family is the first social institution we find in historical investigations — no history, no facts, only speculations, carrying us back of this recognized human condition. The family is found, in all candid historical researches, to exist as the original social type and unit. While Moses does not need the support of the ethnologists of the nineteenth century in corrobo- ration of his statements, yet it is interesting to know that such thinkers as Herbert Spencer, Sir Henry Maine, and Charles Darwin are not sure but that the family, pure and simple, may have existed from the very beginning of the human race. That primitive times were characterized by much departure from this social rule is, of course, also a well-known historical fact. In our Christian view, the family is a divine institution, established, as. says Christ, "at the beginning." In his reply to the Pharisees, Christ said, in interpretation and expansion of Moses' account of the creation and marriage of the first pair: "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave THE FAMILY AS AN INSTITUTION 17 father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife : and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." Thus are marriage and the family of divine appointment, and not the creation of society or civil law. They were instituted before there was any society, and as the basis of society. The relation of society and civil law to marriage and the family is that of recognition and proper regulation, and this relation is by no means unimportant. Thus, w^hile the family is in an important sense a human institution, it is not an institution of human origination, or, as Morgan says, the "product of a vast and varied experience." The family has its basis in marriage ; without it the family cannot exist. " For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife : and they twain shall be one flesh." Marriage is established upon two foundations — the natural basis in sex, and the spiritual basis in affection. The spiritual basis is the exclusive affection of two persons of opposite sex for each other, and is supreme and complete. "It is an affection of soul for soul, of mind for mind, of body for body. Thus marriage is, as Milton re- 18 THE FAMILY marks, the highest form of human society." The divine purpose of marriage is chiefly "the con- tinuance of the race, the protection and the training of children, and the development of the charac- ter of the husband and wife." The race might have been perpetuated without the bonds of wed- lock, but the mere continuance of the race is not the only aim of marriage. Its chief purpose is to perpetuate the race under the best possible con- ditions, to develop the race, to ennoble it. The offspring needs the nurture and training of the home. Further, not the general sexual instinct of the race, but the pure, exclusive affection of two of opposite sex for each other, is the only true basis of parentage. This saves humanity from bestiahty. This develops not lust, but love. This makes the family. And also, within the home, under the influence of the mutual needs and obligations, the necessary self-sacrifice and self-surrender, of the marriage relation, is formed the strongest and purest type of manhood and w^omanhood. We may therefore assuredly know that to promote the purity and happiness of the race he had created was the wise and benevolent purpose of God in the institution of marriage and the family. Says Bishop, in his work, " Marriage and Divorce" : THE FAMILY AS AN INSTITUTION 19 "By whatsoever reasoning we arrive at the con- ckision that marriage is, as often expressed, a divine institution, the trutli tliat it is such — or, in other words, that it is a parcel of the wisdom which entered into the creation of man — is palpa- ble, and is generally acknowledged. Commencing with the race, and attending man in all periods and in all countries of his existence, this institu- tion of marriage has ever been considered the particular glory of the social system. . . . But for it, all that is valuable, virtuous, and desirable in human existence would long since have faded away in a general retrograde of the race, and in the perilous darkness in which its joys and hopes would have been wrecked together. And as man has gone up in the path of his improvement . . . still has this institution of marriage . . . remained the first among the institutions of human society." The history of the family is one of the most fruitful and instructive fields in all historical study, and I would commend it to every minister, especially, as important in furnishing broad and intelligent views of the central place the family holds in everything that molds social institutions and tends to human good — or to human ill. The student in this field will be much inter- ested, and perhaps surprised, to learn that the 20 THE FAMILY differences in customs, politics, and religion which distinguish the two great historic branches of the race, the Semitic and Ar3^an, are largely due to the difference in the family life. In the Semitic group we have the Hebrews, Phoenicians, Syrians, Arabs, and Babylonians ; in the Aryan are em- braced the Persian, Indian, Greek, Latin, Slavonic, Teuton, and Celtic races. Here are two great types of human thought and life. A summarizing paragraph by an able writer will be instructive here : " In these two great races, then, the Semitic and the Aryan, we find at an early period the family as the type of the social structure. But the Semitic family and the Aryan are founded upon different principles and pursue different methods. The Semitic family is patriarchal, the Aryan is individual; one makes the father the unit, the other makes the family itself the unit ; one is polygamous, in the other monogamy prevails ; one gives all duties to women, the other gives some duties to men and some rights to women. The patriarchal Semitic system is the germ of the monarchy ; the Aryan family is the beginning of the political commonwealth." Thus do we to-day, of Teuton and Celtic blood, trace the germs of the social and civil institutions of Europe and America back to THE FAMILY AS AN INSTITUTION 21 the distinctive family life of our Aryan forefathers as developed in the remote past, when, before their migration, they yet had their home in the table-land of central Asia. Valuable lessons are gained in the study of the family among the Greeks and Romans, and also among the Jews. Among the Greeks and Romans there was much in their family life to commend, especially in their earlier national life. With both peoples the family was a religious in- stitution, and marriage a most solemn and sacred rite. In later times, however, the constancy of husbands and wives became w^eakened ; divorce, once very rare, became first frequent, then com- mon, the family was debased, parentage dis- counted, and children neglected. In Rome, especially, domestic purity and peace were undermined. Loose views of the family prevailed among all classes. Sylla, Csesar, An- tony, and Augustus repudiated their wives ; and so upright a man as Cicero, for no just cause, divorced his wife of thirty years and married his ward, a young and wealthy woman, from whom again speedily he was divorced. The subsequent social and civil history of Rome can be written in one short sentence. With the fall of the Ro- man family fell Rome. 22 THE FAMILY Among the Hebrews, as among all Semitic peo- ples, polygamy was the great crime against the family. While not countenanced by the teaching of Moses, it was quite common in the earlier history of the nation, and wherever practiced left its blighting influence. It was, however, little known after the captivity, and before Christ's time had disappeared. But withal, among the Jews marriage and the family have ever held a first place ; and the mutual relations of husband and wife, and of parents and children, have been given greater attention than among any other people of the earth. And what intel- ligent student of human affairs can fail to see in the preservation of the Jewish family the marvel- ous preservation of the Jewish people ? But the true conception of marriage and of the family was never reached until the dawn of Christianity. Christ places them on the original basis. While upon most matters affecting society he only laid down principles, respecting the in- stitution of marriage he lays down a definite rule. It is clear, from his Sermon on the Mount and teaching recorded elsewhere, that in his judgment only fornication, or its moral equivalent, is suffi- cient cause for the dissolution of the marriage relation. Also, in every feature Christ gave to THE FAMILY AS AN INSTITUTION 23 the family higher ideals; first, respecting the mutual relation and the personal equality of husband and wife, then just conceptions of parental duties and proper ideas of the duties of children ; and so was the home made indeed the type of the heavenly kingdom of God. Time will not allow me to dwell upon the influences in the heathen world, and also other tendencies soon developed in the early church itself, — such as the praise given to celibacy, etc., — which cast a shadow over the family and for centuries weakened its influence among all classes. The importance of the blow struck by the Reformers against the celibacy of the clergy, and indirectly against the corruption and false popular opinions which were bearing down with fearful weight against pure family life, can hardly be realized at this distance. Wifehood, mother- hood, and fatherhood, — the family, — long dis- counted and well-nigh undermined, were rescued and started on their way to the recovery of their true place, and European institutions were saved from rotting down in medieval corruption. The family is, if possible, seen more clearly by each succeeding generation to be the great con- server of human good ; and, among those who are its true friends and the especial subjects of its 24 THE FAMILY blessings, its character and type are nearer the true Christian ideal than ever before. No true statesman, philanthropist, or Christian hesitates for a moment to pronounce the family to be the very basis of social order, the foundation of the social fabric ; none question its essential relation to true religion, and all agree that without it there is no chastity possible, no domestic felicity, no home for man ; that with the family destroyed, there would be moral and social chaos on every hand. So the preservation of the family and its advancement to the highest possible standard should stand first in the thought and foremost in the aim of every lover of his race. So it becomes us both to study the methods for its true promotion and also to guard it against the dangers which threaten it. In now calling attention to the influences which imperil the home, I need not raise the cry of alarm against defunct propositions and schemes in which it has been attempted to estab- lish the social fabric upon other foundations than that of the family; as the bold and daring concep- tion of Plato, in his Republic, of a community of wives and children with public hymeneals, a conception revived in 1623 by the Italian philoso- THE FAMILY AS AX INSTITUTION 25 pher Campanella, in his "City of the Sun"; or the wild Utopia of Sir Thomas More; or the New Athmtis of Bacon ; or in our century and our own country the Shaker and Rappite move- ments founded on ceUbacy, a little community of whom, called Shakertown, now about extinct, is situated a few miles southeast of our city; and the communistic efforts led by Owen in Indiana in 1824, and the movement of Fourier and his fol- lowers in 1842, having communities in different States, and the famous Oneida Community in New' York, all now either extinct or in the last stages of decline. Those which still linger have been compelled by tlie demand of aroused public senti- ment to abandon, at least in profession, sexual communism ; and they have, as they proclaim, in deference to public sentiment placed themselves on a platform which allows marriage, but prefers celibacy. These schemes all interest us, however, in this connection, not because of their commun- ism in the common significance of the word, — a community of material goods, — but because the one feature common to them all is that they abolish the individual family. They eventually are ranged under two classes, advocating at one extreme celibacy, at the other free-love, each and all abrogating marriage and abolishing the 26 THE FAMILY family, annihilating the home, and destroying domestic life. So far as I am aware, there does not now exist, either in theory or in practical avowed effort, anywhere in Christendom any system, aside from the dying remnants named, proposing itself as a rival of the family in the field of a basis for the social order. Nor does it seem probable that any further efforts in this direction will ever be attempted, so widely and so deeply has the idea, the divine idea, of the family established itself among the more enlightened peoples of the race. And for this great triumph there is reason for gratitude, and cause also for strong hope for growing human advancement and happiness. But there are influences and tendencies within the family, entertained along with the idea of marriage, family, and home, which are not only out of harmony with it, but at variance with and destructive of it. We have seen that marriage — the constancy, unbroken and lifelong, of husband and wife, true wedlock — is at the foundation of the family. It is a ftict, too, most painful to see, that right at its foundation is where the institution of the family is being assailed. The breaking of marriage vows, with the wreck of families by divorce, is both THE FAMILY AS AN INSTITUTION 27 the peril and the shame of modern society. This evil prevails throughout the civilized world, and evidently with steady if not rapid increase. Facts and figures are about the only channel through which to bring the situation before us. Would that there need be no divorce courts, no books on the law of divorce ; or, if these must be, would that the demand for them were a thousand times less. Saying nothing about the various countries of Europe, whose statistics upon marriage and divorce tell a sad story and bode evil, let us, as Amer- ican citizens and American ministers, look at the situation among our own people. I find that in the different States the ratio of divorces to marriages ranges from one to ten to one to fifty- six. Think of this for a moment. In Ohio, for the year closing June 30, 1891, there were 33,890 marriages and 2,544 divorces ; about 1 divorce to 13 marriages. During the ten years closing June 30, 1891, there were in this State 19,622 divorces ; in the United States 400,000. During the year closing June 30, 1892, there were in Montgomery County, Ohio (our county), 1,002 marriages and 76 divorces — 1 divorce to about 13 marriages. What wreck of homes ! Within the last six weeks, in our city, a 28 THE FAMILY man, recently prominent in public affairs, and the wife in another family, prominent in the community, were taken in adultery ; both got a divorce in our court and within ten days were married ; two families destroyed, and out of their ruins another supposed to be made! — all done within a month! And as I have stated, the alarming thing is that all this is going on with the idea of marriage and the home ostensibly maintained ; is all done by the very civil order through which marriage is supposed to be regu- lated and preserved ! This, this, I repeat, is