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 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
A TREATISE 
 
 )omestic Education 
 
 REV. DANIEL A. PAYNE, D.D..LL.D., 
 
 jnior Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
 CINCINNATI : 
 
 PRINTED BY CRANSTON & STOWE 
 For the Author. 
 
Copyricrht by 
 
 DANIEL ALEXANDER PAYNE, 
 1885 . 
 
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PREFACE. 
 
 TT 7ITH0UT apology I send forth my thoughts 
 ^ * on the great, absorbing question of Chris- 
 tian Education in its domestic form, and this I 
 do with no desire to appear as a literary man, 
 panting for literary fame; but because it is a duty 
 laid upon my heart and inspiring all my thoughts 
 from early manhood to old age. 
 
 My book is not designed for instruction in the 
 common-school, nor the high-school, nor the col- 
 lege; but for the home ; not for the recitation 
 room, but for the nursery and the fireside. 
 
 The duty which impels my hand to write this 
 book, and the love which inspires its sentiments, 
 is a duty and a love resulting from actual labors 
 in the school-house, and intensified by close and 
 extensive observations in the families among 
 whom it has been my high privilege to sojourn, 
 both in my native land and in foreign countries. 
 
 As for the thoughts, the sentiments, and the prin- 
 
 5 
 
6 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 ciples embodied in it, they have been formulating 
 themselves for about fifty-five years. 
 
 Moreover, as Christianity is given, not for 
 the benefit of any particular race, but to confer 
 infinite blessings upon all mankind, so, also, 
 Christian education is divinely designed not to 
 confer exclusive privileges upon any chosen peo- 
 ple; but to enlighten, improve, and develop into 
 perfection humanity as a whole unbroken unit, 
 consequently to develop into the 'highest possible 
 human perfection every child of Adam. 
 
 To this divine end , ordained by the Omniscient 
 Father of humanity, before the foundation of the 
 world, my humble volume is wholly consecrated. 
 To this glorious end I beseech our Lord and Savior 
 Jesus Christ to command his benedictions upon 
 the efforts of the author. 
 
 DANIEL ALEXANDER PAYNE. 
 
 Evergreen Cottage, Wilberforce, Ohio. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 INTRODUCTION, 9 
 
 CHAPTER I. — The Training of Children, .... 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. — First Condition of Successful 
 
 Child-training, 23 
 
 CHAPTER III. — Second Condition of Successful 
 
 Child-training, 28 
 
 CPIAPTER IV. — Third Condition of Successful 
 
 Child-training, 39 
 
 CHAPTER V. — Fourth Condition of Successful 
 
 Child-training, 44 
 
 CHAPTER YI. — When to Begin the Training of 
 
 a Child, 53 
 
 CHAPTER VII. — Reasons for Training a Child, . 66 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. — Race Considerations Require 
 
 such Training, 71 
 
 CHAPER IX. — National Considerations Require 
 
 such Training, 81 
 
 CHAPTER X. — Ecclesiastical Considerations Re- 
 quire such Training, 90 
 
 7 
 
8 
 
 CONTENTS . 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. — The Common-school Considera- 
 tion, 99 
 
 CHAPTER XII. — Relations of Domestic Educa- 
 tion to the Church, the State, and the Com- 
 mon-school, Including Higher Education and 
 
 the Sunday-school, 105 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. — The Nature and Scope of the 
 Divine Command, “ Train up a Child in the 
 
 Way He should Go,” 109 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. — The Divine Promise, 113 
 
 CHAPTER XV. — Domestic Education under Chris- 
 tian Influences the Highest Duty of the Par- 
 ent and the Citizen, 126 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. — Domestic Unity — The Mother 
 
 and Father Co-laborers, 135 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. The Father’s Work and In- 
 fluence, • * 145 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. — Special Training of Girls, . . 153 
 CHAPTER XIX. — The Christian Graces, .... 168 
 CHAPTER XX. — Sacred Songs, 177 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 N invitation of my esteemed friend and brother, 
 
 the Rev. D. A. Payne, D. D., LL. D., the 
 venerable senior bishop of the African Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, I submit a few considerations as 
 an introduction to his interesting and able discussion 
 on Domestic Education. 
 
 This service becomes a pleasant one in view of 
 our long and intimate friendship, which commenced 
 in 1858, when I entered upon my duties as president 
 of the Wilberforce University, and which has con- 
 tinued without the slightest interruption until the 
 present hour. 
 
 Bishop Payne took an active part in the establish- 
 ment of the university, aided it by pen, purse, and 
 speech ; was its true and steadfast friend in the most 
 trying period of its history, and when the institution 
 passed into the hands of the African Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church, he became its honored president. His 
 advice and counsel were of great value to me in the 
 discharge of the critical duties connected with my 
 office. Conscientious and upright in all the relations 
 of life, refined and cultivated by study and travel, 
 intensely interested in securiug educational advanta- 
 ges for the preparation of young men for the Chris- 
 
 9 
 
10 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tian ministry, self-sacrificing and enthusiastic in efforts 
 for the salvation of the world, the author’s character 
 is worthy of imitation, and his book merits careful 
 study. The subject discussed is one of transcendent 
 importance, and the ability and thoroughness with 
 "which the discussion is conducted will command the 
 respect of intelligent people, and secure the happiest 
 results. It will shed light upon all questions pertain- 
 ing to the happiness of home, the efficiency of the 
 school, and the permanence of the republic. 
 
 The most valuable instrumentality in the education 
 of our children is their early training at home by 
 their parents, and this must be commenced as soon 
 as they enter this world, and continued until child- 
 hood is merged in manhood. We must act upon the 
 great truth which led one of the master painters of 
 Italy to begin in his art back at the grinding and mix- 
 ing of his paints, that no unskillfulness in the prepa- 
 ration of the colors should be found on completion 
 to have marred the beauty, or dimmed the clearness 
 of works which were to challenge the admiration of 
 posterity. 
 
 God has consecrated the early period of life to the 
 religious training of the child by the parent, so that 
 in all time to come holy influence may linger in the 
 mind and restrain its possessor from folly and crime. 
 God in wisdom holds back the development of the 
 passions in childhood, and thus gives the parent a 
 chance to pre-empt the child for Christ before the 
 Devil can place a mortgage on it. 
 
INTRODUCTION . 
 
 11 
 
 The most important part of life is childhood, and 
 during this period, impressions may most easily be 
 made, and with the greatest difficulty effaced. We 
 may carelessly sketch characters upon the sand of the 
 sea-shore, and the next dash of the returning surge 
 may obliterate them. But impressions made by the 
 mother on the tender mind of the child shall never 
 be effaced. It may appear paradoxical, but I venture 
 the remark that more of the human family are ruined 
 in the nursery than in subsequent life, and the senti- 
 ment is in harmony with revelation, which offers a 
 happy and useful life as the reward of early training. 
 The child’s mind is receptive, and the wrong feelings 
 of the parent are reproduced in the child and become 
 a part of its being. There is not a cloud of anger 
 that flits over the countenance of the parent that 
 does not disturb the gentle spirit of the watchful 
 child. 
 
 The power of early training is recognized in the 
 bitter condemnation of those who break away from 
 its restraints and become vile, and in the praise 
 awarded to those who in spite of its neglect become 
 good and useful citizens. 
 
 It is axiomatic in education that what is first in 
 point of time is first in importance, and the interest 
 that gathers around the subject of early training should 
 exceed that of any subsequent period of life. Early 
 culture should not be intrusted to inexperienced 
 strangers ; the love and solicitude of the parents are 
 demanded. Of all the eloquence of earth there is 
 
12 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 none that moves the soul like the melting strains of 
 maternal love. Says a beautiful writer: “The smile 
 of the mother which is reproduced upon the face of 
 the infant upon her bosom, is only an emblem of that 
 likeness of her heart in which his heart is formed. 
 Every one carries to his grave certain elements of 
 character, breathed into his soul by his mother while 
 he was fondled in her arms.” Every child receives 
 from its parents impressions and peculiarities of 
 thought and life which no subsequent effort can en- 
 tirely overcome. Every look and word and act tells 
 upon the little ones at home. There is a kind of ink 
 which, when first used, is scarcely perceptible, but it 
 becomes blacker as it dries, till at length it becomes 
 so black that you may burn the substance on which 
 it is written and the letters will still be legible in the 
 very ashes. Faint emblem of the mother’s influence! 
 Napoleon once said to Madame Campan, The old sys- 
 tems of education are good for nothing; what is 
 wanted for the proper training of young persons in 
 France? With keen discernment and great truth that 
 intelligent and accomplished lady replied in one word, 
 Mothers. The word struck the emperor, and he ex- 
 claimed: “Behold an entire system of education. 
 You must have mothers that know how to train their 
 children.” 
 
 One reason why our schools accomplish so little 
 may be found in the fact that it requires so much 
 time and labor to break up bad habits contracted in 
 early life at home. When parents who commence 
 
INTRODUCTION . 
 
 13 
 
 the education of their children shall do it. as wisely 
 as the fondest affection and the maturest judgment 
 can dictate, and then place them under the care of 
 the public teacher, who is properly fitted for, and 
 alive to the great responsibilities of, his work, then a 
 brighter era will dawn upon our educational interests, 
 and a nobler race of men and women will bless the 
 w r orld. It is wrong to reproach the teacher for not 
 completing with becoming beauty and symmetry a 
 work characterized in its early stages by so many de- 
 fects. 
 
 It is a crime for parents to allow their children to 
 go from the fireside to the cold world with bad habits 
 and wicked propensities. With the best preparation 
 possible, life is a bitter struggle against temptation 
 and vice, and early religious training and Christian 
 character furnish the only safeguards against the per- 
 ils to which the young are exposed. 
 
 R. S. RUST, 
 
 Corresponding Secretary of the Freedmen's Aid Society of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church . 
 
 Cincinnati, Ohio, March, 1885. 
 

 
 
 
DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 d^hptef I. 
 
 THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN. 
 
 11 Train up a child in the way he should go , and when he is old 
 he will not depart from it .” — Proverbs xxii, 6. 
 
 G OD is the Creator of the Universe. As such 
 he has original and divine right to make 
 laws for the government of its different depart- 
 ments, physical and mental . 1 But, in the exercise 
 of this divine right he does not act like a des-" 
 potic monarch, whose absolute will is law for all 
 his subjects; whose animus is supreme selfishness 
 
 1 1 employ the term mental in preference to the word 
 intellectual, because it is of wider comprehension. The 
 intellectual embraces those operations of mind “ by 
 which we perceive objects and conceive of them ; and re- 
 member, analyze, or combine them, and judge, or reason 
 concerning them. ,, See Dr. S. S. Schmucker’s “ Mental 
 Philosophy,” page 25. So, also, President James H. Fair- 
 child, on page 14, of his “Moral Philosophy :” “The intel- 
 lect is the general faculty of perceiving and knowing, and 
 comprehends the faculties of sense, memory, imagination, 
 judgment, and reason.” So, also, Crahb says: “There is 
 the same difference between mental and intellectual, as 
 between mind and intellect ; the mind comprehends the 
 
 15 
 
16 
 
 DOMESTIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 manifesting itself by brute force, violence, rob- 
 bery, war, and murder. No! The animus of 
 God’s right is infinite love, directed by unerring 
 wisdom and unutterable goodness. Hence, his 
 physical and mental laws were never an outburst 
 of blind passion, nor supreme selfishness. 
 
 In the material and immaterial world every 
 one of his laws is designed to produce well- 
 being to the sentient subjects of his government, 
 small and great, weak and strong. Hence it is 
 as absurd for erring man to question the fitness 
 and goodness of his moral laws as it is to dispute 
 the practicability, wisdom, and efficiency of the 
 physical. 
 
 Among the principles, laws and statutes which 
 he has given to govern the region of mind, he 
 has given to society the mandate of the beautiful 
 
 thinking faculty in general, with all its operations ; the in- 
 tellect includes only that part of it which consists in 
 understanding and judgment. In a word, the mental 
 includes all the powers and operations of the spirit, 
 whether they be cognitive, sentient, moral, or spiritual- 
 all its active operations and its passive conditions. And 
 moreover, by the word mental I include not only the hu- 
 man, but also the superhuman— all beings responsible for 
 their conduct ; for their thoughts, words, and deeds in the 
 visible and invisible universe. For every thing and for 
 all things God has ordained laws, governs by laws, and 
 judges by laws. And let it never be forgotten that the 
 laws by which he governs the family circle, and those by 
 whicli he controls the solar system, are alike immutable . 
 
THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN. 
 
 17 
 
 passage of Holy Scriptures which is taken from 
 the inspired pen of the wisest of men. “ Train 
 up a child in the way he should go, and when 
 he is old he will not depart from it.” (Prov. 
 xxii, 6.) 
 
 The doctrine taught in this divine statement 
 is disputed on the ground of its supposed imprac- 
 ticability. The objections may be reduced to the 
 following propositions : 
 
 а. A child, that is, every child, is born in a 
 polluted atmosphere in which he must always live; 
 breathing an immoral air, he is necessarily pol- 
 luted by it. 
 
 б. All his associates at home are corrupted by 
 sin, therefore, he must be as bad as they, because 
 association begets assimilation. 
 
 c. The boys and the girls with whom he must 
 play, away from home, whether in the street or 
 in the campus, or by whom he sits in the school- 
 room, are wicked, and, therefore, he can not be 
 better than they. 
 
 d. Therefore, they say, “the doctrine of the 
 text can not be realized till the millennium shall 
 burst upon the world, and every body shall* be- 
 come good.” These four objections come from 
 two classes of people : First, from members of 
 the Christian Church, who profess to believe in 
 
 the Bible, and, second, from persons outside of 
 2 
 
18 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 that Church who have no faith in it, and who 
 live in open violation of its just and holy re- 
 quirements. We now give our reply to these 
 objections by saying : 
 
 1st. The Creator who has given this command 
 is the Omniscient Maker of every child; conse- 
 quently he knows all its capabilities, probabili- 
 ties, and possibilities. 
 
 2d. He knows every temptation to which a 
 child can be exposed from the cradle to the grave. 
 He knows the strength of every temptation, and 
 the conditions under which every one can appear. 
 He also knows the capacity of every child to 
 take in evil, and the ability to repel it. 
 
 3d. He knows every bad boy or girl who may 
 endeavor to influence a child in a wrong direc- 
 tion; also, every bad man and woman who can 
 and will offer inducements to a child to do evil. 
 And yet, this very Omniscient Creator commands us 
 to “ Train up a child in the way he should go.” 
 Now, inasmuch as he never commands any one 
 to perform an impossible thing, we fully believe 
 that a child can be trained in the way he should 
 go. Will any sane father command his child to 
 carry a weight which he knows the boy can not 
 lift from the ground ? Is God less reasonable 
 than a man? Whenever he commands a duty to 
 be performed, he also imparts the strength and 
 
THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN. 
 
 19 
 
 the power for its accomplishment. Man may re- 
 quire, and often does demand, that which is both 
 unreasonable and impossible. But God never did 
 and never can do this. Therefore, we once more 
 affirm, a child can be trained in the way he 
 should go. 
 
 Moreover, if we consider the latter part of 
 this divine statement as a promise, then we say 
 that God will make it good. 
 
 “Lift up thy rod, and stretch out thy hand 
 over the sea and divide it; and the children of 
 Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst 
 of the sea.” Such was God’s command to Moses. 
 The unbeliever standing by, and hearing this di- 
 vine mandate would have cried out impossible. 
 Who can divide that sea and lead these millions 
 through on dry ground? But Moses stretched 
 out his hand over the sea ; and the Lord caused 
 the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that 
 night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters 
 were divided, and the children of Israel went 
 into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground, 
 and the waters were a wall unto them on their 
 right hand and on their left.” (Exodus xiv, 16, 
 21, 22.) When God commands let man obey. 
 Then if the difficulties in the way be human, he 
 shall have power to overcome them ; but if they 
 be superhuman, the Omnipotent God, who gave . 
 
20 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 the command, will remove every obstruction out 
 of his path, and the thing to be done shall be 
 accomplished. (Exodus xiv, 23-31.) Why? Be- 
 cause he never breaks a promise. No ! never ! 
 
 But, if we consider this latter statement as a 
 prediction, then God will certainly fulfill his own 
 prophecy. With him the present, the past, and 
 the future are alike. Therefore, he knows what 
 can be, what may be, what will be, and what 
 must be as certainly as he knows what has been, 
 and what is now. A man may guess, but God 
 never does. The best man may lie, but God can 
 not. With the command he gives the power to 
 obey and to execute. With the promise or the 
 prediction goes the omnipotence to fulfill. We 
 are now prepared to consider the meaning and 
 the compass of this divine" statement. And when 
 we remember that a child by direct or indirect 
 training may become “ a fool, a devil, or an angel,” 
 the meaning and the compass of the divine com- 
 mand can not be too carefully considered, and 
 too minutely analyzed. 
 