the peril of the situation, that all this wreck and ruin is accomplished in a regular, legal way, and apparently in harmony with public sentiment. I have not time, gentlemen, to trace the causes of all this : whether it be the extreme individual- ism of our time, by which the person is so mag- nified as, it would seem, to lift him almost above the most sacred relations to others, and the family as a unit is discounted and thus degraded below its essential and God -ordained place ; whether it be because marriage is now more a secular than a religious institution ; or whether we are to throw the blame at the door of our loose dis^orce laws. Nor can I enter upon the discussion of the rem- edies. But these points I leave with you to in- THE FAMILY AS AN INSTITUTION 29 vestigate ; and with you I would also and espe- cially leave this fact, — and leave it, if I could, as a deep impression, — that you, as ministers of the gospel, are the first, the God-appointed, guardians of the family. CHAPTER II. SECOND LECTURE THE HUSBAND AND WIFE AND THEIR RELATIONS. Gentlemen of the Seminary: — You will remember that the special subject to which we gave attention some weeks ago, as the thought fundamental to this whole question of good order in the family, was " The Family as an Institution." We glanced at its origin (divine origin), its fundamental basis (marriage); we touched upon its history, noted its relation to the social order as its very basis, and named some of its chief perils. I am pursuaded that even so brief and imperfect a view as we took of our subject increased our interest in it, and deepened our im- pression respecting the vital relation of the family to every human good, and helped each one of us as ministers of the gospel and the custodians of divine institutions, if possible, to a more intelligent and more intense realization of our special responsi- bility in the maintenance of the family and the elevation of the family life among tlie people. We are now prepared for the more practical 30 THE HUSBAND AND WIFE 31 features of the subject. As a simple but com- prehensive heading under which the various topics that claim attention may be ranged, let this be named : "The Individual Members of the Family and Their Relations." But just here, first, let us consider what sort of a family, what type of family life, we as minis- ters should have before us as the ideal, and should strive to secure. Before the "individual members of the family" what should we place as the proper fulfilling of "their relations"? Upon this prime matter there should be but one senti- ment ; that is, the Christian family must be our ideal, in which every relation is held as sacred, and all duties are faithfully performed according to the will and in the fear of God. There are many families which are in a sense good, yet are not godly. Many homes are highly respectable that are not Christian — pohshed, but not pious. In many others religion has professed recognition, but is given a secondary place — the household gods are set in the corner. There is a great deal of such family life all about us, absolutely with- out private reproach, where undivided affection and domestic peace reign. Such a family, we are told, was that of the late Jay Gould, where the husband and father was especially considerate, 32 THE FAMILY true, and kind. In the estimation of many, families of this kind are model families, theirs is the true family life. But can a Christian min- ister look upon such family regulations and life as fulfilling God's purposes in the household? Assuredly not. No home, however orderly and refined, is what God would have it and what he would delight to make it without his worship and love. So in all our reflections and suggestions here, and in all our efforts to make the home life of our people and of all people better, we should think and plan and work from the standpoint of the Christian family. And now, again, the delicacy of this entire mat- ter of having to do with the family affairs of people is felt by every minister. These matters are recognized as domestic, as private, as personal. But are not almost all questions of practical reli- gion quite personal, and private, and indeed domestic in their final true application? And here, as everywhere, in the serious business of ful- filling our duties as the guardians and physicians of souls, the sense of duty must overbalance even the sense of delicacy. This, also, is a fact which should give every faithful minister encouragement and humble boldness in his efforts in behalf of the homes of his people, namely : that no other THE HUSBAND AND WIFE 33 man, not even the family physician, is received into such intimate rehitions and close confidence in the family as is its pastor; and so his public teachings and private counsels in behalf of the family welfare are given kind and considerate attention, and accorded no ordinary weight. But further, to a great extent, the more private and supposedly embarrassing features of his duty are obviated by the minister giving instructions upon these matters faithfully from his pulpit. The people, we may hope, will, in respect to their home and private affairs, as in respect to other practical matters, make for themselves the application. As we now turn our attention to the members of the family, the first to enter our minds are the husband and wife. The uniting of two in these relations makes a family. A family may, by and by, comprise more ; it cannot, in its beginning, comprise less. And ever, whatever its numbers, from its founding to its final breaking up, the family takes its spirit and type from those whose marital vows and relations constitute it. So let us take "The Husband and Wife and Their Rela- tions" for a topic at this hour. The ruin and destruction of the tree of the family by the sev- ering of its double trunk were referred to in our first paper. This question of the true relation 34 THE FAMILY of husband and wife is so vital, and the failure to recognize it so fraught with disaster, that it calls for more than a single and passing notice. Mr. Bishop, a leading writer upon this subject, says : " The nature of the marriage state does not admit of its being the subject of experimental and temporary arrangements and fleeting part- nerships. The union is, and should be, for life. It is so equally in reason, in the common senti- ments of mankind, and in the teachings of religion. No married partner should desert the other, commit adultery, beat or otherwise abuse the other, or forbear to do all that is possible for the sustenance and happiness of the other and of the entire family. Figuratively speaking, the two should walk hand in hand up the steeps of life and down its declivities and green slopes, then lay themselves together for the final sleep at the foot of the hill. Consequently, there should be no divorces, no divorce courts, no books on the law of divorce. In Utopia it will be so ; it ought to be so in our own country." This condition is far enough from being real- ized in this or any other land. On the other hand, the tendency to looseness of the marriage relation is recognized by all. Passing over the legal and business and social phases that are THE HUSBAND AND WIFE 35 evidently connected, both as causes and again as proposed remedies, let us note what interests us as ministers. One of the chief causes of this condition is the secularization of marriage. It has been, especially among Protestants, largely divested of its religious character. Hence, with many people, the concep- tion of the marriage relation is not clear as to whether it is a state or a contract, many evidently leaning to the idea of a contract. But real Christianity has ever, in keeping with the teaching of its Founder, not only held it to be a state, but has invested marriage and the cere- mony of marriage with a religious character. Even among the ancient heathen nations it partook of the nature of a religious service — and that of the most solemn character. And yet we know that, notwithstanding the measure of the religious which people generally, along with their ministers, connect with marriage, the sense of its peculiarly sacred character is not very deep-seated. And our modern divorce legislation is the product, or rather the expression, of this loose and perverted conception. "It does not in the least recognize any peculiarly sacred character in the institution." Our duty is clear to seek to make matrimony indeed a " holy estate." Whenever this relation is 36 THE FAMILY named by us in our public ministrations, in either sermon or prayer, let it be in language and spirit unmistakable; that both those who are married and those who contemplate marriage may have a clear view of it as "God's ordinance." And especially, both our bearing and our words when solemnizing matrimony should tend to make the service sacred and solemn, while at the same time joyous. Upon this question we must confess that the Ro- man Catholic Church has been rather more faithful in both teaching and practice than the Protestant. To the teaching of the Church of Rome that mar- riage is a " sacrament " we of course cannot assent ; but we can and should learn from the Catholic Church some lessons in insisting more strongly upon the sacred and binding relation between husband and wife. We as Protestants, and espe- cially as Protestant ministers, should, in loyalty to the teaching of Christ and to the historic spirit and symbols of Protestantism, more thoroughly surround matrimony with religious sanctions ; should insist upon its being much more than a contract — that it bears also sacred relations to society and to God ; and should in every possible way emphasize the religious elements of marriage. The wise choice of a companion is a matter of THE HUSBAND AND WIFE 37 first importance in its bearing upon the happi- ness of the family. " But what has a preacher to do with people's courtships," say you, "either pro or con ? Is he to engage in the match-making or match-breaking business?" No. Nor is he to become a lecturer on "Courtship and Mar- riage." He is simply to be a faithful overseer of his flock, jealously watching over their spiritual interests; and in so doing he will assuredly find himself deeply concerned, and that quite fre- quently, in the life companionships his people are making. Harmony of view and of profession and life on moral and religious matters is a prime essential to the harmony and happiness of a home. The Word of God, the good judgment of the thoughtful, and experience, all unite in teach- ing that a Christian should choose for a compan- ion, not a worldly person, a non-professor, but a Christian. "Be ye not unequally yoked to- gether with unbelievers." What is popularly called "mixed marriages," that is, in short, the marriage of Protestants with Catholics, is almost always the source of evil to the souls of both, and of discord in the family. Often such marriages are entered into with the condition imposed by one party that the other shall renounce the former religious life and 38 THE FAMILY make special promises concerning the religious con- nection of the children, and this condition is stren- uously sought and far most frequently secured on the Catholic side ; or frequently there is a tacit agreement that each shall go his or her own way as to religion and church connection. Here is a bad start, — almost wholly bad, whatever the agree- ment has been, — and it is bound to go from bad to worse. As for themselves, they each and both become discouraged and indifferent in respect to religious duties, and after for a time either both attending worship where one is really not a wor- shiper, or each going his or her lonely way to a separate church, both go nowhere to worship, and religious antagonism has resulted in religious death. And with the birth of the first child the case has only become more perplexing. Instead of the loved product of their affection being, as God designed, the cause of their even closer union, it becomes the occasion, first, of dispute, and so often, finally, of cruel estrangement. "What shall be its religious training?" is the question. "Shall it go with father or with mother — be Cath- olic or Protestant?" If promises were made at the demand of the priest at marriage, these are recalled, perhaps to be repudiated by one and insisted upon by the other. Or if, by mutual THE HUSBAND AND WIFE 39 consent, religion and church were set aside at marriage, so now the rehgious training of the child is let go by default. But whether with the children it be religiously this way or that way, or, as I have known, a divided way, for a time, after fifteen or twenty or thirty years have passed let it be asked, "What are the children of such and such families, religiously?" and nine cases out of ten the reply will be, " Oh, you know that those families were divided on church mat- ters, and the fact is, their children are nothing." AVe are aware that Rome has a close eye on this matter, and by manipulations at marriage, where her priests succeed in controlling this part, and afterward through the confessional, even at the cost of domestic felicity, she holds a close grip on what she has and what she claims as rightful gains. But generally, as we have seen, it is not Eome, or Protestantism, but the devil, that gets the best of these unwise and unrighteous bargains. Here I speak from personal observation, and could give facts that might startle you, and which would certainly impress the point I urge. So, if we as ministers would see our people become the found- ers of true and happy homes, and would save them to spiritual life and true religion, and to the church and to heaven, and save also their 40 THE FAMILY children with them and after them, we must be ahve to the duty of saving them from mixed marriages. To thus beheve and do is not ilhberal and un-American; it is wise, and the more ex- tended our observation and investigation the more clear and fixed become our convictions respecting this matter. Through private ways, chiefly in the homes of our people, and with the young people themselves, we can^ as occasion demands, give advice respecting this subject, now becoming more and more a live question in this country, and especially in our cities. But what shall be said respecting the much more common, the very common, marriage of Christians with the ordinary unregenerate people of the world ? May not Scripture teachings help us to a correct position relative to this? What is the will of God respecting the family alliances of his people ? Also may not experience help us to wisely apply Scripture and come to a correct judgment? What is the influence of marital union with the ungodly by Christians upon their own spiritual life, and upon the general spiritual life of the church? Turning to Scripture, we find the principle of separation from the people of the world applied in the parent family of God's chosen people. thp: husband and wife 41 Note the care of Abraham to have his son Isaac not take a wife of the daughters of the Canaan- ites, among whom he dwelt, but to marry within the circle of his own people. Isaac and Rebekah, being deeply grieved at the marriage of Esau with the daughters of Heth, contrary to the family tradition, purposed most positively to have Jacob kept from the snare, and the family line kept pure. The family decision was, " Thou shalt not take a wife of the daughters of Canaan," but " of the daughters of Laban thy mother's brother." This patriarchal regulation was made a law by Moses, governing relations with the people of Canaan. "Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son" (Deut. 7:3). Joshua, in his dying coun- sels, repeated the same positive prohibition. (Josh. 23: 12, 13.) The reason for this singular and difficult regulation is given in the fourth verse of Deut. 7 : " For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods." Here is well stated a great principle, as well as prophetically an historic fact. The sub- sequent history of Israel proved, by sad apostasies through marriages with the heathen, that the Mosaic restriction was wisely made. How dark 42 THE FAMILY the stain thus made upon even the glory of Solo- mon, and how baneful his influence upon the kings and people who came after ! When the day for reform comes, with the good and bold Ezra as leader, these unlawful intermarriages are found to be both the greatest cause of apostasy and the one prevailing and powerful influence in the way of national religious renovation and revival. Read Ezra, chapters 9 and 10, for the most imjDressive lesson in all history touching this question. We do not wonder that with all this history and teaching handed down from God's ancient church it should be held among his new Israel that their marriages should be "only in the Lord," as says Paul. (I. C'or. 7: 39.) And it appears clear that in liis second letter to the Corinthians (6: 14, etc.), ''Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers," etc., Paul had marriage as one thing in mind, But with multi- tudes of "believers" in our day, not only is being yoked together in marriage "with unbelievers" not questioned or considered for a moment, but they rush into such alliances eagerly, especially if wealth and social position may tlius be secured. We cannot but question the common sense of this course, and especially the piety of it. One will THE HUSBAND AND WIFE 43 be surprised, upon looking the matter up, to find so large a number of families in which but one of the heads of it is a Christian. In many churches it will be discovered, upon attention to the matter, that in one-third of the families represented such is the case. It is generally the husband who is the irreligious member, and the situation is only the same as obtained at the founding of the family. In a number the Christian has made a profession since marriage, but in the majority of cases the religious conditions are as they were at the founding of the family. Of such families certain things are almost the universal, necessary characteristics. There is no family prayer, nor any formal act of family devotion. Children, if in the home, are not brought up, at least fully, "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord"; the family atmosphere is not religious. While num- bers of such husbands or wives are devoutly pious, many yield, to their spiritual hurt, to the adverse influences to which all are subjected. Many are kept, by influences direct or indirect, from the sanctuary and means of grace. Heart- aches, trials of faith, and not unfrequent persecu- tions, crushing of spirit, and secret tears, could be named as a part of many a life's cup. The pious seldom influence the godless to come with them 44 THE FAMILY to Christ and the church, but strong influence is often exerted the other way ; and the pastor finds that his efiforts to reach and save these brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law of the church are as a rule unsuccessful, though they may be, as they generally are, special and tireless. Of course the influence of all this upon the general spiritual ' life of the church is of the same character as that exerted upon the religious life of the individual and family directly affected. The whole matter is to be deplored. It cannot be pleasing to God. It is against the spiritual good of multitudes of people and of thousands of homes, and is a great strain upon the vital spiritual current of the church of Christ. Certainly, in the interest of church and family and of the individual Christian, more attention should be given to this subject. It might be supposed to be unnecessary to suggest to the unmarried young ministers before me careful and godly attention to this subject in making selection of their own life partners; but we are all aware that many a young minister has been drawn into, or has rushed into, unwise, ''unequal," and very unfortunate marriage. While the usefulness of many capable ministers is crippled beyond repair by their unfortunate THE HUSBAND AND WIFE 45 family life, on the other hand, the genuine help received in his work and the increased influence gained by the preacher and pastor whose wife and family are what every minister's should be, are absolutely beyond computation. Concerning those mutual duties of love, kind attention, concession, forbearance, and bestow- ment of becoming honor, and the thousand things, little and great and sacred, that must be constantly receiving attention by those who are "no more twain, but one flesh," I have not spoken, — not because of their want of importance, for both the Word of God and the very relations of the married life give them great prominence. It should scarcely need to be stated that the proper relation between husband and wife should be prac- tically that of equality. We do not believe that the old idea of the lordship of the husband and the wife's obedient subordination is the original and divine conception of their relation. "So God created man in his ow^n image, in the image of God created he him ; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them. Be fruitful, and multiply, and replen- ish the earth, and subdue it ; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth 46 THE FAMILY upon the earth." Here are common place in creation and joint authority and rulership over the lower order of creation, and equal rights and privileges. Says Thwing : " The idea of equality between the husband and wife is the product of the thinking of the last century. It is the direct outgrowth of the principles of the Prot- estant Reformation, which have relaid the foun- dations of not a few of our social structures. The truth of this idea is admitted by compara- tively few persons in theory, but in practice it is almost universally recognized." Just here, however, it seems to me there is need for the recognition of certain evident and acknowledged distinctions as to the relation of husband and wife. As already indicated, as individuals they stand on an equality; but it would plainly be pressing the point too far to insist — as would seem to be done by the more liberal school — that as the heads of the family they stand on exactly the same plane. Rather, it should be acknowledged that in the organic relationship of the home, upon a natural basis, — as so designated likewise in Scripture, and also recognized by the common consent and custom of mankind, — the husband is placed as the nomi- nal head. Necessity seems to require this. For THE HUSBAND AND WIFE 47 instance, by what name shall the new family be known ? The one general custom of the ages has been that the woman should lose her name and take that of her husband. Notice, that in all this there is no setting the two apart, the one as superior and the other inferior; the wife may be, and often is, in personal character the acknowledged superior. It is a matter of relative rank in the organization of the family and not of absolute rank as intelligent and moral agents and children of God. And as stated, this matter of rank is not to be pressed ; but in the control and management of the home, their interest and efibrt should be practically on the same plane ; they should join as equals in its duties, sacrifices, responsibilities, and counsels. This is in keeping with the spirit of the gospel, the dictates of jus- tice, and the demands of high expediency. Those homes are the best and happiest, and produce the noblest character, where husband and wife meet on a level and each recognizes the complete indi- viduality of the other ; w^here the central idea of true wedlock, the idea of mutual self-surrender, constantly prevails ; and where a double headship saves the home from both the obnoxious tyranny and the many follies of a sole dictator. "They twain shall be one" 48 THE FAMILY The two fundamentals in the making of a truly happy Christian home, namely, a true conception of the religious character and sacredness of matri- mony, and the wisdom and duty of Christians being "not unequally yoked together with unbe- lievers" in wedlock, have been discussed because, first, they are fundamental and comprehensive ; secondly, because the disregard of them is so common and the deleterious results therefrom to religious family life, and to the family in general, and to religion in general, are so widespread ; and thirdly, because as ministers and as a people we are giving to them too little attention. There is another subject bearing directly upon the relation of husband and wife, and affecting so vitally their happiness, and having also such a relation to the general subject before us, that I feel it should claim at least brief attention, though it be a matter of acknowledged delicacy. A true conception of marriage includes parentage. To be a husband means to be a father, and to be a wife means to be a mother. Nature, or rather our wise and beneficent Creator, has joined with wed- lock, as an end — its most holy product, shall we say? — and also as its highest joy for those truly wedded, the babe. A home without children does not rise to God's intention in founding the family. THE HUSBAND AND WIFE 49 It is well said by Mr. Pomeroy that "the heart of society is the home, and the heart of the home is the cradle. . . . The home which has never been hallowed by the influence of a little child can never completely fulfill the ideal of a home, and almost needs an apology for being." Would that public sentiment and public practice were in universal accord with these God-instituted and heaven-blessed conditions of wedlock. Says Rev. J. T. Duryea, D.D., in words as plain as true : "They who are not willing to become parents ought not to marry. They who are not willing to consecrate marriage to the family, and the family to its high ends, ought not to marry." Divorce has been named as a great enemy of the family, but divorce is not the worst enemy. There is a perversion of marriage that strikes a more deadly arrow at its heart ; that stains it with worse than scandal — with blood. I refer to that sin whose foul character has stamped it as " name- less," but which must be named, the destruction of unborn human life — a sin against nature, high treason against the family, a crime against society, and a sin whose cry pierces highest heaven. And it must be said, for it is the shame- ful truth, that this particular double-dyed sin lies at the door, not of the so-called lower classes, 50 THE FAMILY but chiefly at the door of the so-called highly respectable people. We blush to acknowledge that such a crime should be at all prevalent in Christendom. We have the greater shame that the nations across the water call it " the American sin." One of our writers upon this subject asks, "Must it always remain true that in America wealth and prosperity of the family put a pre- mium upon its decay ? " I have neither time nor disposition to dwell upon the diverse methods, or to weigh the supposed difl'erences, of their one common crime and sin, used in preventing parentage. It is against every phase and feature of this destruction of prenatal life that I would raise my voice. The minister and the patriot and the philanthropist have much to give them anxiety for the future of true family life and for the future general welfare of the com- munity. I call your attention to this question, that as public teachers you may give it due con- sideration and be prepared to deal with it in such ways as you may see most fitting and effective. I suggest for your reading, and for you to recom- mend to young people (married and single), such works as "Ethics of Marriage" by H. S. Pomeroy, M.D. In the closing sentences of Dr. Duryea's able introduction to this book are these words; THE HUSBAND AND WIFE 51 "The family is the source of the church, and enters it as a unit of its hfe, a soHcl factor in its organism. For this reason all teachers of reli- gion should manifest their cordial sympathy and give their hearty support to the sociologists who are endeavoring to secure the integrity and purity of marriage, to devote it to the family, and so conserve its high ends, and accordingly aim to instruct and guide, to caution and warn, the people in respect of the uses and abuses of these fundamental and sacred institutions." Let the general intelligence and the common moral sense be summoned to lend their aid in elevating both the idea of the family and its tone of life, and let lawmakers and law-executors be invoked to continually throw around this most sacred relation of husband and wife the protec- tion of wholesome laws, — all this is helpful ; but more, and especially, let the enlightened Christian conscience, led by the Christian ministry, be brought to bear in molding the family life of the land; and, above all, let the law of God be made the guide in all things pertaining to the union of hands and hearts and lives in the founding and conducting of every home. CHAPTER III. THIRD LECTURE — THE RELATION BETWEEN PARENTS AND CHILDREN. Gentlemen of the Semmary: — There remains yet untouched, in our consider- ation of the family, the relation of parents to children. So before us lies the whole of the great subject of family government and home child- training. To be compelled to say to you, brethren, that our consideration together of this vital subject must be confined to this one hour is to me a matter of regret, and to enter upon its treatment in one short paper seems almost worse than trifling with the subject. But we can, at least, if we cannot do more, hold the question up before us, and take one steady look at it, with the hope that thereby we may be led to see its importance and to give to it the future attention which that importance demands. That the child makes the man and shapes the man is as true of soul and character as it is of body and form. And where is the child most 52 PARENTS AND CHILDREN 53 powerfully impressed? At home. Who, then, are the natural and heaven-ordained guardians and molders of child life, and so of manhood and womanhood ? The parents. Thus at home by his parents are exerted upon the mind and soul of the child those influences which, in a pre- vailing degree, shape his character and guide his destinies for time and eternity. A great fact, a truth that should have com- manding force, is stated in the last sentence. This has been recognized by the more observing among the good of all ages ; but in this century, and especially in our day, it is evidently claiming wdder attention. True, its practical disregard is still sadly prevalent, but at the same time its intelligent and practical consideration is on the increase. I think that the occasion of this increasing attention to the home training of children is due, in a large degree, to the increased attention in general that is being given to chil- dren; to their education, public as w^ell as private; to their reading, sports, pleasure, etc., and espe- cially due to the interest and effort being directed toward the moral and religious good of children and youth, as through the Sunday school, chil- dren's bands, and other like