 What is its significance? It means that we 
 should teach a child how to feel, that he may al- 
 ways feel aright; how to think, that he may 
 always think aright; that we should teach him 
 how to act, in order that he may always act in 
 the right direction ; that we should teach him 
 
THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN 
 
 21 
 
 how to live, in order that his life may be a solid 
 contribution of good to the well-being of human- 
 ity ; that we should teach him how to die in 
 order that his death may be the beginning of an 
 endless life, crowned with glory everlasting, and 
 ever increasing in its effulgence. Acording to 
 my humble conceptions, such is the signifi- 
 cance and such the only import of the divine 
 command, “ Train up a child in the way he 
 should go.” 1 
 
 6. As to the “ compass ” 2 of the divine mandate 
 and the divine promise inseparable from it, we 
 say in one general statement that it embraces the 
 entire period of human life. It takes in not only 
 the daily instructions and examples of the par- 
 
 1 The word way , in the divine command, has no allu- 
 lusion, I think, to what may be the employment of the 
 child well trained ; whether he will be a farmer, or a me- 
 chanic, or an artist, or an artisan, a lawyer, or a doctor, a 
 merchant or a sailor, a clergyman or a school-master, a 
 scientist or a philosopher— but that the word “ way ” 
 throughout the sacred writings almost always relates to 
 moral conduct, to the character of the individual addressed 
 or about whom it is spoken. Form his character while he 
 is yet a child ; that is, begin the work of formation ; con- 
 tinue this work through childhood and youth. Make it 
 pure ; make it upright. Make it strong as far as human 
 agency can make it under divine instruction by the Word 
 of God, and the creative Spirit of God. Then, whatever 
 may be his vocation in life, he will maintain that character. 
 
 2 This compass will be dwelt on at length further on. 
 
22 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 ents, but, also, all the outside influences which 
 the parents or guardians may bring to bear upon 
 the character of the child so as to develop such 
 character as the Creator himself knows to be pos- 
 sible for the human being to attain. 
 
FIRST CONDITION, 
 
 23 
 
 Ct|kptef II. 
 
 FIRST CONDITION OF SUCCESSFUL CHILD- 
 TRAINING. 
 
 HILDREN spend their infancy under very 
 
 different circumstances. Some have their 
 mothers snatched away from them by the hand of 
 death a few hours after their birth; others are made 
 fatherless within one or two years after; in some 
 cases, others are deprived of both parents while 
 they are yet unable to wash their faces, comb 
 their hair, or dress themselves — and thus are 
 made orphans in early life. Some are born of 
 rich parents, and, therefore, are surrounded by 
 every thing that can minister to their comfort ; 
 others enter this world in the abodes of squalid 
 poverty. Some become orphans as soon as they 
 have reached childhood; while others are made 
 so amid the waywardness of reckless youth. 
 
 But, in every instance, God provides for their 
 training. Sometimes an aunt, a grand-aunt, or 
 an uncle, or a grand-uncle, or a grandmother or 
 grandfather, takes the place of their parents ; 
 sometimes a friendly neighbor, or an absolute 
 
24 
 
 DOMESTIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 stranger is moved to become foster-mother or 
 foster-father. Such persons are guardians, but 
 they are held to the responsibilities of parents by 
 that God who has promised to be a father to the 
 fatherless and the orphan children. 
 
 Whether they be parents or guardians, the 
 first condition of successful training is unity in 
 respect to the order, law, and government of the 
 household. There must be unity on the part of 
 the parents or guardians of a child. There must 
 be no dissension, no antagonism between them ; 
 for if such a thing as disagreement or antagonism 
 exists in the family, no child can be trained under 
 the ideas, principles, and sentiments involved in 
 the divine command. That command is not su- 
 perficial, but is as deep as the very essence of 
 the complex and immortal nature of a child. 
 His body, his soul, and his spirit are all compre- 
 hended in it. It holds within its grasp all of the 
 present and all of the future in the character and 
 history of the young heir of the crown of life. 
 Therefore, there must be an unbroken oneness in 
 its training. 
 
 Here, in this thing, no mother nor father, 
 no grandmother nor grandfather, nor aunt, nor 
 uncle can be allowed to intermeddle. No brother 
 nor sister can be suffered to interfere. No ! not 
 for a moment ! I am in earnest ; I plead for the 
 
FIRST CONDITION . 
 
 25 
 
 children as one pleadeth for his first-born, or as 
 one pleadeth for his own life, or as one pleadeth 
 for his only child. 
 
 The family is a miniature Church, with its 
 priest and its priestess to train it for the work of 
 Christian life, for its conflicts, and its victories. 
 It is also a miniature state, with its laws, order, 
 and government. It has its head and his assist- 
 ant, between whom there must be no conflict. 
 They must be one in all opinions, principles, and 
 sentiments, which do, or may, affect the family 
 government. 
 
 We say it once more, and say it with all the 
 emphasis that time and eternity can give : In the 
 family government, no difference of opinion should 
 exist, no antagonism be allowed. One spirit ought 
 to animate the parents or guardians ; one law 
 govern them, and bind them into one as with 
 fetters of steel that can never be broken. Be- 
 cause, if the wife antagonize the husband in the 
 government of the family, defeat is as certain as 
 death itself. 
 
 Were it possible for all the archangels to come 
 from heaven and legislate for the family or the 
 household, should the mother antagonize the 
 father, no great woman nor great man could issue 
 from it. Of course, I use the word great in its 
 highest sense; not the physical, nor the intellect- 
 
26 
 
 D OMES TIC ED TJCA TION. 
 
 ual, nor the artistic, nor the military, nor the 
 financial, nor the political ; but the moral and the 
 spiritual , which is the highest because it is the 
 essential, and the immortal, the only form of 
 greatness which makes us acceptable to him who 
 is the Lord of lords, and the King of kings; it 
 is, therefore, the only greatness that exalts an in- 
 dividual to the society of heaven, and crowns 
 him with eternal life. 
 
 But a greater than the archangels has legis- 
 lated for the family and the household — it is the 
 Infinite Legislator — that legislation is expressed 
 in the text which we are unfolding, and which is 
 illustrated and confirmed by many a parallel state- 
 ment of the inspired Scriptures, and by the indis- 
 putable biography of great men. 
 
 And yet the overwhelming majority of fami- 
 lies will not heed it; therefore, the overwhelming 
 majority of children have never been trained in 
 the way they should go ; and, therefore, even 
 where many have succeeded as politicians, finan- 
 ciers, professional or other business men, their 
 lives have been moral failures; because, if the 
 mother think the government of the father is too 
 rigid, in his absence — when he is busied making 
 bread and butter for his family — she will loosen 
 the reins, and let the boy or the girl trample law, 
 order, and government under the feet. This is 
 
FIRST CONDITION. 
 
 27 
 
 not the only evil. What is worse, the spoiled 
 child, seeing the mother opposed to her husband, 
 takes sides with her and regards the father as an 
 enemy. 
 
 Unity , therefore, unbroken, uniform; perpetual 
 unity of *the father and the mother, of the wife 
 and the husband, is an essential condition of 
 successful child-training. 
 
28 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 dl]hptef ITT. 
 
 SECOND CONDITION OF SUCCESSFUL CHILD- 
 TRAINING. 
 
 J UST as the family is the original fountain of 
 the state, and, also, its original nursery, so, 
 also, is it the original fountain and nursery of 
 the Church of the living God. Herein the child 
 must be trained for usefulness , both in the Church 
 and the state. Hence there must be a Church 
 within the family, and an altar at its fireside. 
 This family Church must have its laws, its order, 
 and its government, which must be well con- 
 sidered before they be adopted ; but when once 
 adopted, they ought to be enforced, conscien- 
 tiously and daily. 
 
 There are those who attend the public sanctu- 
 ary of the Lord as regularly as the earth re- 
 volves around its axis; they join the congrega- 
 tion of the saints to sing “ psalms, hymns, and 
 spiritual songs,” to make prayers and supplica- 
 tions, to hear the Gospel of salvation preached, 
 so as to develop their intellectual, moral, and 
 
SECOND CONDITION 
 
 29 
 
 spiritual nature: and, by so doing, worship “The 
 Unknown God .” 1 
 
 But when they leave the house of worship, 
 they leave their God behind them; and when 
 they arrive at home, they have no Church there, 
 no altar there, no God there. 
 
 In such families no child can be trained as 
 God would have him trained. Indeed, the ma- 
 jority of parents think not of the will of the 
 Almighty Father in the training of a child. 
 
 1 l say “The Unknown God,” because, practically, the 
 greater number of professing Christians seem not to know 
 the God whom they profess to love and to serve. They 
 seem not to know that God requires every Christian fam- 
 ily to do what he commanded every Jewish family to 
 perform, which was “ to have a consecrated home.” Con- 
 secrated to his worship morning and evening; consecrated 
 to the domestic training of children in the love of God, 
 and in the fear of God ; consecrated to education as well 
 as to worship ; so consecrated that the home shall be both 
 a Church and a school (house) ; so consecrated, that the 
 father and the mother shall be ministering priests at the 
 family altar, and competent teachers in the family school 
 (house) ; the first priests to lead their offspring up to God’s 
 altar ; the first teachers to develop the intellect, the heart, 
 and the will of their children in the fear of God , and in the 
 love of God , for the well-being — not of one favored race to 
 the exclusion, damage, and oppression of every other 
 race — but for the well-being of our common humanity. 
 Such is the God, and such the will of the God, whom the 
 Bible reveals to all sincere and earnest persons who seek 
 to know him. (See Deut. vi, 1-9, and \\ 29; Eph. vi, 
 1-4.) In a word, to a majority of the so-called Christians 
 the God of the home is “ The Unknown God.” 
 
30 
 
 DOMESTIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 Their minds seem to be filled with every other 
 thought but that. Hence, in the training of 
 children, the greatest number of parents and 
 guardians conform entirely to the sentiments and 
 customs of the world. What the world thinks 
 about a child — what amount of freedom a child 
 shall have, what amount of indulgence; how much 
 it shall eat, when it shall eat, what it shall eat; 
 where it shall go, when it shall go, and with 
 whom; when it shall play, where it shall play, 
 and with whom ; how it shall be dressed, what 
 it shall wear, and how appear, are the only ques- 
 tions which interest them, and which they are 
 ready to answer. Now, therefore, because the 
 Church is excluded from the household, the God 
 and head of it is also excluded. Only admit the 
 Church, and God will so impress his thoughts 
 and his will upon the mind of parents and guard- 
 ians as to make them antagonize the world in the 
 management of their own children, physically, 
 intellectually, and morally, as to induce them to 
 make earnest inquiries of himself concerning the 
 end for which a child is sent into this world, and 
 the best means for attaining that end. And 
 when there is an acknowledged Church within 
 the family, if it be asked how shall the daily 
 worship be conducted, I make the following sug- 
 gestions : 
 
SECOND CONDITION. 
 
 31 
 
 1st. Let every child, servant, and sojourner 
 within the homestead be assembled early in the 
 morning and early in the evening around the 
 domestic altar, there to listen to the Word of 
 God — which ought to be read alternately by the 
 father and the mother, the other members of the 
 household reading responsively with the one who 
 leads the service. Thus, every member of the 
 family would actively participate in the worship. 
 
 Permit me now to give some reasons why this 
 reading of God’s Word should form part of the 
 daily worship. 
 
 a. Because these Holy Scriptures are God’s 
 own voice, teaching us what we ought to know, 
 to do, and to suffer for his sake, in order that 
 we might be intelligent in the highest sense, pure 
 in a moral sense, and really Christian in a spirit- 
 ual sense. And by this means we become wise, 
 blessed, and useful in our day and generation. 
 
 b. Because there is no condition, position, or 
 office common to civilized man but what these 
 Scriptures can enlighten and sanctify. 
 
 c. Because there is no moral nor religious 
 doubt in our minds but what these Scriptures 
 can remove if we will but listen to their voice 
 and heed their teachings. 
 
 d. Because, when their teachings are under- 
 stood and heeded daily, uniformly, perpetually 
 
32 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 regarded and obeyed, they impart to the soul a 
 moral and spiritual strength and power which 
 give us victory over ourselves, and consequently 
 victory over the world. 
 
 e. These Scriptures are as though God him- 
 self, descending to earth and gathering humanity 
 around his throne, should teach every individual 
 every family, every race, every nation, every 
 kingdom, every government how to live as moral 
 and responsible agents ought to live. 
 
 /. These Holy Scriptures are the bread of 
 eternal life, the living and life-giving food of the 
 spirit and the soul, made and given to enlighten 
 and to sanctify as our daily food is made and 
 given to satiate the hunger and thirst of the 
 body. “ I will never forget thy precepts, for 
 with them thou hast quickened me.” (Psalm 
 cxix, 93.) So said a mighty warrior, king, and 
 statesman. “Man doth not live by bread only, 
 but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
 mouth of the Lord doth man live.” (Deut. viii, 
 3; John vi, 48-51, see also verse 63.) 
 
 2d. Let every father and mother, every child, 
 every servant or helper, and every sojourner 
 within the homestead have a hymn or song-book 
 to join in singing the songs of praise and thanks- 
 giving, of gratitude and love, of penitence and 
 faith, of obedience and adoration. 
 
SECOND CONDI TION. 
 
 33 
 
 a . Because this form of worship is pleasing to 
 God, and is, therefore, elevating and inspiring. 
 
 b. Because it lifts the soul of the believer 
 heavenward by hallowing the affections and sub- 
 jugating the will. 
 
 c. Because these divine hymns and songs often 
 make us, for the time being, forgetful of all earthly 
 cares, sorrows, and fears, by strengthening our faith 
 in God, and filling us with the hope of blessed- 
 ness in this world and that which is to come. 
 
 d. These divine songs and hymns often fill 
 our hearts with divine love, and lift our souls up 
 to the very bosom of Him who is the fountain 
 of love. 
 
 The great king of Israel — that warrior who 
 never lost a battle ; that musical king, whose 
 melodious harp and voice did cast out evil spirits ; 
 that poetical king, whose songs, and hymns, and 
 odes were inspired by the breath of heaven — 
 experienced the truths we have uttered when he 
 said : 
 
 “ Thou shalt increase my greatness, 
 
 And comfort me on every side. 
 
 I also will praise thee with the psaltery, even thy truth, 
 O, my God! 
 
 I will praise thee with the harp, O, thou holy one of 
 Israel ! 
 
 My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing unto thee, 
 
 And my soul, which thou hast redeemed.” 
 
 — Psalm lxxi, 21-23. 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 The sacred song, chanted in the bosom of the 
 family as well as in the public sanctuary, is pleas- 
 ant to the ear of God, that Father of the families 
 of the earth ; therefore, David says : 
 
 “Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord.” 
 
 — Psalm cl, 6. 
 
 “ Kings of the earth and all people, 
 
 Princes and all the judges of the earth, 
 
 Both young men and maidens, 
 
 Old men and children, 
 
 Let them praise the name of the Lord, 
 
 For his name alone is excellent; 
 
 His glory is above the earth and the heavens.” 
 
 — Psalm cxlviii, 11-13. 
 
 Thus sang the most gifted monarch that ever 
 sat upon a throne or ruled a mighty people. 
 How graceful and good it is now, when count- 
 less blessings — unknown to Jewish families — are 
 bestowed upon Christians, to hear early every 
 morning at the household altar such a song as 
 
 “ Lord, in the morning thou shalt hear 
 My voice ascending high, 
 
 To thee will I direct my prayer, 
 
 To thee lift up mine eye — 
 
 O, may thy Spirit guide my feet 
 In ways of righteousness ; 
 
 Make every path of duty straight, 
 
 And plain before my face.” 
 
 In the evening, when the Deity draws the 
 dark curtains of night over the face of nature 
 and around the homes of men — if there be a 
 
SECOND CONDITION 
 
 35 
 
 superstitious dread of unseen evil — it is comfort- 
 ing to sing such a song as flowed from the pen 
 and the lips of Wesley, saying: 
 
 “ All praise to Him who dwells in bliss, 
 
 Who made both day and night; 
 
 Whose throne is darkness in the abyss 
 Of uncreated light. 
 
 Each thought and deed his piercing eyes 
 With strictest search surveys ; 
 
 The deepest shades no more disguise 
 Than the full blaze of day. 
 
 Whom thou dost guard, 0, King of kings, 
 
 No evil shall molest, 
 
 Under the shadow of thy wings 
 Shall they securely rest. 
 
 Thy angels shall, around their beds, 
 
 Their constant stations keep ; 
 
 Thy faith and truth shall shield their heads, 
 
 For thou dost never sleep. 
 
 May we with calm and sweet repose, 
 
 And heavenly thoughts refreshed, 
 
 Our eyelids with the morn unclose, 
 
 And bless thee, ever blessed.” 
 
 To awaken in the bosom of a whole family 
 hungerings and thirstings after righteousness, how 
 well adapted is one such song as this : 
 
 “ O, J esus, I long to be perfectly whole ; 
 
 I want thee forever to live in my soul ; 
 
 Break down every idol, cast out every foe ; 
 
 Now wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow, 
 
 Whiter than snow ; yes, whiter than snow ; 
 
 Now wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” 
 
36 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 And to stimulate the reading of the Holy 
 Scriptures, how well adapted is the hymn ; 
 
 “ Father of Mercies, in thy Word 
 What endless glory shines ! 
 
 Forever be thy name adored 
 For these celestial lines. 
 
 There may the wretched sons of want 
 Exhaustless riches find, 
 
 Riches above what earth can grant, 
 
 And lasting as the mind. 
 