agencies. The most valuable and almost the only well- 54 THE FAMILY written literature upon the subject is the product of the last sixty years, and the best and most has been penned during the last twenty years. The choicest book upon the subject of which I have knowledge is the latest, that by H. Clay Trumbull, editor of the Sunday-School Times, entitled, "Hints on Child-Training." Of the earlier works, that written in 1833 by Rev. John S. C. Abbott, under the title, "The Mother at Home," is perhaps the most thorough and valuable. Between these books have appeared a goodly number of varying size and with different de- grees of merit. Meantime, magazines and other periodicals have been calling more repeated at- tention to the subject. Philanthropists and phi- losophers are studying the subject with new interest, and we not infrequently hear weighty words from such men as Joseph Cook and others. Even statesmen of the type of Chauncey M. Depew, upon fitting occasions, are giving their mature and deep convictions upon the home duties of parents in eloquent and stirring public speech. Women of truest heart and clearest vision are being heard. The question is in the minds and upon the hearts of the best i)eople. It is upon the advanced wave of Cliristian thought, and with each year its vital relation to PARENTS AND CHILDREN 55 morals and religion will appear more clear and command greater practical attention. In the preface of his admirable work, "Christian Nur- ture," Horace Bushnell well says, "This subject is one of the highest in the order of consequence, both as respects the welfare of religion and of human society." In the second paragraph of the first chapter is this sentence: "Few questions have greater moment ; and it is one of the pleas- ant signs of the times that the subject involved is beginning to attract new interest and excite a spirit of inquiry which heretofore has not pre- vailed in our churches." And should not this theme be prominent in the thought of the minister? As the directors and leaders in all matters relating to the for- mation of Christian character, we certainly can- not but be deeply interested in, and foremost in promoting, the more intelligent and success- ful Christian home training of the children of the church and of the land. And it is a fact that, as in all fields of advanced religious thought and work, so here, the pens and voices of wide- awake and pious ministers are the power that is awakening and leading. This is but the natural, and we may say inevitable, feeling and position of a true gospel minister ; for he seeks to utilize 56 THE FAMILY every moral agency in the work of saving men. Now here he sees in the parent one more power- ful than himself in determining personal charac- ter and destiny. He sees the home, the family, wielding moral influence and directing character for good or bad, before he and the church can reach the young subject ; and after he has reached him, exerting that influence always more contin- uously and with more telling and lasting effect. His evident duty is, if possible, to direct that agency, giving it true moral tone and turning it along lines of wise and beneficent influence. Thus it becomes the minister's duty and privi- lege to take an interest, direct and practical, in the proper Christian training of the children of the families of his people. This interest is not to be merely passive and quiet, but, to be of value to his people, must be active and efficient. He will see it his duty to give the parents of his congregation, and the children also, instruction upon the sub- ject of proper family government and order. Should not a pastor kindly assist a mother and father in their efforts to properly rear their chil- dren? Why not? Very frequently during a pastoral visit conversation turns upon the chil- dren, perhaps at school, and the parent expresses deep concern for their good. How opportune the PARENTS AND CHILDREN 57 occasion to offer suggestions that would be help- ful. Should the pastor give instruction from the pulpit — should he preach upon this subject? Why not ? " I used to," said a certain preacher, *'and in my younger days gave the parents of my flock full and frequent instructions how to rule their households and train children ; but since I 've several of my own, my inclination and ability along that line seem to have declined." To this it may be said that while he honestly acted from inclination in both cases, in neither, perhaps, did he act wisely. Age, and observation, and experience should be as helpful here as anywhere. But if w^hat has been said is true, — and its truth is apparent, — parents should be both informed as to their duty and assisted in perform- ing it. Evidently, and in logical order, the first thought to be impressed upon parents is their duty and responsibility in this regard. Of this, most parents have at least some idea, though it may be quite superficial and vague. Yet but few have any just and full conception of the towering import of this matter. Nor do parents generally realize how their own happiness or misery in middle or later life is determined by their faithfulness or unfaith- fulness in bringing up their children. 68 THE FAMILY Every child has a right to the very best train- ing his parents can give. "He has the right to the personal care of both father and mother, a care which can never be delegated to others without serious loss to both parent and child." One has said : " To be fed and clothed are among the minor rights which children may demand of parents. It is their right to learn from their parents, both by precept and example, those prin- ciples of truth, of honor, of personal purity in thought and life, which are a heritage of incal- culable worth. Such instruction can be left to no teacher, however faithful ; to no religious guide, however devoted. The parent owes it to the child, for whose existence he is responsible." The duties which the child owes the parent are many, and may be briefly comprehended in obedience and loving confidence. But, " however great and important these duties, it cannot be overlooked that the parent owes far more to the child than the child to the parent." The impera- tive nature of the duty on the part of parents to carefully and wisely direct their children, especially in the paths of true moral and reli- gious life, arises from the universal need of it. Kespecting this point, a keen writer has observed that a certain loose view is being asserted by -PARENTS AND CHILDREN 59 some to the effect that the true principle of training for children is practically no training at all ; the best government, no government. *'"\Vhy not," say they, "let the child have his own way, think his own thoughts, and so be developed in the freedom and beauty of the flowers ? Let us not put harsh restraint upon the child's natural liberty, but allow him, unstunted, to grow up as a genuine character, a large-minded, liberal, original, and beautiful soul." "If he should sometimes fall into bad tempers and disgraceful or uncomely practices, as flowers do not, let him learn how to correct himself and be righted by his own discoveries." Such a theory implies a confidence in human nature complete. But alas ! experience is agpinst this angelic theory, and teaches that children left to merely blossom into character come to character such as no true parent would desire, and such as secures anything but good to the self-directed child and youth. Freedom from parental curbing, instruction, and guiding is seen to be perilous and ruinous. "A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame" (Prov. 29: 15). Hence, further. Scripture gives great prominence to the duty of parental care and instruction. Of Abraham God says, "I know him, that he will 60 THE FAMILY command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord." Of his statutes and judgments, God said to his ancient people, ''Teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons ; . . . that they may teach their chil- dren" (Deut. 4: 9, 10). "And these words . . . thou shalt teach . . . diligently unto thy chil- dren, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house," etc. (Deut. 6: 6, 7.) "For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children ; that the generation to come might know them," etc. (Ps. 78 : 5, 6.) "Chasten thy son while there is hope." " Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest." "Train up a child in the way he should go ; and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Prov. 22:6). "Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath : but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. 6:4). The training, the Christian nurture, of their children is, in the very nature of things, and by the Word of God, the most sacred and most im- portant of all the religious duties of parents. So, brethren, wherever you go, "these things command and teach." PARENTS AND CHILDREN 61 And now, having awakened in the minds of parents a proper interest in this vital matter, and a pious desire to fulfill their obligations, it is our duty, and our glad duty, to aid them in their seeking of further light, and in their efforts — per- haps entirely new — to make their homes really orderly and Christian. Here is imposed upon us no ordinary duty — nay, indeed, but an extraordinary and a most delicate task. For its successful performance there is needed special preparation; there is needed particular interest in the subject, and a grasp of it in general and in detail. And I dare to assert that there is need of all these in such a degree as, I regret to say, but few ministers possess. The fact is, that while, as before stated, a new interest is being awakened upon this subject, the vast body of the ministry are still asleep as to its real import. Very few have given the question serious study. Very few clergymen have works in their libraries treating upon it, and a person might listen to a thousand sermons before he would hear one upon family government or home religion. I have really anticipated — presumed — too much for the minister in supposing that he has already interested his people upon the matter. He cannot do this until he has first interested 62 THE FAMILY himself. He must first have thought and read and prayed, and prayed and read and thought again ; and this, I repeat, is what but few minis- ters have as yet done. How, then, shall we thoroughly qualify our- selves to first interest and then properly instruct our people ? How shall we bring this truly great matter out of its place of general and harmful neglect in the rear, to its true place of divinely appointed and helpful prominence in the front? The method is simple and the means at hand. In addition to personal observation, investigate, study, read the subject up carefully. First study it as set forth in the Bible — as laid before God's people by the Holy Spirit. This will open up a mine, a field, which will be a revelation indeed. Then read the able books — now growing to be numerous — written upon the subject. This is scarcely less important than the study of the Scriptures, and I would even urge this upon every one. Incidentally I have already named three books, to which I here add a fourth, and give together their titles and authors: "The Mother at Home," by Rev. John S. C. Abbott (1833); "Gentle Measures in the Management of the Young," by Jacob Abbott (1871); "Christian Nurture," by Horace Bushnell (1876), and "Hints PARENTS AND CHILDREN 63 on Child-Training," by H. Clay Trumbull (1890). These are unexcelled ; but as many more might be named, of almost equal merit, from which the eager student will make further selections. The very names of some of these writers are just ground for high expectation, and the study of their books will more than satisfy it. By their pages this subject will be opened to your mind in such a light as it has not before appeared, and will be impressed upon your heart with such weight as at the present it is impossible for you to feel. The subject is discussed in almost every possible phase, embracing the vigorous treatment of all the fundamental principles involved, as well as the presentation of the practical applica- tion of these principles in the most perfect and helpful detail. It will at once occur to a minister that he has come upon a very practical moral and religious question, in which both himself and his people are in common concerned, and he will be anxious that these books, one or more of them, should also be in the hands of every parent of his flock. They are written for parents, but from want of information and interest, very, very few parents even know of their existence. What a blessing to a home, to the many disorderly and practically 64 THE FAMILY unchristian, though professedly religious, homes, such a book would be. At the earnest sug- gestion of their pastor, many parents would gladly procure it. But these books are a necessity to every minister, both as a source of interest and inspiration and as fertile suggesters of practical thoughts for his people. There is another consideration in view of which it becomes a gospel minister to be well informed upon the subject of family government and nurture. That is, that he himself, when in God's providence he has become the head of a household, may be able to join with the wife and mother in the conduct of a truly orderly and pious home, bringing up his own children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Indeed, the Word of God specifies his ability to do this as one of the qualifications necessary to his being placed in this responsible office. He "must be . . . one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity ; (for if a man know not liow to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)" The logic of this is irresistible, and when we reflect that in this particular especially the minister and his family are expected, by both God and men, to be " ensamples to the flock," we see the immeasur- PARENTS AND CHILDREN 65 able importance of tlie pastor's home being one not only without dishonor or even weakness in this regard, but one 'where the positive character^ istics and the sweet and shining graces and virtues of true Christian family life constantly and in their best form prevail. Passing the joy a minister himself takes in such home conditions and life and the special moral strength his heart receives therefrom, we are considering only their bearing upon his influence and usefulness among his people. Perhaps the w^holesome influence of such pastoral family life in the leading of the flock is the better appreciated because of the injurious influence of its opposite. And of such instances, we are all pained to know, there are not a few. From such sad and blighting home conditions God designs that his ministers may be saved, and from such they shall be saved, if they will give proper attention to the direction of their family concerns. The rather, it is certainly the purpose of the Great Shepherd that each under- shepherd's little home flock should be a sample to all the other family circles of the entire flock over which he is placed. And for the meeting of our responsibility he has given instructions, and his own word declares that he will crow^n our sincere efforts with success. 