 There the fair tree of knowledge grows, 
 
 And yields a free repast ; 
 
 Sublimer sweets than nature knows 
 Invite the longing taste. 
 
 There the Redeemer’s welcome voice 
 Spreads heavenly peace around, 
 
 And life and everlasting joys 
 Attend the blissful sound. 
 
 O may these heavenly pages be 
 My ever dear delight ; 
 
 And still new beauties may I see 
 And still increasing light. 
 
 Divine Instructor, gracious Lord, 
 
 Be thou forever near ; 
 
 Teach me to love thy sacred Word, 
 
 And view my Savior there.” 
 
 3. After singing should follow the fervent, 
 effectual prayer of the righteous at the family 
 altar. Prayer, supplication, and intercession are 
 different forms of the same thing, produced by 
 different and changing circumstances of the fam- 
 ily or the individual. It is invocation for help 
 
SECOND CONDITION. 
 
 37 
 
 divine from the Almighty Father, God, and 
 King ; the same cry of the soul for succor in the 
 time of trouble and affliction, or the deep long- 
 ings of the soul for moral and spiritual purifica- 
 tion from the guilt of sin; it is a struggle for 
 deliverance from its cruel and destructive power ; 
 it is the high aspiration of the spirit after the 
 holiness, righteousness, and life of God. 
 
 This element of the family worship is com- 
 manded. The Son of God has said : “Ask and it 
 shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock 
 and it shall be opened unto you. For every one 
 that asketh, receiveth ; and he that seeketh, find- 
 eth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. 
 Or what man is there of whom, if his son ask 
 bread, will he give him a stone? Or, if he ask a 
 fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, 
 being evil, know how to give good gifts unto 
 your children, how much more shall your Father, 
 which is in heaven, give good things to them 
 that ask him?” 
 
 God has not only commanded us to pray; he 
 has also given us the form of prayer, in order 
 that we may always pray aright, and thus secure 
 for ourselves and our children and dependents 
 the “ good things” necessary for our bodies, souls, 
 and spirits. 
 
 Bread and butter, raiment and shelter, intel- 
 
38 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 lect and heart, will and power, are among the 
 good things which every family need, and which 
 God is ready, able, and willing to bestow upon 
 every family, of every race and every age, who 
 call upon him in sincerity and in truth. Every 
 family, and every individual of every family, 
 needs every one of these good things, needs them 
 every day, and some of them every hour of 
 every day. 
 
 Now, who can supply these varied, endless 
 wants but “Our Father who is in heaven?” 
 He is the inexhaustible Fountain of all “good 
 things,” and of all blessings, for time and for 
 eternity. 
 
THIRD CONDITION. 
 
 39 
 
 C^kptef IV. 
 
 THIRD CONDITION OF SUCCESSFUL CHILD- 
 TRAINING. 
 
 HE third condition of the successful training 
 
 X of children is private prayer. Shut up in 
 the closet, or some chosen, secluded spot, where 
 no eye can see, nor ear hear us, but the eyes and 
 ears of the Omnipresent God, Creator, and Father 
 of humanity, the mother, like Hannah, ought to 
 pray for her child, before it is conceived, or born. 
 The father should do likewise; for the earnest, 
 agonizing prayer of the faithful can never fail. 
 God will hear such a prayer as he heard Han- 
 nah’s, and will answer such a prayer as he an- 
 swered Hannah’s. As the faithful Abraham sup- 
 plicated for his children and his household, as 
 Job did continually for his family, so also must 
 the Christian father pray for the child and the 
 household which God has placed under his care. 
 Morning, noon, and night should be the witnesses 
 of his prayers, supplications, and intercessions for 
 every child which God has given him. And if 
 there be more than one child in the family, or in 
 
40 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION . 
 
 the household, each child should be named and 
 prayed for separately, according to the distinctive 
 manifest tendency and disposition of each. For 
 the disposition of children varies as their faces 
 vary, and their tendencies differ as their gait 
 varies. 
 
 Read the prophetic blessings of Jacob, as given 
 us in Genesis xlix, 1-29, and you will see that 
 his predictions were based upon their well known 
 dispositions and tendencies. When we also re- 
 member that there is more than poetry in the 
 line of Wordsworth, 
 
 “ The boy is father of the man,” 
 we ought to suit our prayers in the closet to 
 the natural disposition and tendencies of each 
 child. This remark leads us to recognize the 
 truth, that while the closet prayer ought to be 
 particular, the prayer at the family altar must 
 almost always assume a general form. 
 
 Will God hear these closet prayers? Yes. 
 Every child was originally made in the image of 
 God and after his likeness; which, according to 
 the teachings of St. Paul, consist in knowledge, 
 righteousness, and true holiness. It is the will 
 of God that every child shall be renewed in these 
 divine elements ; therefore, to pray that God, 
 through his Word and his Spirit, should renew 
 our children in his image and after his likeness, 
 
THIRD CONDITION. 
 
 41 
 
 while they are yet children, is to pray in perfect 
 harmony with the will of God. That we should 
 endeavor to make our children good, as well as 
 intelligent, and intelligent as well as good is as 
 manifestly the dictate of nature as it is of rev- 
 elation. That this is a duty taught emphatically 
 in the Old Testament, no one who reads it will 
 doubt; that it is clearly and repeatedly inculcated 
 in the New is equally certain. Therefore, to 
 pray that God may aid us in the discharge of the 
 duty commanded is one of the best means of se- 
 curing that aid. 
 
 We conclude, therefore, that secret, earnest, 
 faithful prayers in behalf of a child is a third 
 condition of successful child training. For all 
 our girls and boys our earnest, daily prayer 
 should be, 
 
 “ Green as the firs midst ice and snow, 
 
 Midst Spring and Summer’s blight, 
 
 In all the graces let them grow, 
 
 Symmetrical and bright. ,, 
 
 The language of David’s heart for Solomon 
 was, “ Give unto my son Solomon a perfect heart 
 to keep thy commandments, thy testimonies, and 
 thy statutes.” (1 Chronicles, xxix, 19.) Such was 
 his prayer for his son in the presence of assem- 
 bled Israel. It was earnest, and it was answered. 
 What must have been the character of his inter- 
 
42 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 cessions for Solomon in his secret closet! The 
 heart utters in secret what it suppresses in pub- 
 lic. For Solomon’s success as the king of Israel 
 his prayer was fully answered. For none wiser 
 or more just ever sat upon a throne. For “ Sol- 
 omon the son of David was strengthened in his 
 kingdom, and the Lord his God was with him 
 and magnified him exceedingly.” So, also, the 
 closet prayer of Solomon was not for position, 
 nor honor, nor wealth, nor victory over his ene- 
 mies ; nor for long life — but it was, “ Give me 
 now wisdom and knowledge that I may go out 
 and come in before this people ; for who can judge 
 this thy people that is so great.” 
 
 Mark the unselfishness and end of David’s 
 prayer for Solomon. He begged not for position 
 and wealth and honor and power, but for a perfect 
 heart — obedient to God’s commandments and tes- 
 timonies and statutes. Mark, also, the character- 
 istics of Solomon’s petition. It was not for 
 wealth, nor position, nor honor, nor power, but 
 for knowledge to discriminate between things 
 that resemble but differ, that he might not con- 
 found them, and for that sublimest of all earthly 
 gifts, that grandest and most efficient of all men- 
 tal endowments — wisdom — the ability to make a 
 right, just, profitable use of knowledge and learn- 
 ing for the well-being of man and the glory of 
 
THIRD CONDITION. 
 
 43 
 
 God. Such ought to be the character and the 
 characteristics of every sacred ejaculation or closet 
 prayer that a parent makes for a child. 
 
 Now as u iron sharpeneth iron,” so does the in- 
 visible and omnipotent Spirit of God quicken the 
 spirit of a child ; and as the potter molds with 
 his plastic hands the yielding clay, so does the 
 Spirit of God mold into forms of intellectual, 
 moral, and spiritual beauty, every child fully 
 consecrated by the family and the secret prayers, 
 when these prayers are followed up by careful 
 and diligent training of a child in the way he 
 should go. 
 
44 
 
 DOMESTIC ED DC A TION. 
 
 C$t\kptef V. 
 
 FOURTH CONDITION OF SUCCESSFUL CHILD 
 TRAINING. 
 
 HE fourth condition of successful child train- 
 
 X ing is the self-culture of the parents. “ He that 
 walketh with wise men shall be wise.” In this 
 divine statement we have given unto us the law 
 of association and assimilation. In common par- 
 lance we say, “like begets like.” We also say, 
 “ the fruit is like the tree.” “ The flowing stream 
 is like the fountain in color and in taste.” There- 
 fore we do not expect the children to rise above 
 the grade of their parentage. But we can make 
 exceptions to this rule by changing the circum- 
 stances which surround them, and thus change 
 their condition and elevate them above their 
 parentage. 
 
 We have seen such changes made in African 
 boys, at Lincoln University, and in Indian boys 
 and girls at Hampton, Virginia. I have seen 
 changes in the outlines of their heads, in the con- 
 tour of their faces, in the expression of their 
 eyes, in their general manners, opinions, senti- 
 
FOURTH CONDITION. 
 
 45 
 
 merits, and pursuits. All these changes can be 
 effected only by separation from their parents and 
 their heathen and barbarous surroundings. Such 
 changes can be effected in the physical and men- 
 tal condition of any barbarous family, and if so, 
 on any ignorant and rude ones. But, the separa- 
 tion of the child from its mother in order that it 
 may be rightly trained seems to be unnatural, 
 and children from their parents abnormal, because 
 the demand of nature is that the parents be the 
 first educators of their children — hence the wis- 
 dom of the thought of Vinet, the “ Necessite de 
 V education des educateurs ” — the necessity of ed- 
 ucating the educators . 1 
 
 Now, man was made for knowledge, and, there- 
 fore, for education. He was made to know one 
 object from another in order that he might not 
 confound the differences and distinctions which 
 separate them, nor the resemblances which classify 
 them. Thus he was made to know the difference 
 between a cow and a buffalo ; between a sheep and 
 a goat ; between the horse and the mule. So, also, 
 man was made to know the difference between 
 the true and the false, the fit and the unfit, the 
 proper and the improper, the right and the wrong, 
 the good and the evil, even when there is the 
 
 1 “ L’Education, La Famille, et La Soci6t6,” pp. 6-18. 
 
46 
 
 D OMES TIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 closest resemblance between them. Rising still 
 higher in the region of mind, man was made to 
 know the difference between religion and super- 
 stition ; to know the Christian religion from the 
 superstitions which resembles it ; to discern the 
 merely human from the divine Spirit ; the indif- 
 ferent from the essential ; to know God as the 
 cherubim and seraphim know him ; to know him 
 as angels and archangels know him, in order that 
 he may love and worship as these heavenly be- 
 ings love and worship — in sincerity, in spirit, and 
 in truth; the only worship which is acceptable 
 to Him who sees not as man sees, and with whom 
 things highly esteemed among men are an abom- 
 ination in his sight. The where and the when, 
 the what and the how, are also very important for 
 man to know, and God made him to know them. 
 
 But what is knowledge without divine holiness 
 and divine love ? Devils are intelligent, they 
 know ten thousand things of which man is igno- 
 rant, and may remain forever ignorant ; but they 
 are not holy, neither can they love as God loves, 
 nor hate as he hates; for what God loves they 
 hate, and what he hates they love. But God 
 made man to love as well as to know ; to suffer 
 as well as to do. He made man to love as 
 he loves ; only the pure, the true, and the good. 
 As he made man to love these, so, also, he made 
 
FOURTH CONDITION . 
 
 47 
 
 man to hate their opposites. Now divine love 
 purifies the soul because it is the opposite of that 
 vile thing which is named lust. Love repels it 
 and casts it out of the heart if it steals an en- 
 trance there but for a moment. Love exalts a 
 man into the favor of Him who is the fountain 
 of love and makes him god-like. The man who 
 loves God is the man who delights greatly in his 
 commandments, and by this very delight obeys 
 all the commandments always. These two things , 
 love and obedience , keep the individual at one with 
 Christ and with God. Now, this divine union also 
 keeps the individual under the vivifying influences 
 of the Holy Spirit, who causes him, or her, to 
 grow daily in all the manly virtues and in all 
 the Christian graces ; and yet that this growth in 
 moral excellence is based upon knowledge, is clear 
 and manifest, according to the prayer of the 
 Apostle for the Church at Philippi, saying, “ This 
 I pray, that your love may abound yet more and 
 more in knowledge and in all judgment, that ye 
 may approve things that are excellent ; that ye 
 may be sincere and without offense until the day 
 of Christ, being filled with the fruits of right- 
 eousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the 
 praise and glory of God.” (Philippians i, 10, 11.) 
 What is the result? This Christian development 
 lifts us up to the highest plane of Christian 
 
48 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 character and Christian activities, widens our 
 views of duty and obligations, opens our heart 
 and makes it like that of God, ready to take in 
 the dying and undying interests of every human 
 being; leads us out of ourselves to seek and to 
 bless others ; the most remote and the most aban- 
 doned, that they might be renewed in the image 
 of Him who is “ the brightness of the Father’s 
 glory, and the express image of his person.” (He- 
 brews i, 3.) Now if this kind of self culture 
 leads us out of ourselves to bless the most remote 
 and the most abandoned , what will it not lead us 
 to do for our own child ? What will it not lead 
 us to plan and to execute for the well-being of the 
 children, whom God has committed to our imme- 
 diate care? If parents thus cultivated will care 
 for strangers, will they neglect their own off- 
 spring? If they will give, and do, and suffer to 
 recreate the heathen, will they suffer their own 
 offspring to grow up in ignorance, or vice, and 
 crime? Impossible! With enlarged hearts and 
 the highest conceptions of their duty to their 
 God, their own children, and their own country, 
 they will diligently labor to make every child in- 
 telligent, holy, and useful to God and to man. 
 
 Hence, they will not only instruct their chil- 
 dren, they will also guard them against evil com- 
 panions and evil influences of every kind. “ As 
 
FOURTH CONDITION. 
 
 49 
 
 an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her 
 young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, 
 beareth them on her wings.” (Deut. xxxii, 11, 12.) J 
 
 So will the intelligent, faithful, Christian par- 
 ent and guardian take their children, teach them; 
 pray for them ; pray over them ; guide them into 
 the path of knowledge, and holiness, and right- 
 eousness, till they have moral strength and power 
 to accept the divine challenge, “ Who will rise up 
 for me against the evil doers? or, who will stand 
 up for me against the workers of iniquity?” 
 (Psalm xciv, 16.) 
 
 These four conditions fulfilled, I believe a 
 child can be successfully trained in the way he 
 should go ; for they will place the family in pe- 
 culiar relations to the throne of God. 
 
 a . I believe there will be a communication be- 
 tween it and the Almighty, more real than the 
 ladder which Jacob saw in his wonderful dream. 
 
 b. Angels of love and mercy shall descend to 
 bear the blessings of God into the opened lap, 
 
 1 “ The eagle is remarkable for her tender care of her 
 young and for the pains that she uses, and the methods 
 which she employs in teaching them to fly ; stirring them 
 up out of their nest, fluttering in the air over them to 
 show them how to use their wings, and even carrying them 
 upon her wings, so that in order to destroy the young 
 eagles, the body of the old one must, on some occasions 
 first be pierced.” See Scott’s Commentary in loco. 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 D OMES TIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 the outstretched arms, and the loving bosom of 
 that devout and trusting household. 
 
 c. There shall be guardian angels round about 
 it to defend it from danger ; to guide it into the 
 path of duty, to dissipate its fears, and to ani- 
 mate its hopes. This is not a mere poetic picture. 
 It is a reality, even as the psalmist declares; 
 u The angel of the Lord encampeth round about 
 them that fear him and delivereth them.” (Psalm 
 xxxiv, 7; xci, 10, 11, 12; Hebrews i, 13, 14.) 
 Moreover, one by one the father or the mother, 
 the son or the daughter shall ascend, led by the 
 guardian angels up to the mansions of love and 
 life everlasting. (Psalm cxii, 1-3; Judges xiii; 
 Matthew xviii, 10 ; Zechariah iii, 6, 7.) 
 
 If the Almighty Father has favorites, such 
 families are his favorites. If there be one spot 
 on earth more flowery more fragrant, more beau- 
 tiful than another, upon which the eyes of the 
 Creator delight to gaze, it is upon such a spot. 
 If there be one family with far more capacity 
 for receiving good and more ability for producing 
 good than any other it is that devout and godlike 
 family. 1 
 
 1 See Isaiah iv, 5, and the Comment of Lange in loco , 
 page 81. But for the benefit of such of my readers as 
 have not Lange, and may never be able to purchase his 
 Commentary on Isaiah, I give the passage here: “ ‘Assem- 
 blies’ is evidently in contrast with every dwelling, and 
 
FOURTH CONDITION. 
 