5 66 THE FAMILY The great general fact back of all, and that calls for all that is here being advanced of argu- ment or assertion, the fact of the controlling power of family life in molding character, both individual and so, also, general, has its root in the eternal nature and fitness of things. I say fitness of things, for we can see that it is fit and wise, and indeed gracious, that God should have so ordered. Being, then, fit and natural, it is the divine design that it should be made to cooperate in the carrying forward of God's great purpose of grace in the gospel. It is his wish that his church and people, recognizing this universal rule and law in the impressing of principles and practices upon each rising generation of men, should plan their work accordingly, should make use of parental direction and home life, should sanctify this mighty agency of power and turn it into the channel of the church's aims. This we know was done in the ancient Jewish church by general "statute," and through the ages on down to this day the power of family instruction has been able to mold into the beliefs and char- acter of their ancestors of thirty-five centuries ago each succeeding generation. Also, when we trace back to their sources the influences that have been potent in the formation of the charac- TARENTS AND CHILDREN 67 ter of particular men in the history of God's peo- ple, we find ahnost universally that they had their formation, their real birth, in the training of pious parents, and especially of pious and faithful mothers. The counsel and training of his father and mother, when a child, made Joseph the pure and strong and great character he was, despite the utter absence of helpful associations after his early youth. Moses was reared in a luxurious heathen court, but by his mother. The mother's power in the case of Samuel is distinctly told in Old Testa- ment history ; and also, by Paul, Timothy's char- acter is ascribed to the faithful instruction of mother and grandmother. The history of the Christian church is made radiant by the beautiful examples of pious mothers in training their chil- dren for God and the church. Nonna, mother of Gregory Nazianzen, Anthusa, mother of Chrys- ostom, and Monica, mother of Augustine, will ever hold an honored place in the annals of early ecclesiastical history, because of their faithfulness in rearing their children. For the great sons and leaders they trained for the church every generation of God's people will rise up and call them blessed. "Saint Augustine," as Mr. Trum- bull says, "has been called the most important 68 THE FAMILY convert to the truth from Saint Paul to Luther. Near the close of his eventful life Saint Augustine said : ' It is to my mother that I owe everything. If I am thy child, 0 my God ! it is because thou gavest me such a mother. If I prefer the truth to all things, it is the fruit of my mother's teachings.' " Luther's pious mother gave the stamp to his life. Note the mother's well-known influence in the cases of Payson, Baxter, and Doddridge. What mighty influences for good the pious parents of the Wesleys started in their humble home. We know of the part played by a pious mother in giving to us and the world our own Otterbein. ''Home influence, directed by a pious mother," said Wash- ington, "is the source of my success." John Quincy Adams and President Nott delighted to refer to their godly mothers. AVhen on his death-bed, Rev. Dr. Adams, of New York, remarked, " I owe everything to the judicious training of my parents." The mother of Lincoln died when he was but ten years of age, and even at that age he was well instructed in the Scriptures, and of his mother he said, "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my mother." The devotion of Garfield to his mother was only equaled by her faithful devotion to his early PARENTS AND CHILDREN 69 Christian training. John B. Gough once said in reference to his mother, before a great audience, " I stand before you to-night to declare that if I have ever accompHshed anything in the world, if I have ever done aught of good, what I am, and what I have done, by the grace of God, has been through the influence of that mother." Thus does history utter one voice in proclaim- ing the beneficence and power of pious homes ; thus do generals, statesmen, jurists, reformers, and divines unite in attributing their correct heart beliefs and their life successes to the godly parental nurture given them in childhood. And this is a fact of almost universal prevalence with the great army of godly, active Christian workers to-day — among Sunday-school teachers, missionaries, ministers of the gospel, professors in Christian institutions, and students in theological seminaries. Let all of us here this morning who have been blessed with the pra^^ers and instruc- tions of pious parents raise the hand. [Almost every right hand went up.] Ah, yes, brethren, we are here to-day giving ourselves to this high and holy calling because we have had godly parents. Valuable as is the instruction given us here, the foundation upon which these faithful and learned teachers build was laid in our child- 70 THE FAMILY hood by modest, devoted mothers. With truth and force does Shairp say, "College learning is good, but all the learning of all the universities of Europe cannot compensate for the loss of that which the youth, reared in a religious home, has learned in childhood at his mother's knee." Oh, what power for good in the narrow and sacred enclosure of the home ! With wdiat signal blessing has God always stamped parental instruc- tion and home religion. Starting at humble family altars, what mighty streams of power have poured forth to flow through the earth. To-day, of the many forces sanctified and used by God for the spread of truth and righteousness, none can take the place of, and none can equal, the power exerted in the millions of our humble Christian homes. "It is to thoroughly good and righteous family life that the church must look for its greatest element of strength." To exalt this fact in the estimation of the people, and to secure among them more intelligent and faithful attention to the Christian nurture of their children, is at once both the sacred duty and the high privilege of the Christian minister. CHAPTER IV. WORDS TO PARENTS. While every husband and wife, and especially every parent, would be interested, and, it is hoped, profited, by the reading of the foregoing lectures, whose contents were originally prepared for min- isters, it would seem that in offering them for general reading an additional chapter should be written addressed directly to parents. But who can do anything like justice to the subject of parental duties in a few pages? The family training of children is a theme of such impor- tance and of such a multitude of phases and points, theoretical and practical, that it needs volumes for its just treatment. And upon it volumes have been written. Here nothing more can be attempted than to make suggestions which may be helpful in themselves and which will prompt parents to greater attention to and further study of the subject. Perhaps just here it should be said that our need as parents is not so much specific instructions how to control our households and properly bring 71 72 THE FAMILY up our children, as a deep sense of our sacred duty in this regard. All faithful parents recog- nize the duty — and joyfully give their lives to its performance — of providing, to the best of their ability, for the material comfort of their children ; but multitudes of such almost utterly neglect family discipline. They feed and clothe tlieir boys and girls, and that is about all. Do children need, in the home, nothing more than this ? Do not parents know that while their children's bodies and minds are developing, there is also developing daily something else — character ? And who is to direct this growth? Or does it need no oversight and direction? It is so ordered in the nature of things that the child will become and will do largely what the parent by his in- fluence determines. Mr. H. Clay Trumbull truly says, respecting this point : " It is a parent's privi- lege, and it is a parent's duty, to make his children, by God's blessing, to be and to do what they should be and do, rather than what they would like to be and do. If indeed this were not so, a parent's mission would be sadly limited in scope, and diminished in importance and pre- ciousness. The parent who does not recognize the possibility of training his children, as well as instructing them, misses one of his highest priv- WORDS TO PARENTS 73 ileges as a parent, and fails of his most important work for his children." The first and great essential in every well-con- ducted home is order ; that is, the daily operation and fruits of good family government. Without this it is impossible to properly rear any child. It is folly to be considering the training of their children on the part of any parents who have not learned first to govern them. Time cannot, and need not, be taken to argue this palpable truth. But what shall be the fundamental prin- ciple of the home government ? Various princi- ples and methods are in vogue among parents. Shall the method be reason? Must the parent depend upon his ability to convince his child of the reasonableness or propriety of the child's recognizing the justice of parental control in gen- eral, and the righteousness of each particular com- mand? This w^ould hardly stand as a practical prin- ciple, for young children are not capable of know- ing or being made to understand all "the whys and wherefores" of even the wisest requirements. Shall affection be the method ? Must the appeal to his boy's love be the father's dependence for obedience? Very likely at times the boy's self- love — his genuine self-will — will overbalance his love for his father and his father's will. 74 THE FAMILY Shall the mother base her control of the home, so often left to her single effort, upon the mutual love that should exist and does exist between her and her children? Love is a mighty power in every true home, and should be cultivated and used to its utmost strength ; but can government be built upon it ? Suppose selfishness and aroused passion should override it ; what then ? Without giving further attention to faulty prin- ciples, I assert that the one only true method of governing a home is by authority. This is the fundamental principle that must be recognized in theory and practice. It is simply the inevital)le outgrowth of the recognition of "what the posi- tion of a parent means, — one of direction and authority, — and what the relation of children means — honor and obedience." Such is the teaching of Scripture, which expects a father to be a man who "ruleth well his own house," and requires of children that they obey their par- ents. This order in the home rests on the very nature of things, and cannot change, whatever may be the spirit of the age; and this order of things is to be assumed at once by parents as a matter of course, and thus it will be recognized at once by the children also as a matter of course. Yes, the authority of parents is the only basis WORDS TO PARENTS 75 upon which they can build the government and carry out the governing of their households. Now, having settled upon the basis of author- ity, the important inquiry is, how it shall be firmly established and made practically success- ful and beneficent. Perhaps the majority of parents believe in this principle. The error is not in principle, but in practice. How to govern, how to maintain authority, securing its whole- some results, is the great practical matter. In general, it should not be done by harsh or severe methods. Gentle measures, natural measures, are at once the reasonable and the successful ones. Threats, scolding, scaring, cufiing, and the like, so common, are no part of wise parental conduct. These things weaken authority, as does the im- posing of unreasonable and unpaternal require- ments. Here let it be remembered that the child has rights. Parents have not a right to act as they please toward children. Says Kate Doug- las Wiggin: "The child has rights, an individ- uality ; is not owned, mind, body, and soul, by the parent ; he owns himself. The parent is simply a divinely-appointed guardian, who acts for his child until he attains what we call the age of discretion." And children have a keen apprecia- tion of their rights. Their sense of justice, their 76 THE FAMILY perception of things unreasonable, unkind, op- pressive, passionate, and cruel, is wonderfully quick, and their sensitive, susceptible natures are capable of the deepest wounding. Just as with a person of years, their whole nature rises up against felt encroaclnnents upon their rights. It is sadly unnatural when the administration of authority in the home is such that the souls of the children are wounded, and chafed, and goaded to the point of disrespect for the parental government, and finally, as is so often the case, to the point of disregard. The punishment of children in some measure may enter now and then as a necessary factor in their proper training. This may be imposed in various ways. One general method may be by curtailing some of their usual privileges in case of offenses. The most difficult method to correctly administer is corporal punishment. This should be resorted to only as an extreme measure and a last resort. The better the home government the less of bodily punishment appears in its ad- ministration. One has put the matter thus: that it is a question of greater or less skill in parents, and of higher or lower means. It is much as in civil government; there are higher and more enlightened forms, and there are lower and more WORDS TO PARENTS 77 coarse forms. And so it is a reflection upon the management of a home that its tlieory and prac- tice of government should be by the rod. In this way obedience is sought and obtained through fear of punishment, and the child becomes a slave. As said, the rod sliould not be the settled method, but the incidental one — the very last resort. This is surely the position of Scripture upon this point. But if it becomes necessary to inflict corporal punishment, let it be done in the right spirit. It should never be done in anger. The great difiiculty lies right at this point. Most parents are apt to j)unisli the offending child when they are irritated by the provoking offense. Space cannot be taken to j^oint out the many evils of such a course. In his admirable work, ''Hints on Child-Training," Mr. Trumbull devotes an entire chaj^ter to the topic, "Never Punish a Child in Anger." It is one of the most timely and valuable chapters in his excellent book. When in our inquiry for the true method of governing it was agreed that it must be by pa- rental authority, and not by reason or affection, these two forces in the home were not supposed to be discarded. They are to be constantly active as potent and essential aids to the reign of peace- producing authority. For instance, it will cer- 78 THE FAMILY tainly lead a child to more willing and intelligent obedience, to see also the reasons for what is re- quired. Let not our assigning of duties be sim- ply by the cold, stern word of command. No home should be under martial rule. Yet we can- not be exjDected to always give our children the reasons for our commands. That they are our commands is the prime and sufficient reason for their ready fulfillment, but very often a word of explanation wdll both interest the child and en- list him in his obedience. As to affection, there can be no true home with- out it — no true fulfilling of the duties of parents or of children. Love is not only "the greatest thing in the world," but it is the very life and soul of that inner, sacred w^orld, the family. No parent can possibly exercise true parental control who has not reigning in his breast parental tender- ness and love ; and that obedience is but formal and forced which is not the obedience of love. Households where love reigns are generally house- holds where order reigns, and vice versa. Parents who seek to rule largely by the power of affection, will find their influence over their children well established and constantly increasing. Love in the parent begets love in the child, and the child's love prompts him to ready and true obedience. WORDS TO PARENTS 79 Parents will strengthen their hold upon the children by cultivating a sympathy and proper familiarity between themselves and their chil- dren. Children are especially appreciative of any interest taken in the things which concern them. We should enter into their joys and sor- rows, into their plans and plays ; in short, should enter into their life. How few parents do this ! and by this want of sympathy, how much they lose of power to direct and aid. Says one, " There are, however, parents who sympathize with their children in all things, and as a result they prac- tically train and sway their children as they will ; for when there is entire sympathy between two persons, the stronger one is necessarily the con- trolling force with both." Mr. Hopkinson Smith wrote to fathers: "Open your heart and your arms wide for your daughters, and keep them open ; don't leave all that to their mothers. An intimacy will grow up with the years, which will fit them for another man's arms and heart when they exchange yours for his. Make a chum of your boy, 'hail fellow, well met,' a comrade. Get down to the level of his boyhood, and bring him gradually up to the level of your manhood. Don't look at him from the second-story window of your fatherly superiority and example." Many 80 THE FAMILY parents do not feel prompted to this beautiful and helpful sympathy, but it can be cultivated ; in fact, it needs in almost all cases to be persistently cultivated. Children, also, who are wanting in sympathy will soon reciprocate it, and so there can be secured that mutual love and esteem which promote . every natural and divinely- ordered relation between children and parents. In applying even good principles, parents are liable to many mistakes and faults. There is such a thing as overdoing in the matter of child- training. This evil may be as great as that of neglect. And it is likely that this mistake will be made most frequently by young parents who are deeply interested and thoroughly conscien- tious in the proper training of their children. So watchful and untiring and particular are they that they almost stand over their children, and scarcely allow them to make a move without their kindly direction and aid. Such constant guarding and guiding are bound to unnecessarily worry and cramp and even confuse a child. It is started out by a command here and confronted by a prohibition there ; it "must not do this" and it "must do that," and so it is forever under the parent's "must." The poor little creature is never free. Under this over-attention it feels a constant WORDS TO PARENTS 81 restraint. Suppose a child does step aside now and then, or even frequently ; it will be much the better course to not see every little fault. Let the fault, at least when not flagrant, pass unnoticed. Some parents actually acquire a habit of contin- ually objecting to whatever their children are doing whenever they are within sight or hearing. This kind of attention is almost always of a fault- finding spirit, and leads the parent to be given to a "nagging" habit. There is constant danger also, by this overdone strictness, of provoking a clashing of wills. The clashing of the will of the child with that of the parent ought, if possible, to be avoided. The true aim of the parent should be the directing and training of his child's will, not the breaking or crushing of it in a set battle. Of course the will of the parent must be the recognized law of the home, but it will at once appear as the most blind and stupid folly to pursue a course that must half the time array the will of the children against it. As said else- where, let the child's individuality be recognized. On the other hand, a parent should see it wise and right to give his child no little freedom. He should even indulge the child's desires when they are of an innocent kind and have no harmful tendencies. Proper indulgence is not at all in- 82 THE FAMILY compatible with the exercise of the fullest author- ity and control. But here is a very vital point, and it requires no little wisdom on the part of parents to judge. Loose and indiscriminate in- dulgence of children has proved the ruin of thousands, and the destroyer of the happiness of multitudes of homes. And attention ought to be called to the present tendency to the over-indul- gence of children. With many there is such a swinging away from the old-time rigidity of restraint that it carries them over to the other equally hurtful extreme. It is the golden mean toward which the wise parent will aim. To fol- low this golden mean requires great wisdom. It calls for both kindness and firmness. No other question is more difficult to deal with. And this is especially the case when the children have reached more advanced boyhood and girlhood. A thoughtful writer suggests that at this period of the child's development parents should, on the one hand, guard against such close watching as will prevent self-action and the cultivation of self-con- trol, and, on the other, against giving that full free- dom which at this age the child is by no means qualified to exercise without great peril. Here is what is often and is rightly called the critical age. Once helped safely through these unsteady and WORDS TO PARENTS 83 fateful years, the young man and young woman are most likely out on an open sea and a safe voyage. The cultivation of self-control and development of the spirit of self-dependence is a matter of great importance at this preparatory stage. Soon the boy and girl must act for themselves, whether ready for self-direction or not. It is certainly the duty of the parent to prepare his child for the assuming of life's real and stern tasks. This cannot be done otherwise than by giving him freedom, and imposing duties, and even thrusting him amid common temptations and perils, all under parental supervision and aid. Under- standing this principle, men of large commercial interests, which are by and by to fall into the hands and control of sons, thrust their sons out into the practical business world while under their tutelage. They are prevented from com- mitting great blunders in their amateur attempts, but they are also taught — self-taught — in the tactics of successful business. What we parents want to do is to prepare our children, if we can, for the real world that awaits them. We want to teach them moral stability, such as will surely be required in our sin-ruined world. And so let the drill and first skirmishes be part of the experience of their training days at home. 84 THE FAMILY It has beeu agreed that the child has his rights. One of his first rights and most sacred is the right to a good example in his parents. The child is to be pitied who has not this. Children live during their earlier years largely in the realm of the senses. Their impressions are gotten chiefly through the eye and ear, and that other unnamed sense which we may designate as that of instinctive soul perception. They are great imitators. They are very impressible by the evident character of those nearest them. They are apt learners from object lessons. It is, after all, not so much the home rule that molds the children as the home living. The living father and mother, their own inner and outer self, this is the felt and molding force of the home. The important matter is the ruler within the rulers. "O'er wayward childhood would'st thou hold firm rule, And sun thee in the light of happy faces? Love, hope, and patience there must be thy graces, And in thine own heart let them first keep school." It is especially important that parents do not show a lack of command of self. To manifest the very weaknesses of temper which they forbid in their children is exceedingly unfortu- nate, and to give way to them in the midst of the administration of family order and discipline WORDS TO PARENTS 85 is the very climax of weakness. "Very often a father or mother is the chief figure in a house- hold uproar, the biggest child of them all, and whose only superiority, either real or recognized, consists in superior brute force. In thousands of homes almost every day parents actually quarrel with their children." What a sad sight ! This is sowing to the wind, whose reaping is sure to be the whirlwind. From the children of such a home has already flown their last feeling of respect for its mock authority, and, sadder, from their souls will soon be driven their last lingering breathings of filial affection. "Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath." One thing has been taken for granted in these suggestions to parents respecting their efibrts in the direction of family affairs, and that is that there is agreement and cooperation of the father and mother — cooperation both as to the general plans of the home order and also as to the methods of their practical carrying out. This is a most vital matter, so vital that it would seem that parents of the most ordinary intelligence would see it and invariably act accordingly. But the fact is that in very many homes no such order of things exists. In some matter touching the conduct of the children, one parent proposes a 86 THE FAMILY certain course, and the other proposes something quite the opposite. Then most hkely the chil- dren in about equal numbers take the two sides, or in a case of the administration of discipline, it is not infrequently the case that the correction administered by the father, for instance, is ob- jected to by the mother, and so the child comes to think himself to be given full indulgence by one while he holds the other as a tyrant. The many ruinous results of such a course are appar- ent. If in any case one of the heads of the household may have been driven by trying prov- ocation of some act of insubordination to some really extreme or unwise administrative act, let the other raise no objection and make no mention of his adverse opinion in the hearing of the children. Such matters should be talked over where none may know of it but the parents themselves. A house divided against itself can- not stand. Both parties in the dual rulership of the family must be jealous each of the good standing of the other before the children. Each must be the otb 3r's supporter ; the two must inva- riably, where it is at all possible, work together. I am aware that there are not a few homes in this land where one of its leaders — it may be the mother, it is most likely to be the father — WORDS TO PARENTS 87 is almost wholly recreant to the sacred parental trust, and whose influence is most of the time against the home's best good. In such cases the parent who still seeks to fulfill the duties of the father or mother must manage this delicate matter the most discreetly and wisely that the unfortunate circumstances will permit. That the moral and religious training of their children should stand first, ought to need no argument with faithful parents. No doubt the duty here suggested is in a way recognized — by all Christian parents, at least. The important demand of our day is that recognized duty be carried into practice. Whether children shall, in mature years, be moral or immoral, religious or irreligious, depends more upon the moral and religious influence of their home than upon all other influences combined. That children in our day may and do receive much moral instruction outside of the home is a gratifying fact. With many, indeed, their only religious direction must come from the Sunday school, the church, and the various agencies of church work. But no parent can afford to commit this, his first duty to his children, to any other hands. It is to be feared that, in many of our homes, religious mat- ters are not given their due prominence. If there 88 THE FAMILY is really not genuine piety in the home, if family devotions, the religious family paper, the reading and study of the Bible, religious conversation, attendance at the services of God's house, observ- ance of the Lord's day — if these conditions are wanting, there can be no religious training there. In fact, it should be said, and said with em- phasis, that the proper moral and religious atmosphere of the home is the one great general essential in the correct and successful rearing of children. All that has been commended as cor- rect in principle and method in the training of children will be of little worth unless the general spirit and tone of the home are good. If these are healthful, if the parents are possessed of pure, tender, unselfish, cheerful, conscientious, patient. Christlike hearts and impulses, a like spirit will be imparted to all the circle. What a difference in the home atmosphere of families ! It can be felt by a visitor in an hour's call. And oh, what a difference in the stamp given to the chil- dren of homes of a healthful and of an unhealth- ful atmosphere ! By this silent, yet ever-present and mighty influence, the tender and impressible young life is being daily and surely formed, for its permanent good or permanent ill. What a mighty power is moral influence, personal influ- WORDS TO PARENTS 89 ence ! and nowhere else in all the earth is it so mighty as in the home, by parents upon their own children. And so do we come back to the general truth, the momentous truth, the truth which is a part of the settled order of human affairs, that in the home, by parents, are wielded the influences that mold the succeeding genera- tions of men. History corroborates this state- ment, and every day observation enforces the lesson of all the past. Father, mother, what are you doing to meet the high and holy responsibil- ity that God has placed upon you? Is it your daily study and your highest delight to train up your children in the way they should go, bring- ing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord ? Parents of our day are favored by the publi- cation of books and magazines on the subject of child-training as have been parents of no other age. Of some of these books I made mention in another chapter. Here I wish to call attention to an excellent organization for the promotion of interest upon this vital subject and the spread of useful information. I refer to what is called ''The Parents' Association of America." Its ob- jects are stated in its constitution to be : — "To afford to parents opportunities for coopera- 90 THE FAMILY tioii and consultation, so that the wisdom and experience of each may be made profitable for all. "To stimulate their enthusiasm through the sympathy of numbers acting together. "To create a better public opinion on the subject of the training of children, and with this object in view, to collect and make known the best information and experience on the subject. " To assist parents to understand the best prin- ciples and methods of education in all its aspects, and especially in those which concern the forma- tion of habits and character. "To secure greater unity and continuity of education by harmonizing home and school training," etc. It consists of a central society