 51 
 
 I close this chapter by saying, when these 
 four conditions are fulfilled the child or the chil- 
 dren trained under them can not fail, in many 
 instances, to develop an interesting character; in 
 almost all cases, a good character; and in some 
 cases a grand character, with inherent and ac- 
 quired abilities to work effectually for the well- 
 being of mankind . * 1 
 
 What gave Abraham his power with God, 
 and his power over man? It was his personal 
 consecration? What made his family and his 
 household greater than those of the surround- 
 ing heathen ? It was his consecration of that 
 household to the service of the only true God. 
 
 declares that the sign of Jehovah shall hover over both 
 the dwellings of individual families and over the assembled 
 total of the nation. Every single house , as well as the house 
 of Jacob as a whole, shall be God’s holy tabernacle, as 
 formerly the typical Tabernacle was alone.” The words 
 emphatic I have taken the liberty to italicize. 
 
 1 On this interesting subject Rev. A. Yinet, one of the 
 best French thinkers, says : “ Christianity, simply compre- 
 hended and simply applied, prevents, without contradic- 
 tion, the grossest errors. The Gospel is, for things essen- 
 tial, the best treatise on education, and, in general, the 
 child brought up Christianly is a child well raised.” 
 (“ Le Christianisme, compris simplement et simplement 
 applique, previent sans contredit les plus grosses erreurs ; 
 l’evangile est, pour les choses essentielles, le meilleur 
 traite d’edueation, et, en general, l’enfant eleve Chretienne 
 ment est un enfant bien 61eve.”) “L’ Education, la Fam- 
 ille et la Societe.” page 7. 
 
52 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 Who are to be the mighty ones upon this earth, 
 enlightening it by their intelligence, blessing it 
 by their practical wisdom, exalting it by their 
 godly examples ? The seed of the righteous. 
 
 When the divine command was given to the 
 first matrimonial pair, “Be fruitful and multiply 
 and replenish the earth,” the end of that man- 
 date was to produce a holy offspring like unto 
 themselves, for they were then holy. This fact 
 proves that the home was designed to be a con- 
 secrated one, in which children should be raised 
 in a pure atmosphere and prepared to develop a 
 personal history in perfect harmony with the will 
 of God, as we find that will expressed in the di- 
 vine command, “Train up a child i the way he 
 should go.” (Psa. cxii, 1-3.) 
 
WHEN TO BEGIN TRAINING. 
 
 53 
 
 VI. 
 
 WHEN TO BEGIN THE TRAINING OF A CHILD. 
 
 T HE period when we ought to begin the train- 
 ing of a child is a question of too great 
 importance to be ignored in an essay like this; 
 therefore, we enter at once upon its discussion by 
 saying, We ought to begin to train a child as 
 soon as it comes into this world. Naturally, this 
 early training must be : 
 
 a . Physical . That body, of which the psalmist 
 spoke, when he said, “ I will praise thee, for 
 I am fearfully and wonderfully made ” (Psa. 
 cxxxix, 14), differs not from the body of the 
 infant of yesterday’s birth, be that infant Asiatic, 
 European, or African, Shemitic, Hamitic, or 
 Japhetic. However they may differ in the color 
 of their skin or the texture and color of their 
 hair, their anatomical, physiological, and psycho- 
 logical structure is alike, and constructed after one 
 common type. They are all of one flesh and one 
 blood. (Acts xvii, 26 ; et Genesis i, 26, 27.) 
 
 By the eternal and unchangeable decree , the 
 same bones and muscles, the same veins and arte- 
 
54 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 ries, the varied tissues and nervous system mark 
 them and classify them as man ; made of the 
 dust of the earth and destined (after a limited 
 period) back to dust again. To strengthen, in- 
 vigorate, and develop this body, so as to make it 
 strong and powerful and long lived, and to keep 
 it all the time in healthy action, is the first duty 
 of the mother or the guardian. 
 
 This duty begins with cleanliness and comfort — 
 cleanliness produced by the daily bath ; and com- 
 fort, by sufficient clothing of the right texture and 
 the right or proper fit; such a texture and such 
 a fit as will preserve the natural temperature and 
 free movement of the infant’s body. And inas- 
 much as, for many months after birth, the infant 
 is to draw its food entirely from its mother’s 
 body — that is, its mother’s milk — and, as the 
 mother’s milk can be affected by the food she 
 daily eats, she ought to be careful to feed her- 
 self with the most nutritious food, in order that 
 her baby may be the stronger for it. To protect 
 it from draughts or sudden currents of air is 
 essential to the preservation of her baby’s health ; 
 and, therefore, the mother ought to be very cautious 
 about the bed, crib, or cradle in which she places 
 her infant to sleep, lest a cold be struck into its 
 body that may terminate in death. The mother 
 should avoid the rough handling of her baby, 
 
WHEN TO BEGIN TRAINING . 
 
 55 
 
 either by herself or by others. She should care- 
 fully train the eyes to observe the forms and 
 colors of things, the ear to the distinction of 
 sounds, and the touch to the difference in textures 
 and surfaces, between surfaces, so far as round- 
 ness and flatness may be perceived by the touch 
 as well as by the sight ; also, the differences be- 
 tweenroughness and smoothness. 
 
 And mothers should also be careful to have 
 their babies sleeping always in pure air, and 
 modified — that is, softened — light as well as pure 
 air, because light as well as air is conducive to 
 health. They should so train their children as 
 to render them capable of enduring heat and 
 cold, exercise and fatigue, in order that, when 
 the age of ripened manhood and womanhood be 
 attained, they may be robust and fitted for any 
 kind of manual or mental labor. But, inasmuch 
 as accomplished physicians and physiologists have 
 written elaborately on such topics, I refer moth- 
 ers to their works for particular instruction . 1 
 
 When we remember that the body is to the 
 mind what a fine instrument is to a mechanic, we 
 shall see how important it is that we diligently 
 
 1 The readers of this essay will find most valuable in- 
 formation and suggestions in a work entitled, “ Mothers and 
 Daughters,” by Dr. Tullio Luzzard Verdi. See, also, a 
 recent work on “ Physiology and Hygiene,” by Dr. R. T. 
 Brown, of Indiana University. 
 
56 
 
 DOMESTIC ED VC A TION. 
 
 labor to develop, train, and, if possible, secure 
 strong and vigorous bodies for the duties and 
 the work of life. All the tools of the mechanic, 
 such as the saw, the chisel, the jack-plane, the 
 smoothing-plane, the fore-plane, the hatchet, and 
 the hammer should always be kept in good con- 
 dition, because, by so doing, he not only saves 
 time, and dispatches work ; but he also produces 
 more finished work ; so, also, ought every mem- 
 ber of a child’s body be kept in good condition, 
 in order that he may be able to do the best kind 
 of work in the shortest given time, whether the 
 work be in the physical realm or in the higher 
 regions of morality and religion. 
 
 The mental training is as far above the physi- 
 cal as mind is above matter; therefore, if the 
 physical training of a child demands our daily 
 attention and diligence in order that a fine and 
 powerful physique may be developed, we ought 
 to give intensified attention and diligence to the 
 cultivation of the mental nature of a child. 
 
 The body dies. The mind lives forever. The 
 body is the instrument, the mind is the mechanic. 
 If the instruments ought to be well fitted for use, 
 the mechanic should be rendered better fitted to 
 use them. To use them aright, he needs intelli- 
 gence and skill. Intelligence comes from instruc- 
 tion and study, skill from practice and experience. 
 
WHEN TO BEGIN TRAINING. 
 
 57 
 
 The mind of a child is a very complex thing. 
 It embraces three different things — the intellect, 
 the sensibility, the will. By the first we acquire 
 knowledge. By the second we love or hate, are 
 miserable or happy, are pure or impure, are be- 
 loved of God and man or detested by both. By 
 the third, viz., the will, we purpose and execute 
 the good or the evil; we obey law, order, gov- 
 ernment or we trample them under our feet. 
 This will “is the rudder which, after all, guides 
 the course of the vessel even when it is impelled 
 by sails or by oars inclining now to the one side 
 and now to the other .” 1 
 
 The will embraces both choice and freedom ; 
 choice of the good or choice of the bad ; freedom 
 to reject the good and to embrace the bad, to fly 
 up to heaven or leap into hell . 2 
 
 The proper training of the will is, therefore, 
 of the first importance in molding and coloring 
 the character of a child. I shall, therefore, begin 
 with this. This truth leads me now and here to 
 say that in training the mental activities, the first 
 lesson which the mother ought to give her child is 
 obedience to herself. 
 
 She stands in the stead of the Creator, and is 
 
 *Dr. McCosh on “The Emotions,” page 27. 
 
 2 “ Outline Study of Man,” by Dr. Mark Hopkins, pages 
 224, 225. 
 
58 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION . 
 
 charged by him with this high and important 
 duty. Order, law, and gavernment are of divine 
 origin, ordained for the well-being of intelligent 
 creatures — all of whom are the subjects of God’s 
 government. It is necessary, therefore, to secure 
 the well-being of the child, that these ideas, these 
 truths, and these facts should be impressed upon 
 the infant mind, in order that they may grow 
 with its growth through childhood, youth, and 
 early manhood. 
 
 The mother, therefore, must begin to teach 
 the infant the difference between what is fit and 
 what is not fit for it to have; what is proper or 
 not proper for it to do; what is right and what 
 is wrong in thought, word, or deed. In all this 
 kind of work, which the mother must daily per- 
 form, she will find the will of her child very 
 often in conflict with her duty. Now , then , she 
 must enforce the law of obedience, which her infant 
 child, as yet, can not understand ; but which, not- 
 withstanding, she must enforce. Foolish cavilers 
 say this is unreasonable. To which objection we 
 reply by saying : In so doing we follow the ex- 
 ample of the Creator himself, who requires us to 
 obey many laws which we do not understand, 
 and some which we may never be able to com- 
 prehend till we be landed in the spirit world. 
 Perhaps not then. To require obedience of an 
 
WHEN TO BEGIN TRAINING. 
 
 59 
 
 infant but two or three weeks old is, perhaps, 
 the most difficult and painful duty of a mother — 
 the most difficult, because it is hard for a mother 
 to believe that so young a moral agent is able 
 to obey ; the most painful, because of the ten- 
 derness of a mother’s love. Love says, “ The baby 
 desires this, therefore, the baby must have it.” 
 But what does reason reply ? Her reply is, “ This 
 very thing will be injurious to the health of the 
 child, and, therefore, it must be withheld. Will 
 a reasonable mother give to her baby that which 
 she knows will damage its health, perhaps en- 
 danger its life? Surely not. Here, then, is an 
 instance where the baby must obey, although it 
 can not understand. 
 
 Take another illustration. A baby sees in the 
 hand of an elder brother or sister a glittering 
 knife. Its very beauty excites desire. Will the 
 reasonable mother put such an instrument in the 
 hands of her infant because that infant desires it 
 or even cries for it? Surely not. Here, then, is 
 another instance in which a child must be made 
 to obey when it can not understand. Cases of 
 this kind can be multiplied without number to 
 prove that a child, though very young, must yield 
 its will to that of its mother, though it be not 
 able to understand the law of obedience, much 
 less the reasons upon which it is based. 
 
60 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 Again, a foolish love will say to the mother^ 
 “ The baby desires that glass of wine because it 
 looks beautiful, and, therefore, it is cruel to with- 
 hold what the baby wants.” Will a sensible 
 mother listen to such falsehood? Does she not 
 know it is far more cruel to give her baby such 
 a thing than to withhold it? Will she sacrifice 
 the future of her baby to the present? But a 
 foolish love will gratify the present though it may 
 plunge the future of the child into the drunkard’s 
 habits, the drunkard’s grave, and the drunkard’s 
 hell. 
 
 But a reasonable mother, guided by a wise 
 love, will say, “ now or never” “ Now or never 
 is the time to begin to train my child for useful- 
 ness and for heaven.” Now or never is the hour 
 to begin to teach the all-important lesson of obe- 
 dience ; because, in that is the seed of every thing 
 that is noble, beautiful, and great in human char- 
 acter. Now is the moment to teach a new-born 
 babe — a young immortal, the duty of obedience to 
 parents, because the Creator has placed them in 
 his stead to impress the infant moral agent with 
 the sublime ideas of order, law, and government. 
 
 The moral is also an element of the mental . The 
 moral lesson is a higher lesson to teach than the 
 intellectual ; because the moral nature of a hu- 
 man being is above the intellectual ; as far above 
 
WHEN TO BEGIN TRAINING. 
 
 61 
 
 the intellectual as the intellectual is above the 
 physical. The towering intellect of an archangel 
 can not secure to any man or woman admittance 
 into heaven; but the humble, believing, contrite 
 spirit will obtain abundant entrance therein. In 
 the final judgment day it will be seen that the 
 humble, obedient, pure morality will eclipse, the 
 proud, inflated, disobedient, conceited, intellectu- 
 ality. “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, 
 and to hearken than the fat of lambs ; for rebell- 
 ion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness 
 as iniquity and idolatry.” (1 Samuel xv, 22, 23.) 
 
 On account of his disobedience Saul, the first 
 king of Israel, lost his crown, his scepter, and 
 his throne. They were all given to David who, 
 as king of Israel, did obey the commandments of 
 the Lord. 
 
 As obedience is so important, how shall par- 
 ents begin to teach it to so young a moral agent 
 as a baby ? Inflict no corporal punishment upon 
 it. Its bones, muscles, and nerves are too deli- 
 cate to be bruised, or in any manner injured by 
 a slap of the hand. The eye must speak out the 
 command to obey ; the voice must utter the ten- 
 derness of a mother’s love. When the determined 
 will is seen in the eye, and the loving heart is 
 felt in the voice, the conscious infant will soon 
 learn to yield to a parent’s command. 
 
62 
 
 D OMES TIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 We repeat, the important duty, first of all, 
 and above all, is to teach the infant obedience to 
 the mother and obedience to the father, because 
 they stand in God’s place to enforce the idea 
 and the duty of obedience to order, law, and gov- 
 ernment. No human regulation of Church or 
 state has required this at the hands of the par- 
 ents. God himself has ordained it. He ordained 
 it before man was made — before the foundations 
 of the earth were laid. (Ephesians i, 4.) 
 
 The third time, we repeat, the first lesson to be 
 taught by the mother and to be learned by the 
 child is obedience to order, law, government, and 
 authority , which creates law, order, and govern- 
 ment. By authority, I mean the God above the 
 parents. 
 
 Moreover, the child should be taught that the 
 law of obedience is identical with the law of 
 love. He ought to be so instructed by the intel- 
 ligent parents as always to feel that where there 
 is a sincere and earnest love, there will be a 
 cheerful and ready obedience to a government whose 
 yoke is easy and whose burden is light. 
 
 Parents will also do well to study in order 
 that they may know the truth, that obedience 
 lies at the very foundation of a good character. 
 Therefore, in early infancy a child ought to be 
 taught that a good character, whether it mani- 
 
WHEN TO BEGIN TRAINING. 
 
 63 
 
 fests itself on a small scale or a large one, in a nar- 
 row circle or a wide one, must be based on obedi- 
 ence, and is a result of it ; and still more, a child 
 ought to be taught that there is no such thing as 
 true greatness in man nor woman if there be not 
 the love of order, law, and government in the 
 heart of that man or that woman who aspires to 
 greatness, and that this love for these things must 
 be in their heart y as a guiding, regulating, controll- 
 ing principle. 
 
 I will add, that the essential principles of 
 moral greatness which makes the grand character , 
 and, therefore, the great man and the great 
 woman, should not only be inculcated by precept, 
 but also by lucid examples drawn from the biog- 
 raphy of the good and the great of both sexes — 
 of all races and of all ages. 
 
 Again, what is a child without a character? 
 What is character without goodness? But there 
 is no such thing as goodness where there is not obe- 
 dience. Goodness and greatness in man or in 
 woman ought to begin with infancy ; ought to run 
 through childhood and control early manhood 
 and early womanhood. Like good seed in good 
 soil, it will grow with their growth, and in ma- 
 ture manhood or mature womanhood be as strong 
 and powerful as the sturdy oak. 
 
 “ O, no,” says the objector, “ the child, the 
 
G4 
 
 D 0MEST1C ED UCA TION. 
 
 boy, the girl, are too young. Let them first sow 
 their wild oats, after that let them be good by 
 faith and repentance.” 
 
 Such reasoning is as destructive as it is fool- 
 ish. Does not the objector know that thousands 
 of children and youth perish in the very act of 
 sowing their wild oats? And, that while they 
 are ruining themselves, they are also corrupting 
 others ? “ An ounce of prevention is worth a 
 
 pound of cure.” When once obedience is gained 
 and secured, all that is great and good in the fu- 
 ture of that child is also gained and secured. 
 Mother, father, parents, keep your eyes upon the 
 will of that child; hold it, guide it, bend it by 
 the power and the light of law. Tell it that law 
 expresses the will of God; teach it the truth that 
 God is love, and, therefore, that his law and his 
 love are one. Teach it that this law of love 
 must be written and hidden in its heart as a treas- 
 ure sweeter than honey, more precious than gold, 
 more desirable than life, as a rule by which our 
 actions are to be governed, by which our work 
 is to be measured and squared ; a lamp to his 
 feet, a ladder of light by which he may ascend 
 from earth to heaven. 
 
 But infants have no conception of law ; they 
 can not see that God who creates law, but they 
 can see and hear the mother, they can see and 
 
WHEN TO BEGIN TRAINING . 
 