and local branches. For particulars as to membership and full in- formation, address Dr. George William Winter- burn, No. 230 West One Hundred and Thirty- second Street, New York. APPENDIX. THE FAMILY SCHOOL. BY KEV. I. L. BOOKWALTER. I. A NEW MOVEMENT NEEDED. Much has been said and written in regard to Sabbath-school work. It truly involves very im- portant gospel machinery for the salvation and moral elevation of mankind ; and wonderful prog- ress has been made in the last score of years in bringing this line of Christian work to its present state of perfection. Upon this work are brought to bear Sabbath-school assemblies, conventions, Sabbath-school journals, teachers' meetings, a crit- ical examination of the Scriptures, lessons, etc. All this is right, and just as it should be. But may I not make the suggestion that there is another school, another institution divinely ordained, that, if rightly managed, is of much more force and power for the good of our race than the Sabbath school. I mean the family school. This precedes every other means of instruction. Some very good and thoughtful men have given it as their judg- ment that more can be done by parents at home, in the proper care, control, and teaching of their chil 91 92 thp: family dren from the first to the seventh or eighth year, to shape their future moral and religious character than by all other means combined ; and from care- ful observation during my thirty-nine years of life in the ministry, I believe this is about correct. Something, indeed, is said on this important subject by the pulpit and press, but how very little in comparison with what is said and done concern- ing Sabbath schools and the best methods of con- ducting them. Would it not be well enough also to have family-school assemblies and conventions? Why not at least have at all our general Sabbath- school assemblies a day or two devoted exclusively to the discussion, by the best talent that could be secured, of the importance of this subject, and the best and most effective methods of conducting family government? In my opinion the impor- tance of this matter cannot be overestimated. May not the lack of wholesome discipline in churches, the slack enforcement of laws in the state, the bold violation of the Sabbath day, the great number of divorces, the frequent outbursts of anarchy into which our country is so fearfully drifting, and the alarming state of morals in the large cities, be largely traced back to the general and increasing slackness of family teaching and control? In many so-called Christian families there is no altar of worship, no daily family prayer, and the children are allowed to have about all they want, and do pretty much as they please, without any wholesome check being placed upon their selfish and depraved desires by parental APPENDIX 93 authority. We have departed entirely too far from the good old Puritan manners and from the strict home rule and piety of our Saxon fathers. Allow me to suggest that our religious papers should occasionally print a well-matured article on this very important matter, giving the manner and best methods for the home training of chil- dren, also securing able contributions on the sub- ject, and recommending the same as topics for con- ventions, sermons, and lectures. Surely the alarm- ing liberalism of the times, with its degenerating influences, should enlist the careful attention of all the religious journals in the land. Thus the churches would be awakened, and the minds of the parents would be more intensely directed to the great duty of looking more carefully after the principles and lives of their children. According to my view, after much thought and observation, there is scarcely any question before the Christian world of more importance to the welfare of mankind than this which relates to the work and duty of parents properly taking care of their children at home while quite young, in wisely teaching them and effectively controlling them. Why not have a normal department in every Christian college in the land, with a profes- sorship, to give well-matured weekly lectures on the importance and best methods of conducting family government? Why not bring the matter before the Christian public, and wake up some good hearts and wise heads to write text-books on the subject of home training — something like 94 ' THE FAMILY Rev. J. S. C. Abbott's "Mother at Hoipe," only much more full, and more at length in detail ? There are seminaries to qualify young men to preach the gospel. There are normal schools and normal departments to teach young men and women how to become effective teachers, both in common day schools, and also in Sabbath schools. So also in almost every line of business, and human learning, interest, and duty ; and in recent years many States are introducing into the common schools temperance instruction, to assist in for- warding the great temperance reform. Seeing that the intelligent world is so wide-awake on every other means of improvement, Avhy should this powerful instrumentality for good, which lies at the foundation of both church and state, be so greatly neglected? I have endeavored to drop a few seed -thoughts, with the hope that more able men will take up the subject, and continue at it with "line upon line," "precept upon precept," until the Christian con- science is aroused and a public sentiment created that will bring about a much-needed reform in society. II. FALSE METHODS OF SECURING OBEDIENCE^ The most important arrangement in the universe is law, order, and obedience. As has been Avell said, law has its seat in the bosom of the Father, and its voice is the harmony of the world. So also in the family : good rules and order, with strict obedience to them by both parents and APPENDIX 95 children, are absolutely necessary for a good, noble, and successful Christian family. God says, "To obey is better than sacrifice." Parents are under law to God, and children are under law to their parents. In this important work, if the obedience of the children cannot be secured by love and mild means, then the divine order should, as far as possible, be adopted ; namely, " Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." The wise man says, " Fool- ishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." To secure the obedience of their children without doing this somewhat unpleasant duty, parents often resort to false and mistaken methods. A few of them I will now notice. First, some parents continually threaten their children, to get them to do something that they do not want to do, and never fulfill their threats until, perhaps, the parent becomes desperate, and in a burst of anger gives the child an unmerciful blow (perhaps upon the head), and thus the matter ends in a sort of disgraceful riot. This hardens children, and teaches them to disobey and to be slack in their promises, and fosters bad habits and a very bad temper, that will follow them all through life. Another false mode is to deceive their children, and tell them all kinds of things that are not true, to induce obedience. For instance, the child is sick, and refuses to take the medicine prescribed because it tastes bad. Then the parent says, " Oh, it tastes 96 THE FAMILY sweet and good; it isn't bad at all." Thus the child is induced to take it, but finds it very bitter. The betrayed child looks up into the face of the parent with feelings of bitter disappointment and scorn, as much as to say, " You have lied to me, and I cannot trust you any more." Thus the par- ent teaches the child to lie and practice deception — one of the vilest traits of character in the cata- logue of human depravity. Another improper and false way is to purchase the child's obedience. Some will say to the child, " If you will do this or that, I will buy you a doll, a new hat, or some candy." I was once in a Christian home in Ohio where there was a little boy about four years old. His mother said to him, "Johnny, you bring in some wood for the stove." " No," he said, " I won't do it." " Yes, Johnny, your mother wants you to do it " ; but he would not do it. She parleyed with him some time ; but he insisted that he was not going to do it. The mother evidently felt somewhat disconcerted. She now tried another device. She said, "Johnny, if you will do it I will buy you a nice stick of candy." Johnny now began to think that it was a pretty fair offer, but not quite enough. He looked up with his waggish eye, and said to his mother, " If you will buy me two sticks of candy I will do it." She parleyed awhile again, and finally agreed to buy him two sticks ; then the boy did as he was told. All this I saw with my own eyes. Now who was the master in this case? Evidently the boy gained the vic- tory. Similar things in spirit are taking place APPENDIX 97 in families all over this land. Thus the mother helps to plant and foster in her boy a spirit of stubborn selfishness, so that when he becomes a man it will be in him never to do a kind act to any one unless he sees in it at the same time something that will benefit himself. The above false methods, with many more that might be named, which are so common with manv parents, are very wrong and hurtful, and do great mischief to the future life and character of the children. Cheerful and happy obedience by the children to their parents should be rendered, because God has so ordained, and because it is a pleasure for them to do so. The rules of the home have been wisely established for their good, from very love and parental care for them. It is all right now and then to give presents to children to please and encourage them — not to bribe them to do right, but because they are good and obedient. III. THE DUTY OF MINISTERS. The false and ruinous ways above hinted at are mainly due to the slackness and ignorance of par- ents upon this vital subject. And upon whom rests the responsibility of this ignorance? It undoubtedly rests upon the moral teachers of the people and ministers of the gospel. When we earnestly enter a charge against ministers of the gospel for so generally neglecting to instruct the people on this very important subject, both by the pen and from the pulpit, about the following apology is generally made : " Well, it is a delicate 98 THE FAMILY matter to meddle with the little duties and domes- tic atfairs of the family. Besides, but few of us can say, ' I have a model family and train my chil- dren about right.' Hence we lay ourselves liable to the retort, 'Physician, heal thyself,' and, 'You had better sweep before your own door.' " I know this calls for heroic courage, self-denial, and faith- fulness, especially when we remember the many mistakes and failures that truly attach themselves to our own history. Yet God still commands us, notwithstanding our many weaknesses, to "preach the woid; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine." If the above excuses are valid, then perhaps most preachers might decline to rebuke from the pulpit almost every wrong or sin that men are guilty of, because but few of us can say, " I am free from all these defects." The truth is, God has chosen his instruments from weak and defective humanity (saved by grace) to instruct and save weak and sinful men and reform the world. . Therefore we are to receive the word from the mouth of God, and deliver the message faith- fully to the people; and if the chips fly into our own faces, we should confess our failing and try for the future to mend our ways, as we urge others to do. When God gave Moses the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," Moses might have said, " Oh, I cannot teach that ; for my brethren all know that I killed a man in Egypt and buried him in the sand ; therefore it does not become me to say anything about murder." APPENDIX 99 When God by inspiration told Paul in all his epistles to Avrite to his brethren to love one another, to put away all anger, wrath, malice, etc., to practice meekness and kindness, forbearing and forgiving one another, if any have a quarrel against any, he might have said, "O my Lord, it does not become me to preach such a message of love and forgive- ness to my brethren, when they all know what a quarrel I had wdth Barnabas, vrhen the contention grew so sharp that we could no longer work together, but had to separate." Peter's case is another striking instance illustrating the same principle. Dear brethren, a dispensation of the gospel is committed to us, and we must see to it that we are faithful to the divine commission. Indeed, we may learn important lessons from our ignorance, defects, and failures, if we take them in the right spirit, as well as from our wisest measures and best successes; as was said of the Jewish high priest, " who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way ; for that he himself also is compassed w4th infirmity." We shall therefore be the better able to teach and com- fort our weak and common humanity IV. SELF-DENIAL. To deny oneself and take up the cross, is the Redeemer's great command. Self-denial lies at the very threshold of all true religion and accept- able worship. Jesus says, " If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee," and ''If any man will come after me, let him deny 100 THE FAMILY himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me." It is a fearful fact that by sin the human family has become involved in an awful state of depravity, which shows itself everywhere in supreme selfishness. For this the gospel grandly provides a remedy. And one of the most powerful means that God has ordained to make the remedy effective is the careful religious training of the children in the home of their parents. God says to every mother, at the birth of every child, " Take this child . . . and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages." Parents are emphatically put, by divine authority, in the place of God, to take care of and train the children in the ignorance and helplessness of infancy. But how much ignorance and indifference prevail at this point ! The child from its very birth be'gins to manifest its selfish- ness by persistent effort to have its own way, so often seen in its falling down, kicking about, and screaming at the top of its voice. Right here the mother should begin wisely, and with a firm determination, to teach the child self-denial, and let it know once for all that it cannot have its own way, but that it must submit to the will of its parents. Dr. Trumbull says, "As a matter of fact, the issue of the lifelong battle is ordinarily settled in childhood." Here is where so many parents fail. They have not the wisdom and courage to carry this matter through to success; for they imagine that to let a child, the first two or three years of its life, have all it wants, and do about as it pleases, APPENDIX 101 is a mark of refinement, and indicates superior love and kindness. No greater mistake has ever been made The history of very many families proves it real cruelty in the almost invariably sad results that follow. Parents who suffer their chil- dren to grow up slaves to their passions and evil habits are guilty before God. I do not plead for much whipping, yet an occasional use of the rod may be necessary. " He that spare th his rod hateth his son : but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes " Parents should give constant and care- ful attention to the little things at home, and never suffer their authority to be disregarded, but see to it that their commands are always heeded. A stern look and a firm and