 65 
 
 hear the father, therefore, the invisible God has 
 authorized the mother and the father to act as 
 his agents in the homestead to inculcate the duty 
 and the love of obedience to law, to enforce sub- 
 mission to parental authority which represents 
 the authority of the adorable Creator. Blessed 
 are that mother and that father who faithfully dis- 
 charge these sacred duties. 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 Cljkptef VII. 
 
 REASONS FOR TRAINING A CHILD. 
 
 1. Family Considerations. We have seen 
 that a family is a miniature state and a miniature 
 Church; that there is a head, the father, and 
 his coequal, the mother; and also that there are 
 members to these heads — the child sometimes, 
 and in most cases, children ; then helpers, some- 
 times called servants. These are all so related 
 that if one be injured, all are more or less in- 
 jured, either by actual damage, as in the loss of 
 property, the loss of health, the loss of reputa- 
 tion ; or by sympathy, a sympathy often so deep 
 as to affect health, and, sometimes, destructive 
 of life. 
 
 a. Thus, a child can damage the well-being 
 of a whole family to which he is related either 
 by the ties of consanguinity or the bonds of af- 
 finity, more especially by the former. 
 
 b. If he be a liar, he can damage his brother, 
 damage his sister, damage his father, and damage 
 his mother. 
 
 c. A bad child can disgrace his brother and 
 
REASONS FOR TRAINING A CHILD. 67 
 
 sister, his father and his mother, if he be a thief. 
 So, also, a bad child, who is spiteful and mali- 
 cious, can injure his father and his mother, his 
 sister or his brother by some felonious act. 
 
 d. Moreover, a bad child can send misery 
 into the heart of his sister, of his brother, of his 
 father, and of his mother. All this he can do 
 if he be a drunkard or an assassin. 
 
 e. But who can express the anguish of a high- 
 minded parent whose daughter will sell herself 
 for wealth, for silks, for satins, for jewelry ? Is 
 there any anguish so great as that which parents 
 must feel when a daughter forsakes her virtue 
 and her honor? The sorrow of such unfortunate 
 parents becomes intensified if their own moral 
 sensibilities have been purified and elevated by 
 the Christian spirit and the Christian teachings. 
 
 /. But, not to speak of such extreme cases of 
 youthful wickedness, does not every body know 
 that a child who is self-willed, unruly, disobe- 
 dient, or insolent, can literally torment all the 
 members of a family to which he belongs? 
 
 g. On the contrary, a good child can be a 
 source of comfort, happiness, honor, and joy to all 
 around him. 
 
 h. This he can do by diligent labor, industry, 
 and thrift. Such a son can render material aid 
 to sickly, or feeble, or aged indigent parents. 
 
68 
 
 DOMESTIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 Here is a case which came under my observa- 
 tion. In the Winter of 1881 there was living at 
 Jacksonville, Florida, a widow, the mother of 
 five children — three of whom were girls, and in 
 talents far above their surroundings. The two 
 oldest of the five were absent, one of whom was 
 a young woman of about seventeen years, the 
 other a young man of about twenty. This mother 
 is slightly built, and, therefore, of rather feeble 
 constitution. Seeing that three of her children 
 were dependent on her for food, raiment, and 
 shelter, I requested her to tell me how she man- 
 aged to support them. She answered, and said, 
 “ By my sewing-machine and the aid of my oldest 
 son.” Said I, how much does he give you? 
 Said she, “ One-half of what he earns he gives 
 me every month. If he earns twenty dollars, he 
 gives me ten; if eighteen, he gives me nine; if 
 sixteen, he gives me eight.” Noble son, said I, 
 God will bless him because he cares for his 
 mother. 
 
 In the Winter of 1882 I again visited that 
 family, and, inquiring after the oldest son, I was 
 informed that he was in Boston, laboring to 
 make sufficient money to purchase for his mother 
 the neat little cottage in which she was living. 
 I know of two other sons who are doing the 
 same good things for their widowed mothers. 
 
REASONS FOR TRAINING A CHILD . 69 
 
 Take another example. An aged father of 
 seventy-two years was the steward of a hotel in 
 Georgetown, D. C. On a cold, freezing, and 
 sleety morning of the Winter of 1848, he started 
 from his home to discharge his duties, and was 
 descending the steps which connected his elevated 
 yard to the pavement, when he slipped and broke 
 his leg. This circumstance compelled him to go 
 on crutches for seven years, unable to earn so 
 much as a penny a day. But he had two affec- 
 tionate daughters who were mantua-makers, and 
 who were well trained in domestic habits. This 
 they made manifest in the ample support which 
 they wrought for him by their scissors, needle 
 and thread, till he peacefully entered his grave 
 at the advanced age of about eighty-two, bless- 
 ing Almighty God for giving him such dutiful 
 daughters. In the same affectionate manner they 
 supported their infirm mother, who died at the 
 still greater age of about eighty-four years, in- 
 voking the blessings of heaven upon their grate- 
 ful children. 
 
 Lastly. I knew an interesting young man, 
 by trade a barber, who lived the life of a bach- 
 elor till he was over thirty years of age, in order 
 that he might have the wherewith to support his 
 aged, infirm, and widowed mother. 
 
 I can produce a noble list of such instances 
 
70 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 of filial devotion, showing how well-trained chil- 
 dren can make the homes of aged parents honor- 
 able, comfortable, and joyful. 
 
 And what shall I say of the well-trained 
 daughter who develops into an earnest Christian 
 teacher of children and youth ? Higher and 
 nobler still, what shall I say of the well-trained 
 daughter or son who develops and rises to the 
 standard of an earnest Christian educator ; whose 
 school-house, whose recitation- room is to her or 
 to him a genuine workshop in which the intel- 
 lect is trained to look and to aim heavenward — 
 the heart to love only the pure, and the useful, 
 and the good — and the will to bend in reverential 
 submission to law , order , government , authority f 
 Moreover, what shall I say of the son whose de- 
 velopment lifts him up to the rank of a faithful 
 minister of the Gospel of salvation? 
 
 At the same time that they are a real source of 
 comfort and joy to their parents, they also reflect 
 beams of honor, and glory, and power, upon the 
 paternal homestead. Of such wise and loving 
 parents we may say that humanity will hold them 
 in everlasting esteem and reverence. 
 
RACE CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 71 
 
 dtjkptei* VIII. 
 
 RACE CONSIDERATIONS REQUIRE SUCH TRAIN- 
 ING. 
 
 I ASCEND a step higher, and say that race 
 considerations require us to train a child in 
 the way he should go. 
 
 a. What the families of a race are the race 
 will be — nothing more, nothing less. If you cor- 
 rupt the families so that they shall become igno- 
 rant, vicious, criminal, godless, you will also 
 corrupt the race springing from them. 
 
 6. Therefore, their fecundity will be dimin- 
 ished. Enervated and debauched constitutions 
 soon cease to be fruitful. The wickedness of a 
 race will smite them with barrenness, and their 
 progeny shall be weak and few. 
 
 c. The vices and crimes of families will also 
 curtail the longevity of the race which they repre- 
 sent, so that the race itself will ultimately become 
 extinct. Should the sword of extermination be 
 unsheathed against a race there are two ways of 
 escape for it. The one is by flight from the 
 exterminator, the other is by superior prowess 
 
72 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 and military skill in the field of battle. But, 
 when a race corrupts itself by ignorance, vice, 
 and crime, no earthly power can save it, for it is 
 then in the dilemma of a man who has drawn a 
 razor across his own throat, cutting it from ear 
 to ear ! 
 
 d. But, if the families of a race will make 
 themselves intelligent, virtuous, and godly it will 
 bring down upon itself blessings from heaven 
 above, and blessings from the earth below. The 
 omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent God will 
 be to them the inexhaustible fountain of bless- 
 ings, for he is the Father of all the families of the 
 earth, the God of its races and the king and pre- 
 server of its nations. Let us contemplate some of 
 the blessings which he has promised to the races 
 who will make themselves intelligent, wise, under- 
 standing, and godlike. 
 
 When he was preparing the Hebrew race for 
 national functions he instructed them as carefully 
 as the most wise and loving father would instruct 
 his only son, tenderly beloved, in the conditions 
 of success in life and throughout life — life in the 
 present world and life in the world to come. 
 
 1. He taught them that to obey his law, stat- 
 utes, and judgments uniformly, diligently, and 
 cheerfully, was the first condition of success — that 
 is, of prosperity. 
 
RACE CONSIDER A TIONS. 
 
 73 
 
 2. That to love this law, these statutes, and 
 these judgments was a second condition of well- 
 being. Now let us see what he meant by well- 
 being — that is, prosperity in its most compre- 
 hensive signification. 
 
 a. Material blessings. Hear what Moses, their 
 wise and good legislator, said : u Thou shalt, 
 therefore, keep the commandments and the stat- 
 utes and the judgments which I command thee 
 this day, to do them. Wherefore, it shall come 
 to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and 
 keep and do them, that the Lord thy God shall keep 
 unto thee the covenant and the mercy, which he 
 sware unto thy fathers. And he will love thee 
 and bless thee, and multiply thee ; he will also 
 bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy 
 land, thy corn and thy wine, and thine oil, the 
 increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy 
 sheep in the land which he sware unto thy fathers 
 to give thee. Thou shalt be blessed above all 
 people, there shall not be male or female among 
 you barren or among your cattle.” (Deute- 
 ronomy vii, 11-14.) 
 
 In this beautiful passage we are taught two 
 things: (1.) That obedience to God’s laws, stat- 
 utes, and judgments excites and secures his love; 
 and (2.) that his love is manifested by many ma- 
 terial blessings which he multiplies unto all who 
 
74 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 honor his law. .(Deuteronomy viii, 11-18.) Of 
 the same import is the xxviii, 1-14, which ex- 
 pands the ideas and the correspondent facts. 
 
 Hear, also, what the greatest of ancient kings 
 and warriors teaches in the one hundred and twelfth 
 Psalm : “ Blessed is the man that feareth the 
 Lord, that delighteth greatly in his command- 
 ments. His seed shall be mighty upon earth ; 
 the generation of the upright shall be blessed. 
 Wealth and riches shall be in his house.” 
 
 This divine promise includes commerce, agri- 
 culture, live stock of all kinds, mining and bank- 
 ing in silver and gold, as much as is necessary for 
 a race to possess. 
 
 b. Well-being also includes fecundity. The 
 promise which God made to the ancestors of Is- 
 rael was, that their descendants should be a as 
 numerous as the stars of heaven and as the dust 
 which is upon the earth, and as the sand which is 
 upon the seashore.” (Genesis xiii, 16; xxii, 17; 
 xxviii, 14.) 
 
 c. These promises were made to Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob at a time when each of them 
 was at the head of an isolated family, wandering 
 in a foreign land. About three centuries after, 
 and when God was about to introduce them into 
 the promised land, and to establish them in it 
 as successors of the ungodly Canaanites, he made 
 
RACE CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 75 
 
 them clearly and emphatically to understand that 
 hearty and uniform obedience to all his laws was 
 a condition of longevity . 
 
 Again, I quote Moses says he, “Thou shalt 
 keep, therefore, his statutes and his command- 
 ments which I command thee this day, that it 
 may go well with thee, and with thy children after 
 thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon 
 the earth , which the Lord thy God giveth thee for- 
 ever” (Deuteronomy iv, 40.) 
 
 The promise of longevity is repeated again in 
 the Book of Deuteronomy as many as five times. 
 But, in every instance, it is dependent upon 
 obedience to the divine law. A single reflection 
 will clearly show the wisdom and goodness of 
 God in making the one dependent upon the 
 other. For what is the value of wealth, riches, 
 and fecundity to him who can not live to enjoy 
 them? The Creator has, therefore, graciously 
 and logically linked them together. 
 
 c. There is, also, another promised blessing that 
 he has connected with wealth, fecundity, and lon- 
 gevity. It is race and national exaltation. Hear 
 what he saith, “Keep, therefore, and do them; for 
 this is your wisdom and your understanding in the 
 sight of the nations, which shall hear all these stat- 
 utes and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and 
 understanding people. For what nation is there so 
 
76 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the 
 Lord our God is in all things that we call upon 
 him for? And what nation is there so great that 
 hath statutes and judgments so righteous, as all 
 this law, which I set before you this day ?” (Deu- 
 teronomy iv, 6, 7, 8.) 
 
 Listen, again, to what the God of the races 
 and the King of the nations hath said : “ The 
 Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the 
 heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his sea- 
 son, and to bless all the work of thine hand ; and 
 thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt 
 not borrow. And the Lord shall make thee the 
 head and not the tail ; and thou shalt be above 
 only, and thou shalt not be beneath ; if thou 
 hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy 
 God, which I command thee this day, to observe 
 and to do them.” (Deuteronomy xxviii, 12, 14.) 
 
 The force of all these divine promises is seen 
 and felt in the history of the Israelites, as that 
 history spreads itself over a period of three thou- 
 sand years. It is also seen and felt in the com- 
 parative history of all the Christian nations of the 
 present hour. 
 
 Even now, while I am writing, the condition 
 of the races and nations which are the most 
 Christian, and the relation of these races and na- 
 tions to the surrounding heathen, illustrate their 
 
RACE CONSIDERATIONS . 
 
 77 
 
 superiority, at the same time that they confirm 
 the truthfulness and amazing compass of the 
 divine promises. 
 
 I here take the liberty to express the opinion 
 that the more thoroughly Christian a race be- 
 comes in its laws, its spirit, and its customs, the 
 greater will be its superiority over races less 
 Christian in these qualities. 
 
 d. This beautiful and gracious promise of the 
 God of all the earth gives us still higher and 
 nobler elements of well-being than wealth, riches, 
 fecundity, and longevity. They are the intel- 
 lectual, the moral, and the spiritual — wisdom or 
 understanding. The intellectual part of man re- 
 lates to the knowing faculty of the mind; it is 
 that which perceives, cognizes, and recognizes the 
 difference and the distinctions of the ego and the 
 non-ego — it is that which acquires knowledge, 
 and is increasing it more and more throughout 
 all time, and in all eternity. It is that, there- 
 fore, which pre-eminently distinguishes man from 
 the most intelligent of the brutes and one man 
 from another. 
 
 e. But there is another element which I be- 
 lieve to be greater than the intellectual ; it is the 
 moral, that which relates to our duties and our 
 obligations to our fellow-men, whether they be 
 so by consanguinity or by affinity, whether they 
 
78 
 
 DOMESTIC ED UCA TION . 
 
 be allied friends or hostile enemies, be they Chris- 
 tians or heathens. It is the conscience in man 
 that tells him this is wrong, therefore resist 
 it; that is right, therefore embrace it, love it, 
 cherish it. 
 
 /. What is the intellectual worth aside from 
 and opposed to the moral? Is not the devil a 
 very intellectual being? But does his intel- 
 lectuality qualify him for the association of an- 
 gels and a home in heaven ? Who so far-sighted, 
 who so calculating, who so full of cunning, tact, 
 and pluck as he? It is these very qualities which 
 constitute him the leader of all evil-doers, and 
 consign him to the pit that is bottomless. 
 
 But, the moral which inclines a man to do his 
 duty to his fellow-creatures, secures the approba- 
 tion of Almighty God, and introduces him to the 
 esteem and confidence of all on earth, whose 
 esteem and confidence are worth having. 
 
 g. And there is the other element of well- 
 being, greater still, than the moral, because it is 
 the fountain and life-blood of the moral — I mean 
 the spiritual. It is that which leads us back to 
 God, from whom we have all wandered, as the 
 prodigal son from his father’s house. It is that 
 which lifts us above all earthly considerations, 
 even above duty itself, to infinite love, and hides us 
 in its heavenly bosom, as in an invulnerable fortress. 
 
RACE CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 79 
 
 from whence we issue ever and anon to work the 
 works of righteousness, without money and with- 
 out price — it is that which makes any one like unto 
 the Christ . 
 
 Now, it is the combination of these three ele- 
 ments which, leading us to duty and the love of 
 duty, gives us wisdom , which is the ability to 
 make right and good use of the known, in order 
 that the knowledge we shall have obtained may 
 neither damage ourselves nor injure others, but 
 shall always be a source of blessings to all and to 
 every one — this, we say, is wisdom. 
 
 h. Now, this wisdom understands that to do 
 evil to others is to injure ourselves, but to do 
 good to others is to bless ourselves. Therefore, 
 it will lead us to shun evil plans, to repel evil 
 thoughts, and to oppose evil measures. Wisdom 
 is not negative only, it is positive also. While 
 it rejects the evil, it also plans, embraces, and 
 executes the good and the beneficent at all times 
 and in all places; therefore, wisdom and under- 
 standing are inseparable ; they go hand in hand, 
 and are God\s noblest gifts to the individual and 
 to the race. 
 
 The knowledge of the true God is one thing, 
 the knowledge of his works another thing. Both 
 are related as cause and effect ; and, therefore, they 
 are not identical. We may have become learned 
 
80 
 
 DOMESTIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 in the two and in all the ramifications of each, 
 but if we do not conform to their teachings and 
 their biddings, we shall ultimately find ourselves 
 in the condition of those whom the inspired 
 prophets denounce as “fools” To prevent such 
 a calamity, the King of kings and Lord of lords 
 has given us his law, his “ statutes,” and his 
 “ testimonies/’ and “ judgments.” If we keep 
 them, and delight greatly in doing them, they 
 will impart to us “ the wise and understanding 
 heart” — which I regard as the very ground and 
 pillar, yes, the very essence of well-being . 
 
 Moreover, out of this wise and understanding 
 heart will spring the cultivated intellect and the 
 skilled hands. The skillful hands, directed by 
 the wise head, will result in manifold forms of 
 industry and thrift. 
 
 Out of this wise and understanding heart will 
 spring the fear of God, the love of God, and the 
 love of man. All these elements combined, se- 
 cured, and developed in a race, its well-being is 
 secured^ and will be developed. Perpetuate these 
 elements in a race — its strength, power, happiness, 
 fecundity, and longevity ar c forever secured . 
 
 i. Blessed within itself, no earthly being can 
 curse it; pure within itself, no external influences 
 can corrupt it; strong and powerful in itself, no 
 created force can crush it. 
 
NATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 81 
 
 Clikptef IX. 
 
 NATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS REQUIRE SUCH 
 TRAINING. 
 
 ISING higher in the argument, we say that 
 
 XV national considerations demand that we ought 
 to “ train a child in the way he should go.” 
 
 a . That the families are the fountains of a 
 race is admitted by every thinker; that races 
 compose every historic nation is also admitted by 
 every person who has widely read general history, 
 and who has profoundly thought upon the ele- 
 ments that compose it. That all historic nations 
 of the future must be composed of different races, 
 no philosophic mind will deny or doubt. These 
 statements being true, what is the inference? 
 That what the races are, the nation must be, 
 nothing more, nothing less. Therefore, if the 
 races that compose it be ignorant, vicious, and 
 criminal, the nation must be ignorant, vicious, 
 and criminal. Over such a nation destruction is 
 pendent. 
 
 b. But if the races which compose it be intel- 
 ligent, virtuous, and Christian, the nation will be 
 
82 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION . 
 
 also intelligent, virtuous, and Christian; conse- 
 quently the law-makers and magistrates issuing 
 from such godly families and Christian races will 
 be intelligent, virtuous, and Christian. Such 
 officers, having the fear of God before their eyes 
 and the love of God animating their hearts, will 
 be possessed of the most essential qualifications 
 of the legislator and the magistrate. With love 
 for man as man, considered as the subject (a) of 
 moral government, and (b) as a subject of politi- 
 cal government, they will be just, ruling in the fear 
 of God ; and, therefore, will not antagonize the 
 moral by the political, but both by enactment and 
 administration will harmonize the moral and the 
 political by the inviolable principles of divine 
 justice and divine equity. To such legislators 
 and magistrates nothing can be law which violates 
 the unchangeable law of God, nothing just which 
 antagonizes the eternal right . 1 
 
 Therefore, such legislators will never be guilty 
 of class legislation, still less of race legislation. 
 Magistrates and judges issuing from such families 
 
 lr That impartial justice and the eternal right will in the 
 near or distant future control all human governments is 
 distinctly, emphatically, and repeatedly affirmed in Divine 
 Eevelation. This truth is set forth in the second Psalm, 
 the seventy-second Psalm, the second and the eleventh 
 chapters of Isaiah. See Barnes and Lange, in loco , with 
 which compare Daniel vii, 2-27. 
 
NATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS . 
 
 83 
 
 and such races will never pervert the law for 
 bribes, nor so construe and interpret the statutes 
 as to give an increase of power to the oppressors 
 of the poor, the weak, and the stranger; 1 but, 
 knowing that God — who is Lord of lords and 
 King of kings — can as easily cast down those who 
 are in power as he can exalt them, they will 
 “ enact the laws in righteousness and execute 
 them in the fear of the Lord.” 
 
 To see and to feel the force of these reason- 
 ings it is necessary to think of the evils which a 
 bad man may inflict upon a nation. For ex- 
 ample, a gifted man, full of cunning, deceit, and 
 selfishness, endowed with magnetic eloquence, can 
 so corrupt the legislation of a nation as to bring 
 upon it, in due time, the vengeance of Almighty 
 God, which always manifests itself by the sword, 
 the pestilence, or the famine. (Psalm cvii; Isaiah 
 ii, 5-21.) “He that ruleth over men must be 
 just, ruling in the fear of God.” (2 Samuel 
 xxiii, 3.) 
 
 If the just man will bring blessings upon him- 
 self, the just ruler will bring down from heaven 
 blessings upon the nation over which he rules. 
 
 1 Class' legislation, race legislation, and bribery in the 
 courts of justice, may be regarded as crimes against hu- 
 manity, which God will punish in due time, and in a 
 manner which his unerring wisdom may dictate. 
 
84 
 
 D OMES TIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 “And lie shall be as the light of the morning, 
 when the sun riseth, even as a morning without 
 clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the 
 earth by clear shining after rain.” (2 Samuel 
 xxiii, 4.) 
 
 Perhaps one of the greatest of temporal bless- 
 ings which God confers upon a community or a 
 commonwealth is the gift of just and wise rulers. 
 Such is his own teaching as he has revealed him- 
 self to us in the Holy Scriptures, showing that 
 nations rise to power and grandeur through his 
 permission or his causation, and that they also 
 fall into disgrace or annihilation “when his anger 
 is kindled but a little.” (Psalm ii, 10, 11, 12; 
 Deut. xxviii, 15-68; Isaiah xix, 1-17.) 
 
 “ Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, 
 and the people whom he hath chosen for his own 
 inheritance.” 
 
 The history of the empires, both ancient and 
 modern, are but histories of heroes, called kings, 
 emperors, or Caesars ; whose will was absolute law, 
 and whose administration was violence, inflicting 
 upon the nations which they governed the most 
 terrible forms of misery and destruction. 
 
 The inspired prophet represented the four 
 ancient empires as wild beasts coming up from 
 the sea, diverse one from another. The first was 
 “ like a lion, and had eagle’s wings.” The second 
 
NATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 85 
 
 beast was “like to a bear having three ribs in 
 its mouth.” The third was “ like a leopard ” 
 with “ four wings of a fowl,” and four-headed. 
 The fourth was a beast with “ ten horns,” “ dreadful 
 and terrible.” It had great iron teeth, “ with 
 which it devoured, and brake in pieces, and 
 stamped the residue.” 
 
 They were represented as beasts jo n account 
 of their wild and brutal character. The suffer- 
 ings, wrongs, outrages, and varied forms of mur- 
 ders and assassinations which these brutal mon- 
 archs inflicted upon their own races and the other 
 races which they conquered, can be known only 
 by Him who is omnipresent and omniscient. 
 And in our own times, in his efforts to make the 
 French Empire universal, what wrongs, cruelties, 
 outrages, oppressions, and murders were inflicted 
 upon France and the surrounding nations by 
 Napoleon I ! 
 
 In all these instances the pains and miseries 
 of whole races and nations were caused by the 
 selfishness and vaulting ambition of blood-thirsty 
 heroes. But wicked individuals in private life 
 have also inflicted great evils upon the commu- 
 nities in which they operated. Take for example 
 the assassination of President Lincoln by the 
 miscreant Booth. Into what a terrible dilemma 
 the Republic was thrown, and what confusion 
 
86 
 
 D OMES TIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 followed the ill-advised administration of Presi- 
 dent Andrew Johnson. The villainy of Guiteau 
 is another instance of the evils one single villain 
 can inflict upon a whole nation. The shot by 
 which he laid President Garfield in the grave 
 was felt by the national heart and drew tears 
 of sorrow from millions of eyes. Indeed, both 
 hemispheres were affected by the malice which 
 rankled in the bosoms of these two devilish 
 assassins. 
 
 What has been done by these wicked individ- 
 uals to injure society can be done again. Now, 
 it is to prevent the repetition of such crimes we 
 urge that every individual child ought to be 
 trained in the way he should go. 
 
 But if a bad person can inflict great mischief 
 upon a whole community, a whole nation, and 
 upon two hemispheres, a good man can also bring 
 down innumerable blessings upon his own country 
 and upon other nations also. 
 
 a. Thus the piety, rectitude, and wisdom of 
 Joseph saved Egypt from starvation, and furnished 
 surrounding peoples and communities with food. 
 
 b. The incorruptible integrity and godliness 
 of Daniel conferred blessings upon three empires; 
 and he is given to all the races and all the ages as 
 a model for true and upright statesmanship ; and 
 to every man holding an office of honor and trust, 
 
NATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 87 
 
 because it demonstrates the divine truth, that to 
 get into office, and to hold it when in, it is not 
 necessary that he should be a cunning politician, 
 filled with selfishness and deceit. Lastly, it shows 
 in a strong light that politics, in its high and 
 honorable sense, is not separable from a high 
 morality and a sublime faith in God, which is 
 one of the highest manifestations of religion, be- 
 cause it enables an officer to do right though 
 death stares him in the face; and, more still, to 
 do right though all the powers in the state be op- 
 posed to him ; for to die when it is popular, for a 
 popular cause, with state power behind us, is small 
 heroism compared with the heroism of a man who 
 does right when popular opinion and state power 
 are combined and opposed to him. Such was 
 the heroism of the illustrious prophet and pre- 
 mier. Let us not forget the relations of Joseph 
 and Daniel to society at the time when their faith 
 in God was tried and their grand traits of char- 
 acter were developed. The one was a slave in a 
 foreign land, the other a captive without fortune 
 and without powerful friends. Now, what does 
 history teach us by these two interesting facts? 
 That the humblest citizen or subject, whose par- 
 ents or guardians have trained him as a child 
 ought to be trained, may, in some great emer- 
 gency, become the greatest benefactor of his 
 
88 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 country by doing for it that which neither riches 
 nor learning could effect. 
 
 These examples are given from inspired his- 
 tory, because the masses of the people are familiar 
 with them ; but many illustrious examples of the 
 principle we advocate can be found both in 
 secular and religious life. For example, the con- 
 summate statesmanship and military prowess of 
 William III conferred blessings upon Great Brit- 
 ain in the seventeenth century which are felt and 
 acknowledged in the nineteenth. So, also, that 
 the financial magnanimity and probity of Necker 
 conferred blessings of no mean character upon the 
 tottering French throne and the distracted French 
 people will be acknowledged by every person 
 familiar with French history. Nor will coming 
 generations forget that the military ability and 
 integrity of Washington made him the father of 
 his country, so that he is proverbially called, 
 “The first in war, first in peace, and first in the 
 hearts of his countrymen.” 
 
 The good qualities of the families are im- 
 parted to the races, and the good qualities of 
 the races to the nation. To illustrate, let us 
 suppose that all the German families in the re- 
 public were intelligent and Christian; that all 
 the Irish families were intelligent and Christian; 
 that all the Italian and Spanish families were in- 
 
NATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 89 
 
 telligent and Christian ; that all the Swedish and 
 Scandinavian families were intelligent and Chris- 
 tian ; that all the English and colored families 
 were intelligent and Christian ; what elements of 
 strength, power, and wealth they would be to the 
 entire nation ! 
 
 Each family of every race, and every race 
 composing the nation, having in itself the ele- 
 ments of wealth, fecundity, and longevity, the 
 republic would, at the end of every century, leap 
 upon a higher plane of national power, grandeur, 
 and glory ! 
 
 Unlike the republics of Greece and Rome its 
 life would be measured, not by few centuries, but 
 by thousands of centuries; its duration might be 
 perpetuated till the archangels trumpet shall 
 summon all nations before the bar of the eternal. 
 
90 
 
 D OMES TIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 &\kptef X. 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL CONSIDERATIONS REQUIRE 
 SUCH TRAINING. 
 
 ISING still higher in the argument I would 
 
 IV say, and do declare, that fealty to the Church 
 of the living God, and an earnest desire for its 
 universal expansion over the globe, and its ulti- 
 mate triumph over all forms of superstition and 
 false religions, ought to constrain every Christian 
 citizen to unite as one man in the general train- 
 ing of every child. Meanwhile, parents and guar- 
 dians ought to unite in the domestic training of 
 every child. 
 
 As the families are the fountains of the race 
 and of the nation, so, also, are they the very 
 fountains of the Church of the Redeemer. I 
 here employ the word Church in its New Tes- 
 tament sense. (1 Timothy iii, 15; Titus ii, 11- 
 17 ; Revelation xxi, 1-5.) Not in its denomina- 
 tional or Roman Catholic sense, because in either 
 of those senses it is too restricted. I use it in 
 its Pauline meaning, which is universal. It em- 
 braces men of every condition and every color, 
 without distinction of race. 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CONSIDERATIONS. 91 
 
 What the families are the Church will be — 
 nothing more, nothing less. The intelligent, 
 godly family will go out of the praying, domestic 
 church into the public house of God, from the 
 family altar to that of the public congregation, 
 animated by the very spirit of the family circle — 
 that circle which was imbued with the spirit of 
 worship. 
 
 The great king of Israel was, doubtless, in his 
 palace when he wrote the following lines : “ One 
 thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I 
 seek after, that I might dwell in the house of 
 the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the 
 beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his tem- 
 ple.” This earnest longing for the house of 
 God, in order that he might behold the beauty of 
 the Lord, prepared him for a successful inquiry 
 after God’s will when he entered the assembly 
 of the saints 1 , prepared him to comprehend the 
 divine law, and to obey that law because he 
 loved it. 
 
 And because it prepared him to dwell in God’s 
 house all the days of his life, it also prepared 
 him to do its work within and without. It pre- 
 pared him to defend it from foes without and foes 
 within, and to say, 
 
 “ I love thy Church, 0 God ! 
 
 Her walls before thee stand, 
 
92 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 Dear as the apple of thine eye, 
 
 And graven on thy hand. 
 
 “For her my tears shall fall ; 
 
 For her my prayers ascend ; 
 
 To her my cares and toils he given, 
 
 Till toils and cares shall end.” 
 
 a . It will furnish teachers for the Sunday- 
 school. The Sunday-school is the nursery of the 
 Church . As such it needs workmen skilled in 
 the science of mental, moral, and religious culti- 
 vation. These gardeners ought to be prepared 
 before they enter that holy garden to do their 
 work quickly, and to do it perfectly. Now, who 
 is so well prepared to go and teach in the Sunday- 
 school as the one who, from a little child, has 
 been well instructed at home ? Who is so well 
 adapted to sow the seeds of truth in the soil of 
 the Sunday-school as the one in whose mind the 
 seeds of truth have been germinating, vegetating, 
 flowering, and producing fruit from infancy to 
 childhood; through childhood and youth up to 
 ripened manhood and ripened womanhood? 
 
 b. As the domestic Church will furnish the 
 best teachers for the Sunday-school, so, also, it 
 can and will furnish the best trustees, the best 
 stewards, the best vestrymen, and all other sub- 
 ordinate officers of the various Christian denom- 
 inations whose duties call them to the management 
 of the temporal affairs of the Church. Their 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CONSIDERATIONS . 93 
 
 good training in the homestead will make them 
 more efficient for management in the house of 
 
 God. 
 
 c. But above all, and over all, these ecclesias- 
 tical officers for temporal management and gov- 
 ernment are her ministry of every title and of 
 every grade and rank. From the hallowed cir- 
 cles of the domestic Church a holy ministry can 
 be given to fill the pulpit, as a pastors, evangel- 
 ists, and teachers,” “ for the perfecting of the 
 saints,” “ for the edifying of the body of Christ,” 
 for planting and training Churches in Christen- 
 dom, for planting and training Churches and 
 Christian schools in heathen lands. No other 
 homes can send forth such officers — such work- 
 men in the Lord’s vineyard. 
 
 The prophet Jeremiah says, “ It is good 
 for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.” 
 There is great depth of meaning in this statement. 
 
 a. If by it he meant the yoke of ecclesiastical 
 government, then who is so well prepared to wear 
 that yoke of the Church as he who was well gov- 
 erned in infancy, childhood, and youth ? He has 
 seen government from his birth; he had all of 
 childhood, youth, and early manhood to study 
 and comprehend it. Like pure gold out of the 
 furnace, he has come out of domestic proba- 
 tion, and now that he is a man in office and au- 
 
94 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION . 
 
 thority, he is the better prepared to enforce order, 
 law, and government over the flock of the great 
 Shepherd and Bishop of souls. 
 
 b. If by “ the yoke ” Jeremiah meant the 
 bearing of burdens or the execution of work, 
 high and low, fine and coarse, the very drudgery 
 of church-life, or its more dignified labors, then 
 the man who has been compelled by his parents 
 or guardians to pass through this kind of ordeal 
 is the better fitted to guide others through eccle- 
 siastical ordeals than one who was never purified 
 in the furnace of the household Church. 
 
 c. But, suppose Jeremiah meant the personal, 
 spiritual yoke of Christ — the consecration of the 
 entire body, soul, and spirit to those laws of the 
 Infinite which, like himself, are omnipresent, 
 searching the thoughts, regulating the affections, 
 subjugating the will so as to make the individual 
 walk as uprightly in the darkness of midnight 
 as in the blaze of noonday ; then he is the very 
 person to lead on the sacramental hosts of the 
 Lord from truth to truth, from grace to grace, 
 and from victory to victory. 
 