determined word will gen- erally secure the end sought. Wesley says : "Never give a child that for which it cries. If you do, it will cry again, and use this as a weapon with which to master its parents." Is not this the way in hundreds of families ? Parents often thoughtlessly stimulate and strengthen the selfish principle in their children by indulging them to an excessive extent in toys, costly dress, and in overeating of rich food, thus making them gluttons, and perhaps dyspeptics for life. Many sad things occur along this line. I once knew a young couple who had a very bright little boy. When about two years old they took him to a Fourth of July picnic, and they allowed the boy to have, all day long, as much of sweet-cakes, candy, nuts, raisins, cheese, lemonade, etc., as he wanted. At night they brought him home deathly sick. He 102 THE FAMILY lingered in painful distress about four weeks, and died. And the parents had the bitter reflection that this was the sad result of their own weakness and folly. Often the self-will and conceit of children are much strengthened by unguarded flattery. I once knew a preacher, one of the most able men in the conference, who was also pious, and an excellent worker, and generally very successful. But he was so irritable in his temper, and so self-willed and set in his way, that the conference often had trouble with him, and the people where he labored had many unpleasant things to endure. The chief cause of this objectionable feature in his otherwise good and strong character was in his early training, as I learned from his own lips. He was his father's pet boy, who let him have his own way, and often spoke of him in his presence as the smartest of all his children. Thus he was pampered, indulged, and spoiled, so that even grace itself did not wholly remove this unpleasant feature of his life. In the language of another, " every child needs the help of his parents in keeping control of himself. Wise training can secure it. Many a man's life is made sad through his hopeless lack of that self- control to which he could have been helped in childhood, if only his parents had understood his needs, and been faithful accordingly." From what has been said, we learn that the easy and slack way of Christian parents in the over- indulgence of their children, in gratifying their selfish desires and passions, is the great mistake APPENDIX 103 unci bane of modern society. Paul says, "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection ; lest .... I myself should be a cast-away." V. LITTLE THINGS. It is the little things of human life and of the family that are most likely to escape the attention of parents, although they are of vast importance. It is the little things that come together and en- large and finally aggregate the sum total. The coral insect, added one by one, gradually creates an island in the ocean uj^on which great cities are built. The little drops of water that fall upon the hills make the rivulets, and they make larger streams, and these converge and form the mighty rivers upon which floats the commerce of the world. So, also, the spirit and little acts of the parents in the home life will exert a decisive influence upon the character of their children, either for weal or w^oe, in all after life. When the child two or three years old Avants to do something that the mother knows it ought not to do, or wants something that it ought not to have, or refuses to do something that it ought to do, very often no notice is taken of it, with the remark : "Oh, this is such a little thing, and the child is so young, that it don't matter or amount to anything. Let the dear little boy enjoy himself, and have all the pleasure he can ; for he will have trouble enough in the years to come," forgetting that the impres- sions of childhood can never be fully erased. It is all right, and duty, indeed, for parents to give 104 THE FAMILY to their children all the happiness they can in every proper and legitimate way. But parents ought to know that through ignorance, neglect, and selfish or false sympathy, and a misguided kind- ness, thousands have laid the foundation for the future failure and wretchedness of their children. Good people are unintentionally doing this very thing to-day all over this land. The great fact of sin and moral perversity, the great truth of God and our accountability to him, and of what is duty, can be taught in simple language to children much earlier than most people think. It seems that children, with an intuitive aptness which God has planted in every human soul, can very soon learn to know good from evil, and are especially susceptible of divine influence. By the careful teaching and earnest prayers of my mother, before I was seven years old a deep conviction was already made upon my heart, of right and wrong, of God, of heaven, of hell, of a judgment to come, and of my childish failures, that often moved me to tears ; and I would often resolve in my heart that at some future day I would give myself fully to God and be a Christian. Though I dela3^ed a long time, yet at the age of twenty-one I was converted and began to lead a new life. As soon as the child can understand the matter, the principles of honesty and truthfulness should be carefully taught, both by precept and example, in the little occurrences of everyday life, as between brothers and sisters and in the mingling with other APPENDIX 105 children, and especially in all our own business transactions with our neighbors. Right here is where our conduct makes the most lasting impres- sions upon our children. Let the parents see to it that their little boys and girls act justly and fairly in everything with their playmates, and as a rule, by the blessing of God, they will grow up to be men and women worthy of trust in any position to which they may be called. Industry is another important virtue that must be taught in early life. But in modern times this is sadly neglected, to the ruin of thousands of otherwise promising young men and women. Idle- ness is one of the greatest curses of the youth of any community. Constant employment, suited to the age and strength of the child, both of the mind and body, should be the rule, with perhaps some exceptions. This will produce good health, strong muscles, and a vigorous, virtuous mind and heart. I know it is said that " all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." This may in part be so. But it is also true, that all play and no work makes Jack a lazy rascal. And the world is full of such. Modern discoverers have not as yet been able to set aside God's ancient decree, " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." And whoever tries to get bread otherwise will find that disaster will come in somewhere, and at some time. Employ- ment for the boys and girls, on the farm, in the kitchen, in the shop, or in the store, can be made a matter of such pleasure and interest that play or idleness will be but little desired or sought after. 106 THE FAMILY Economy is another important matter. Industry without wise economy would scarcely secure and retain half a loaf. Parents should labor to instill the principle very early into the minds of their children. Frugality, or a prudent and sparing use of money or goods, as it regards a successful, useful, and happy life, is indispensably neces- sary; for from the lack of this vital principle in practical business matters some otherwise good people have made almost an entire failure in all life's plans and opportunities. Slack ideas of current expenses, the extravagance of pride, and a lavish way of spending money for any- thing except the real necessities of life, have ruined many families and brought them to grief and shame. Children will very soon reach out into lavish extravagance if not carefully taught and restricted by their parents. In this day of vanity and fool- ish rivalry, many parents, in the matter of costly dolls, superfluous dress, equipage, sweetmeats, etc., in order to equal or surpass their neighbors, over- load, surfeit, and spoil their children. They do this great wrong without any thought of what an endless legacy of future sorrow and distress they are laying up for their loved ones. To remedy this demoralizing state of things calls for courage and firmness. VI. A GOOD MOTHER. I have felt for a number of years that I ought to lay aside my natural modesty, and, for the benefit APPENDIX 107 of mothers and ministers, give the following mem- ories to the public. My mother's maiden name was Elizabeth Landis. She was born in Berks County, Pennsylvania, in the year 1781. Her father was of Swiss descent, a member of the Mennonite Church, a very honest, unassuming, pious. Christian man, benevolent in spirit, often having ''big meetings" at his house. On these occasions he would give a free dinner to all present. My mother was converted at the age of fifteen, under the evangelistic labor of that most excellent and devoted man of God, Jacob Albright, the founder of the church of the Evangelical Associa- tion. During his labors among the si3iritually dead churches, a great and genuine revival of reli- gion took place, in which many souls were con- verted. After a lapse of five or six years, Mr. Al- bright, in the spirit of Saint Paul, made another ovangelistic tour through the country where he had preached before, to see how his converts were do- ing. My mother had now been married several months to my father, Joseph Bookwalter, and was settled on a farm. Mr. Albright, in his faithful pastoral visits, came to their house. My father was not at home. In his plain and personal talk concerning her spiritual condition, about the fol- lowing conversation took place: — ''Are you a Christian, and do you still enjoy religion?" The answer was, ''Yes, I am trying to do the best I can." "Well, as you are now married, and you and your husband have entered upon the 108 THE FAMILY responsible duties of this sacred relation, do you have daily family prayer in your house?" She said, " No ; my husband is not religious, therefore this duty is neglected." " Well," said he, " could you not pray in the family night and morning, provided your husband did not object?" She answered that she did not know ; that she had never thought of that. Then he urged this duty upon her in a very earnest manner, and said, " Will you do this : when your husband comes home, tell him of the conversation we have had, and ask him if he will have any objections to your setting up an altar of worship in your home ; and if he does not object, will you attend to this duty yourself ? " She at once answered that she would do so. Though my father was not at that time a Christian, he was somewhat religiously inclined, and cheerfully consented to her request; and after that family prayer was a permanent institu- tion in our home. My mother was a very modest, unassuming, timid woman, yet religiously, by the help of divine grace, she manifested a great deal of womanly courage. Every night and morning she would sing a little German hymn, and then kneel dowm and pray. This she would do, no matter what strangers might be present. In 1816 they removed to Ross County, Ohio, on a farm. The country was very new, and the peo- ple were subject to many privations and much hardship. Very few luxuries, or even comforts, were known for some years in my parents' new home, and there was a great deal of sickness in the APPENDIX 109 family. Yet this arrangement of family prayer was kept up uninterrupt^dly. I do not claim that my mother had no defects or weaknesses, but I may claim that her many virtues and godly life are worthy of our admiration and imitation. She did not live in the day of convenient schools or modern privileges. All the learning she had was to read the German language fairly well. Her books were the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, Harlan Page, Thomas a Kempis, Flavel, Elijah the Tish- bite, and some other books of strong devotional spirit. These she read, especially in her older days, with great interest and pleasure. Secret ]^rayer was a duty she never neglected. We younger children, when the older ones were out at work, often heard her upstairs in the old log- house pleading with God for her children and household with great earnestness. When regular preaching was scarce she frequently walked over a mile to a schoolhouse to meetings on a week- day, carrying her youngest child in her arms. I never heard her speak an unchaste or foolish word. But she often spoke of God, and heaven, and Christian duty, and warned us against sin, and taught us to pray. She was kind and affec- tionate, yet firm, and labored to receive our atten- tion and obedience, though it sometimes required the use of the rod. She was very benevolent and liberal to the poor, and no one in need that ever came to our house went away empty. My father was eventually converted at about the age of fifty- five, and thereafter he assisted mother in family 110 THE FAMILY worship. He died a Christian some years after, in 1838. Our home was always a resting place for weary itinerants. Mother, like the woman of Shunem, took great pleasure in making them as comfortable as possible, and very much enjoyed the Christian fellowship and counsel of God's pure and deeply- devoted messengers. Mother died in the year 1849. She passed away in great triumph. The joy of her departing moment was clearly indicated by her countenance as well as by her words. There were nine children — five boys and four girls. Seven of them have already crossed the river, and we have good reason to believe that they are all saved and happy in heaven. No doubt this result is largely due to mother's prayers, courage, and faithfulness. God told Mr. Carvosso, when he prayed so earnestly for his children, "that not a hoof should be left behind." These circumstances of long ago can never be forgotten. Though I am now beyond threescore years and ten, yet they are as vivid in my mind, and as sweetly cherished in my heart, and indeed more so, than they were when I was a boy in the happy home. Oh, how thankful I am to God for such a mother ! I feel that I shall never be able to compute fully the amount of blessings that have come to me and all the family through her prayers and persevering faithfulness. Now as I am nearing the eternal shore, methinks she will be the first of shining ones to meet me and welcome me out APPENDIX 111 of earth's battles, affliction, toil, and sorrows, home into heaven's sweet rest. This narrative may teach the following impor- tant lessons: — First. We learn how much a faithful minister may do to start a current of influence that, will tell with great power for good in generations to come. Second. A minister in his pastoral visits should be plain and specific in every family, and always ascertain whether they have regular family prayer or not, and earnestly urge that this very important duty be not neglected. Third. Here we learn what a timid and un- learned Avoman as a Avife and mother can do, if she will, in her retired sphere to bring abundant and permanent religious blessings upon her family. Fourth. While God calls some women to useful and honorable work abroad and in public life, he calls many to remain at home with a " meek and quiet spirit," unobserved by the great outward world, to carefully and prayerfully guard and mold the household of children, and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and thus do a great work for humanity. 1 DATE DUE ---i-*. GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A.