 “From a child thou hast known the holy 
 Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise 
 unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ 
 Jesus.” Thus spake the inspired apostle to his 
 young co-laborer, Timothy. Again, hear him 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CONSIDERATIONS . 95 
 
 speaking to this young bishop, “ When I call to 
 remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, 
 which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and 
 in thy mother Eunice, and I am persuaded that 
 in thee also.” (2 Tim. i, 5.) 
 
 d. It was this early training of Timothy in a 
 consecrated household, and in the knowledge of 
 the Holy Scriptures, this faith in his grandmother 
 Lois, and in his mother Eunice, instilled in him, 
 perhaps, by both, that made Timothy the most 
 faithful , the most careful in little things, and the 
 most painstaking in great ones ; that constituted 
 him the transcendent helper of the laborious 
 apostle to the Gentiles. It was this that enabled 
 the impartial Paul to say to the excellent Church 
 at Philippi concerning Timothy, “I have no 
 man likeminded who will naturally care for your 
 state.” 
 
 It was this which induced St. Paul to set so 
 high a value upon Timothy, as to contrast him 
 with the selfish others , who were always seeking 
 their own and not the things of Jesus Christ.” 
 (Philippians ii, 14-21.) 
 
 My own opinion on this point (and it is de^ 
 liberately formed) may be expressed in the state- 
 ment that if the entire history of the Christian 
 ministry could be written out and their biography 
 and genealogy compared, it would be found that 
 
96 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION . 
 
 the most faithful and efficient pastors were those 
 who had been most carefully trained in the home- 
 stead by Christian parents. 
 
 But, if the careful training of a child confers 
 unspeakable blessings upon the Church, the con- 
 verse is equally true. The conduct of Hophni 
 and Phineas brought destruction upon themselves, 
 their aged father, and their father’s house, where- 
 fore it is written, “ The sin of the young men was 
 very great before the Lord, for men abhorred the 
 offering of the Lord.” And so the history of 
 the Christian Church shows how and what great 
 calamities can be inflicted upon it by an ungodly 
 pastor, an unprincipled bishop, or a profligate 
 and despotic pope. 
 
 e. As no amount of silver, gold, and precious 
 stones can represent the value of the services 
 rendered by a faithful and efficient pastor, so we 
 can not set too high a value upon the careful 
 training of a boy or a girl in the homestead. Of 
 course, I mean the careful Christian training , and 
 none other. Another may make conceited dan- 
 dies and haughty aristocrats, but Christian train- 
 ing, and that only can prepare the child to be 
 like John the Baptist, “ a burning and a shining 
 light.” Did the sons of Levi bring down judg- 
 ment and misery upon the Jewish Church and 
 the Jewish state ; so, also, did the son of Han- 
 
ECCLESIASTICAL CONSIDERATIONS. 97 
 
 nah and Elkanah confer great blessings upon the 
 same Church and the same state. Therefore, as 
 the names of Hophni and Phineas may be re- 
 garded as synonyms for evil , so, also, may the 
 name of Samuel be regarded as a synonymn for 
 good. 
 
 Indeed, so much like the human organization 
 is the Christian Church, that no one member of 
 it can be morally diseased without affecting every 
 other. (Luke i, 13.) 
 
 To bless the Church of the Living God with 
 a noble ministry well prepared to manage its af- 
 fairs, and to administer its government also with 
 an intelligent laity, orderly, law-abiding, easily 
 governed, let every parent and every guardian of 
 a child bring that child up “in the nurture and 
 admonition of the Lord.” John the Baptist was 
 filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his moth- 
 ers womb. Was not the son given in answer to 
 the father’s prayer? just as in the case of Samuel 
 the son was given in answer to the mother’s 
 prayer. 
 
 “ These cases may be regarded as special cases.” 
 Suppose they were. Suppose that Samuel was 
 made to be the incorruptible judge of Israel, and 
 that John was made to be the herald of the Lord 
 of lords and King of kings, are we to infer, there- 
 fore, that Christian parents are not to consecrate 
 
98 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 their children before they be born, and not to 
 train their children in the paths of wisdom and 
 righteousness and usefulness, because they are not 
 called to be judges of a nation, nor heralds of 
 salvation? Such reasonings are false and de- 
 structive. “The grace of God that bringeth sal- 
 vation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that 
 denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should 
 live soberly, righteously, and godly in this pres- 
 ent world/’ (Titus ii, 11, 12.) Such is the law 
 of heaven for life on earth. It is as binding on 
 our children as upon ourselves. 
 
SCHOOL CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 99 
 
 Ctjhptef XI. 
 
 THE COMMON SCHOOL CONSIDERATION. 
 
 HE well-being of the school, considered as an 
 
 JL organization distinct from the Church and 
 the state, yet inseparably related to both, as a 
 natural element, furnish an additional considera- 
 tion for obeying the divine command, “ Train up 
 a child in the way he should go.” The school 
 represents the Church and the state, operating in 
 an educational form, and as an educational agent — 
 a complex agent — in whom are united both the 
 intelligent actor and the nonintelligent instru- 
 ments by which he operates for the benefit of all 
 departments of society, and to affect beneficially 
 all the ramifications of every department. There- 
 fore, while the common school excludes from its 
 curriculum all religious and theological studies, 
 it includes such sciences and literature as will 
 make intelligent and useful citizens. 
 
 So, also, the Church, more liberal than the 
 state, most wisely includes in the curriculum of 
 her colleges and universities all the sciences and all 
 the literatures which are chaste; placing above 
 
100 
 
 DOMESTIC ED UCA TION . 
 
 these as moderators and guardians the religious and 
 the theological in order that the highest heights 
 and the lowest depths of society may be benefi- 
 cially affected by her instructors and the instru- 
 ments which they employ for illustrating and 
 demonstrating the wisdom, power, and goodness 
 of the invisible Creator of the universe, who 
 seems to have constructed it as a vast, grand, 
 and beautiful school-house for the training of 
 immortal man. 
 
 Here I use the word school in a generic sense, 
 including institutions of every grade established 
 for the training of children, youth, and young 
 persons of both sexes; the kindergarten of yester- 
 day’s organization, the Harvard in America, the 
 Oxford in England, the Sorbonne of France, and 
 the University of Berlin — to every one, and to 
 all these. The child well-trained or neglected in 
 the home can be made a blessing or a curse ; a 
 source of joy, order, and comfort, or a cause 
 of strife, disorder, and misery. The experience 
 and observations of every aged teacher and pro- 
 fessor can furnish cases illustrating and confirm- 
 ing my statements, especially such teachers and 
 professors as have had the charge of boarding 
 schools, where the conduct of young persons of 
 both sexes is under inspection by day and by 
 night. 
 
SCHOOL CONSIDERATIONS. 
 
 101 
 
 For examples, drawn from my own experience 
 and observations, I give the following: 
 
 a. A young student at Wilberforce was angry 
 with a fellow-student, and, seizing a razor, at- 
 tempted to cut his throat, but was prevented by 
 the timely interference of another, who was the 
 friend of both, whose commanding piety was re- 
 spected by all who knew him among the students, 
 the faculty, and the inhabitants of the surround- 
 ing neighborhood. 
 
 b. Another student, whose parents had suffered 
 him to do just as it pleased himself, in a fit of 
 passion, attempted the life of one of the professors 
 of Wilberforce, but was hindered in his murder- 
 ous design by a fellow-student of opposite spirit, 
 produced by opposite training. 
 
 c. Two young women, who were spoiled by 
 their parents, yet in their teens, sent to Wilber- 
 force University to be subdued and rendered 
 good, were, for repeated acts of insubordination, 
 punished by the lady principal and matron with 
 solitary confinement for two or three days. This 
 kind of discipline was revenged by them in set- 
 ting the central building on fire, involving us in 
 the loss of the entire edifice, and compelling us 
 to erect another at a cost of about $40,000. 
 
 In stating these facts I am reminded of a re- 
 mark made by the Hon. Frederick Douglass in 
 
102 
 
 D OMES TIC ED VC A TION. 
 
 presence of many friends of education at Wilber- 
 force University. Said he, “ The best school has 
 sometimes become the worst school.” When asked 
 to explain himself, he answered, and said, “ When 
 a school has acquired a reputation for excellent 
 government, parents having spoiled children will 
 send them there to be reformed ; but, before ref- 
 ormation can be secured, they so demoralize the 
 institution that the best school becomes the worst.” 
 
 In another case which passed under my own 
 observation, the slanderous tongue of a habitual 
 slanderer, in the person of a young female student, 
 (for a short time) broke up a flourishing young 
 institution of learning by defaming one of its 
 professors. The habit of slandering others was 
 doubtless formed in her by her foolish mother, 
 who allowed her, when a child, to be “a tale- 
 bearer.” 
 
 Examples of this kind can be multiplied, but 
 I forbear because I think I have given sufficient 
 to convince every one that a spoiled child can be 
 a source of great mischief to an institution of 
 learning. On the other hand, we are able to give 
 numerous examples proving that the students in 
 a school who are the best behaved and the most 
 easily governed are such as go from a well-gov- 
 erned household. We can also testify to the fact 
 that the best scholars in an institution of learning 
 
SCHOOL CONSIDERATIONS . 
 
 103 
 
 are generally those who have been trained from 
 infancy by parents as remarkable for general in- 
 telligence and sound learning as they are for 
 their unquestionable love for the Christian Church, 
 as that Church manifests itself in the bosom of 
 the household. 
 
 I here take the liberty to set it down as a 
 principle in the philosophy of history and of 
 human progress, that the finest intellect, the 
 purest heart, the noblest will, and the greatest * 
 benefactors of humanity, were and will be born 
 and trained in the earnest Christian households. 
 (Psalm cxii, 1-3.) 
 
 As the good soil produces good grain, so does 
 the good tree produce good fruit. That illustri- 
 ous company of men who are ranked among the 
 inspired prophets were not called out of the low- 
 est ranks of society, where the lowest forms of 
 vice obtained ; nor from the highest walks of 
 fashionable life, where gigantic wealth and princely 
 splendor produce contempt for sacred things, for- 
 getfulness of God, and an idolatrous love of pleas- 
 ures; but from the intermediate class, where one 
 will always find the most solid piety, joined to 
 good common sense, and enlightened by general 
 knowledge of men and things. Moses, Samuel, 
 and Daniel, in the grand line of prophets, judges, 
 and statesmen, are excellent illustrations of our 
 
104 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 statement. David, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, among 
 the prophetic poets, are also confirmations of its 
 truthfulness. Let parents, who desire their sons 
 to be eminent among men, and their daughters to 
 be celebrated among women, remember these his- 
 toric facts, and then be careful and prayerful in 
 the domestic training of their children. 
 
 The reign of universal righteousness, which 
 is justice in its highest form, can never be realized 
 till from our institutions of learning graduates 
 shall go forth whose character was first molded 
 and first colored by the hands of Christian parents, 
 then polished by the hands of Christian teachers. 
 
THE CHURCH AND SCHOOL. 
 
 105 
 
 Cl\hptef XII. 
 
 RELATIONS OF DOMESTIC EDUCATION TO THE 
 CHURCH, THE STATE, AND THE COMMON- 
 * SCHOOL, INCLUDING HIGHER EDUCATION 
 AND THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 
 
 T HE five considerations just given indicate 
 the intimate relations of the home to the 
 race, the state, the Church, and the school. They 
 show us what important factors of human history 
 are the parents — the father, the mother, the guar- 
 dian of the child — how all the departments of 
 society are chained to them. Their interests are 
 one with them, their end is one. 
 
 As is the fountain, so are the streams. As the 
 streams flowing from the fountain and emptying 
 themselves into the bosom of the ocean, return 
 back to their source ; even so, also, has the Creator 
 ordained that the universe shall be one varied 
 whole — grand, beautiful in its development, sub- 
 lime in its end, varied in its types, varied in 
 the parts and ramifications of each type, but 
 an inseparable one in their end — that end the 
 purity and usefulness, strength and beauty, eter- 
 nal life and blessedness of all ! 
 
106 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 If you desire and purpose the well-being of 
 a race you must secure it in the homestead. If 
 you desire and purpose the well-being of a nation 
 you must secure it in the family circle. The 
 mothers of homes are the mothers of nations. 
 
 If you pray for good government in the 
 state you must perfect the government of the 
 fireside. If you pray for the excellent discipline, 
 expansion, and final victory of the Christian 
 Church over all her enemies, make the training 
 of your children at home the first, chief business 
 of every day. 
 
 If you desire and purpose to make the educa- 
 tional institutions of the land the great factors 
 of intelligent laborers, of successful business men, 
 of incorruptible statesmen and magistrates, of 
 skillful professional men and artisans, of diligent 
 agriculturists and merchants, of honest financiers 
 and bankers, you must secure order and law, 
 government and authority in the homestead. 
 And, now, we earnestly beg that you will com- 
 bine these considerations into one great motive 
 power, and they will impel you onward in the 
 divine work of domestic education, under Chris- 
 tian principles, Christian sentiments, and Chris- 
 tian teachings. The families of Christendom will 
 then become omnipotent for the conquest of 
 heathendom, will be prepared to accomplish God’s 
 
THE CHURCH AND SCHOOL, . 
 
 107 
 
 glorious purpose for the reconstruction and re- 
 demption of the world. 
 
 How well laid, how broad, and how deep ought 
 to be the foundations that bear up a great busi- 
 ness house, where tons upon tons of the roughest 
 raw materials, such as iron ores and stone and 
 timber are to be sheltered, and where tons upon 
 tons of the most precious metals, such as pig 
 iron, copper, tin, lead, mercury, silver, and gold 
 are to be deposited ; and where tons upon tons 
 of the most valuable and the least valuable of 
 dry goods are to be protected from rain and dust ; 
 and where tons upon tons of all kinds of grain 
 and groceries are to be bundled and shelved and 
 sold; and where hundreds of buyers and sellers 
 are continually moving to and fro ! * 1 
 
 l By a parity of reasoning how great should be the 
 strength and the power of the families that underlie the 
 state and the Church, with all their ramifications and 
 deathless interests! How strong and powerful in intel- 
 lect, how pure in morals, how godly and righteous in will ! 
 
 I use these adjectives in preference to the popular term 
 virtue , so fluent in the popular mouth, hut so indefinite in 
 the popular mind. I use them because godliness and 
 righteousness express a higher idea of goodness than vir- 
 tue, so fluent in the mouths of politicians and others, who 
 care no more about the rights of the poor and the weak 
 than they do about the dirt upon w'hich they daily 
 tread. Godliness and righteousness constitute the strength 
 and power of a man ; they constitute the strength and 
 power of a family ; they must constitute the strength. 
 
108 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 Because, if the foundations which support such 
 a depot should cave in or break down, how terri- 
 ble would be the damage to property, and how 
 awful the loss of valuable lives ! 
 
 power, and glory of a Church and a state ; they must con- 
 stitute the strength, power, and beauty of the school. 
 When all the families, or a majority of them, possess 
 these qualities and cherish them, then the Church, the 
 state, and the school shall be based upon immovable and 
 unshakable foundations. 
 
NATURE AND SCOPE. 
 
 109 
 
 d\kj>tei5 XIII. 
 
 THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF THE DIVINE COM- 
 MAND, “ TRAIN UP A CHILD IN THE WAY 
 HE SHOULD GO.” 
 
 N OW, are we prepared to consider the nature 
 and scope of this divine law which the Cre- 
 ator has given for life upon earth? 
 
 a . It does not address itself to any particular 
 person. It differs from that addressed to parents 
 in the book of Deuteronomy (Deut. vi, 6, 7) and 
 the epistle to the Ephesian Church (Eph. vi, 4), 
 in which parents are commanded to train their 
 own children in the principles of a good and 
 useful life, and forbidden to use cruelty in the 
 administration of paternal discipline. 
 
 b. In the divine law we have been considering 
 and analyzing, no father, no mother is named. No 
 rich father nor rich mother is addressed because 
 a splendid estate will be divided among their 
 children in order that they might be qualified to 
 care for the portion to be given them, and to in- 
 crease it ad infinitum . 
 
110 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 c. Neither is it addressed to some poor fathers 
 nor mothers in order that their children might 
 be able to escape the hard lot to which them- 
 selves were subjected, and by their superior skill 
 acquire wealth and live in affluence. 
 
 d. Nor does it address itself to the well-edu- 
 cated in order that their children might become 
 more intelligent and learned than themselves, and 
 so rise to more eminent and influential positions. 
 
 6. Nor is it addressed to politicians and states- 
 men in order that their own offspring might be 
 able to control the politics and finances of the 
 government, and thus become living monuments 
 of their own success and personal greatness. 
 
 /. Nor to presidents, kings, and emperors to the 
 end that their own families and dynasties might 
 possess dominant power from generation to gener- 
 ation. 
 
 g. But it is addressed to every man and to 
 every woman, to those w r ho are parents and to 
 such as are not, to the rich and to the poor, to 
 the weak and the strong, to the learned and to 
 the ignorant, to the popular and to the obscure 
 of every clime, of every race, and every age. 
 
 1. Because every man and every woman can 
 be affected for weal or woe by the conduct of a 
 single bad child, whose silly parents may allow 
 him, by day or by night, to roam through the 
 
NATURE AND SCOPE . 
 
 Ill 
 
 streets seeking mischief as a wild beast seeks its 
 prey. 
 
 2. Because every child, having been originally 
 made in the image of God, has a high and holy 
 destiny within his grasp, which may be lost either 
 through the stupid ignorance or the sinful negli- 
 gence of the foolish parents or guardians. 
 
 Therefore, this divine command is not limited 
 to the conditions of riches, nor poverty, nor pop- 
 ularity, nor obscurity, nor weakness, nor strength, 
 nor learning, nor ignorance; but, as the light of 
 the sun and the breath of heaven, it sweeps over 
 all territorial boundaries, all class regulations, all 
 race distinctions; and, laying its God-like hand 
 upon every child, it says to every man and to 
 every woman what the princess of Egypt said to 
 the mother of Moses, “ Take this child away and 
 nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages.” 
 
 Verily, verily, every person who so educates 
 a child that he shall go forth from the homestead 
 into the public or the private school, thence to a 
 high or normal school, or the college, or the univer- 
 sity, or theological seminary, and issue from these 
 halls of learning with an intelligent head, a good 
 heart, and an obedient will, fully consecrated to 
 God and his work for humanity, shall be rewarded 
 in this world and that which is to come. 
 
 From all we have said it is manifest that the 
 
112 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION, 
 
 command “to train up a child in the way he 
 should go” is very indefinite. But this indefi- 
 niteness illustrates its universality, and its uni- 
 versality is the proof of its divinity. The natural 
 selfishness of man, fostered into a passion , 1 could 
 never have conceived such a law, especially under 
 the low and narrow sentiments of race superi- 
 ority. 
 
 But this divine mandate, in its length and 
 breadth, in its height and depth, like infinite 
 space, takes in all , and makes room for all the 
 forms and all the educational movements of hu- 
 manity. 
 
 1 By passion we mean that affection which, by undue 
 indulgence, enslaves the individual, causing him or her to 
 act more like a brute or a devil than like a rational being. 
 Dr. Xavier Bourgeois, in a French work entitled “ Les Pas- 
 sions do, ns Leurs Rapports avec la Sante et les Maladies 
 says, “ On peut done definir les passions , des besows deregies , 
 qui, apres nous avoir seduits, finissent par nous tyranniser 
 “As to the passions, they are indeed in the same manner 
 as the inclinations, motions of the will towards certain 
 objects, but motions of a more impetuous and turbulent 
 kind, motions that dispossess the soul of its natural 
 tranquillity and hinder it from directing properly its 
 operations. Then it is that the passions become dangerous 
 distempers. The cause of the passion is generally the 
 allurement of sensible good, which solicits the soul and 
 impels it with too violent an impression.” — So says Pro- 
 fessor J. J. Burlamaqui in his “Natural and Political Law,” 
 page 10. These two foreign thinkers are identical in their 
 definitions, with which mine harmonizes. 
 
THE DIVINE PROMISE . 
 
 113 
 
 Cljkptei? XIV. 
 
 THE DIVINE PROMISE. 
 
 I T now becomes our duty to consider the divine 
 promise which is annexed to this divine com- 
 mand. There is nothing metaphorical nor equiv- 
 ocal in its meaning. It declares that if a child 
 be trained in the way it should go, he and she 
 will never depart from it. The owner of a colt, 
 if he be a farmer or breeder of horses, will find 
 it wise to begin the training of it as soon as it 
 is born, because, by so doing, at the end of three 
 years he will not be under the painful necessity 
 of “ breaking it,” as we are accustomed to say, 
 for he will find that the young animal will take 
 bit, bridle, and harness as though the first was 
 born in his mouth and the other two on his neck 
 and back. He will be ready for drawing wagon, 
 or carriage, and there will be no trouble to guide 
 him in and over the road which by day and night 
 he must follow and keep in till he dies. 
 
 So, also, the orchardist and the florist know 
 that if a tree or plant be trained to grow in a 
 certain form and direction, it will retain that form 
 8 
 
114 
 
 D OMESTIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 and direction when full grown; but, setting aside 
 such illustrations, we proceed to prove from and 
 by the testimony of biography that w r hen the di- 
 vine mandate shall have been obeyed, the divine 
 promise shall be realized. 
 
 I. Our first class of proofs are drawn from 
 sacred or Biblical history. 
 
 a. Moses, the grandest man of the Hebrew 
 period was trained by his own Hebrew mother, 
 from his birth to the day when he entered the 
 palace of Pharaoh to be educated in the schools 
 of the Egyptian priests. The training which his 
 own Hebrew mother gave him in infancy and 
 childhood was that in which he was designed to 
 walk all the days of his life. He was trained in 
 the knowledge of the true God in opposition and 
 antagonism to the false gods and idols of Egypt, 
 he was taught to obey him who, by his own om- 
 nipotence and infinite wisdom created the heav- 
 ens and the earth ; he was taught to love him 
 whose inimitable characteristics constitute him the 
 most lovable and glorious being in the universe. 
 Doubtless such were the seeds of goodness and 
 greatness which his pious mother sowed in his 
 heart as he passed through the stages of infancy, 
 childhood, and youth. They were so well planted 
 and vigorously grown that no adverse influence 
 which Egyptian royalty and glory, and power, 
 
THE DIVINE PROMISE. 
 
 115 
 
 and science, and philosophy, and mythology could 
 efface from his mind or turn his feet aside from 
 the paths of holiness and righteousness. The 
 wise and self-abnegating leader of his people, he 
 lived the humble, faithful servant of God, he died 
 and was buried as man never was before nor 
 since, by the hand of an archangel. More than 
 three thousand years have passed away since he 
 went from earth to heaven, and yet his writings 
 are still the light and the guide of science, philos- 
 ophy, and religion — of law and of government. 
 
 b. Samuel, the prophet, leader, and judge of 
 Israel was prayed for by his mother before he 
 was born, and was given in response to her ear- 
 nest petitions. To God’s divine service he was 
 conescrated immediately after his birth. This 
 was a homestead consecration. It would have 
 satisfied an ordinary mother, but not such an en- 
 thusiastic spirit as Hannah’s ; therefore, as soon 
 as the child was weaned, she took him “ to the 
 house of the Lord,” and gave him up body, soul, 
 and spirit, a living sacrifice to the Creator — her 
 covenant God. 
 
 It is supposed that he was then about three 
 years old. Up to that time he was under the 
 special training of his mother. (1 Sam. i, 20-28.) 
 But the good discipline of that mother was so 
 thoroughly formative that neither the wicked sons 
 
116 
 
 D OMESTIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 of Eli, nor any other influence in the corrupt He- 
 brew Church, or in the wicked Hebrew state 
 could contaminate him or turn him out of the 
 path of holiness and righteousness. He lived 
 from childhood to ripened manhood; the man 
 pre-eminently virtuous and devoutly pious, the 
 model of his race and of his day. In his old age 
 he stood up before all Israel, the wise and faith- 
 ful leader, the impartial governor and the incor- 
 ruptible judge. 
 
 c. Daniel, the illustrious prophet and incompar- 
 able premier, is another bright example of incor- 
 ruptibility. His domestic training was so thor- 
 oughly given by his parents that the nice and 
 rich dainties of the imperial table could not in- 
 duce him to violate the dietetic rules of his pa- 
 ternal homestead. As the premier of three em- 
 pires he was surrounded by the amusements and 
 the pleasures, the wealth and riches, the grandeur 
 and beauty of the most voluptuous courts of that 
 age. Yet he remained as faithful to the right, 
 the true, and the good, as when he was earnestly 
 praying that God would deliver him out of the 
 den of lions and from the destructive devices of 
 his murderous enemies. 
 
 These are examples from ancient history be- 
 fore the light of Christianity had poured its supe- 
 rior influences upon the family circle. 
 
THE DIVINE PROMISE. 
 
 117 
 
 Samuel lived in a time when both Church and 
 state were corrupt. During his entire life he 
 moved in the midst of bad influences. He had to 
 do more than to guard himself from them. He 
 often had to rise up and stand up in open antag- 
 onism against poor men and rich men, against 
 priests and people, and against the evil doings of 
 an unprincipled and malicious monarch who re- 
 garded neither God nor man, and whose envious 
 jealousy made him ready, at any moment, to 
 assassinate his best friend and his noblest son. 
 Yet, amidst all these adverse circumstances, he 
 turned neither to the right nor to the left, but 
 held on the way in which he was appointed to 
 go all the days of his life. 
 
 The circumstances surrounding the career of 
 Moses and Daniel were still more complex and 
 difficult. Their domestic training while children 
 differed widely from the customs of the people 
 among whom they were called to develop their 
 youth and early manhood. Both were foreign to 
 the dominant race under whose dominion their 
 lots were cast. The one was descended from an 
 enslaved race, who were in subordination to 
 cruel taskmasters for centuries ; the other was 
 among the prisoners taken by Nebuchadnezzar 
 out of Palestine, and led captive into Babylon. 
 Both became elevated into courtly circles, and 
 
118 
 
 D OMES TIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 were dependent upon royal power and benevo- 
 lence; to cap the climax both were, in religious 
 feelings and sentiments and principles, as much 
 opposed to their masters as midnight to noon- 
 day ; hence both were compelled to move in an 
 idolatrous atmosphere, in which they heard teach- 
 ings and beheld customs antagonistic to all the 
 teachings and customs of the godly homesteads in 
 which they were born, and in which their infancy 
 and childhood were nurtured, yet none of these 
 adverse circumstances and influences could make 
 them recreant to that God whom they had been 
 taught to reverence, love, and obey. 
 
 Their character, private life, and public ca- 
 reer are sublime illustrations, and confirmations 
 of that divinely blended command and promise : 
 “ Train up a child in the way he should go, and 
 when he is old he will not depart from it.” 
 
 II. Our second class of confirmatory and illus- 
 trative proofs is derived from modern biography. 
 
 a . John Wesley, son of Susannah Wesley, was 
 trained for his grand and apostolic career in the 
 domestic circle. Shutting up herself and her 
 little John in her nursery, at the age of five, she 
 gave him his first lessons in books, and taught 
 him, first of all books, to read the only Book 
 which gives us “laws from heaven for life on 
 earth.” His moral nature had, up to that day, been 
 
THE DIVINE PROMISE . 
 
 119 
 
 under the plastic hand of that wise and skillful 
 mother. On that day she made him able to read 
 the alphabet and the first chapter in Genesis. 
 
 From that day the highest conceptions of 
 order, law, and government he drew from that 
 highest source of divine truth. The lessons she 
 imparted to him on that day constituted the mold 
 into which his soul was cast and his charac- 
 ter formed. The subsequent ground coloring 
 of his life-picture, with its delicate hues and 
 tints, were all drawn from the same inspired 
 fountain. So that, to cherish order, to obey law, 
 to reverence government, to honor authority, 
 were formative and guiding principles, wrought 
 into his very being by the plastic fingers of his 
 magisterial and loving mother. Hence, he was 
 what he was, the great thinker , 1 the great organ- 
 izer, the successful ecclesiastical governor. 
 
 x It has been said that “ Wesley was not a great 
 thinker,” because he did not start some new metaphysical 
 or theological theory ; as though one can not be a great 
 thinker only by speculating in abstractions and other 
 things beyond the grasp of the human intellect. I believe 
 such opinions to be erroneous. To be thinking wisely 
 about the concrete, which can be handled and managed 
 for human well-being ; to be planning and executing the 
 practical, as others did not ; to be organizing new meas- 
 ures for the diffusion of light and truth among the igno- 
 rant masses, so as to change their modes of thinking, 
 change their character, change their lives, is, in my judg- 
 
120 
 
 D OMESTIC ED VC A TION. 
 
 When his mother was governing him she was 
 unwittingly training him to govern men through 
 countless generations and to fasten the yoke of 
 Church government upon all the races. To the 
 end of a long life of eighty-eight years he kept in 
 the way in which his mother set his feet as when 
 he was an infant of only five years. Her early 
 teachings and faithful training has made him the 
 benefactor of humanity. 
 
 b. Charles Wesley was trained in the same 
 manner by the wise and godly Susannah. Though 
 God did not make him to be the organizer and 
 governor of secular nor religious bodies, he gave 
 Charles a more than ordinary gift, in the power 
 of molding and coloring thought and sentiment 
 in the form of sacred song. He is the sweet 
 singer of Methodism. He may be regarded as 
 the armor-bearer of his brother John, to put 
 into his hands sharpened spiritual weapons, glit- 
 tering and two-edged ; or we may speak of him 
 as the chorister of the sacramental host, which 
 his brother was leading onward and upward ; yet, 
 not the mere chorister, but more, one who had in 
 
 ment, the noblest kind of thinking, because the most nat- 
 ural, the most beneficial, and therefore the most Christian. 
 If a man is considered great because he thinks as Plato 
 thought, then he must be greater who thinks as Christ 
 Jesus thought. 
 
THE DIVINE PROMISE . 
 
 121 
 
 himself the dual gift of poetry and music, which 
 thrilled the hearts of the armed bands, cheering 
 them in their tedious marches, and stimulating 
 them for every conflict with their stubborn, ma- 
 lignant, and wily foes. 
 
 What the fife and the drum are to a recruit* 
 ing officer, what a band of musicians is to a 
 regiment, what a trumpeter is to an army in the 
 field of battle, such, and more, was Charles Wes- 
 ley to his commanding brother John. And as 
 John is still marching from continent to conti- 
 nent, and through every clime, organizing the 
 races into martial bands to fight the battles of 
 the Lord of hosts, Charles is still marching at 
 his side, singing in all languages, cheering and 
 inspiring the conquering legions of Emmanuel. 
 
 Was ever a home more hallowed than that in 
 which these babes were born, these boys 1 were 
 trained? from which they went into the schools 
 of London ; thence, as youths, to the University 
 of Oxford; thence, as young men, into the world 
 to labor successfully for God and man ? 
 
 Their feet were set in the right path by the 
 
 lu John left the home for the Charter-house school 
 when eleven years old, and entered Oxford in his seven* 
 teenth year. Charles went to Westminster when about* 
 eight years of age, and, in due time, joined his brother.” 
 (Stevens’s “ Centenary of Methodism.”) 
 
122 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 consummate prudence and skill of their pious 
 mother, from which they never wandered, but 
 kept in it from the cradle to the grave. “The 
 path of the just is as the shining light, which 
 shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” 
 The lives of these two noble sons of the noblest 
 mother of modern history beautifully illustrate 
 the proverb of Solomon. But who molded their 
 grand characters? Not the schoolmasters of the 
 Charter-house and Westminster schools in Lon- 
 don, not the learned professors at Oxford. No! 
 they did not. The work was done by their illus- 
 trious mother, whose prayers and tears, whose 
 watchings and teachings, whose rigid, but loving 
 discipline, were the crucible through which she 
 passed them, and brought them out as pure gold, 
 even as gold which can not be tarnished. 
 
 Jonathan Edwards is another example of suc- 
 cessful child-training — another example of the 
 fulfillment of .the divine promise, and also of in- 
 herited greatness, because his father, his grand- 
 father, his great grandfather, and his great, great 
 grandfather, were all distinguished for their piety 
 and learning. 
 
 Both his mother and father were pious and 
 learned, “ and paid particular attention to the 
 early culture of his mind as well as to bring him 
 up in the fear of the Lord.” “ The examples set 
 
THE DIVINE PROMISE . 
 
 123 
 
 before young Edwards, gave him a taste for men- 
 tal and moral beauties and inspired him with ad- 
 miration of the gracefulness of consistent piety ; 
 religious instruction early taught him the only 
 way of salvation ; and the faithful prayers offered 
 up at a throne of grace on his behalf, seem to 
 have called down a peculiar blessing of God on 
 the youthful subject of this memoir .” 1 
 
 What is true of the examples given in the 
 history of the two Wesleys is equally true of 
 Edwards. Trained up in the way he should go, 
 he continued in it all the days of his life. 
 
 Since I wrote the foregoing lines and chap- 
 ters, I incidentally met three mothers in a social 
 circle, one of whom was the mother of six boys. 
 All three of these mothers were professedly 
 Christian, and inasmuch as one of the topics of 
 conversation turned upon the training of children, 
 I urged upon them the duty of obeying the 
 divine command in order that they might realize 
 the divine promise. They admitted that it ought 
 to be obeyed, but doubted if the promise could 
 be realized. I quoted the cases of Moses, Sam- 
 uel, and Daniel in sacred history, and of John 
 and Charles Wesley in modern biography. They 
 objected by saying these were special cases in 
 
 1 Life of President Edwards, as published by the Amer- 
 ican Sunday-school Union, pp. 6, 7. 
 
124 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 which special training was needed for special 
 work. I met their objection with the apparent fact 
 in the text that the divine command is not 
 bounded by any such limitation, that the language 
 is plain and clear, without a cloud of metaphor, 
 that the mandate, “ Train up a child in the way he 
 should go,” means any child and that any child sig- 
 nifies every child without respect to any special 
 work which a child might be called to, or any par- 
 ticular office he might be called to fill; and the ob- 
 ject and end of the command are the forming of 
 a good character in every child — a character 
 strong because good, and useful because con- 
 formed to the divine will; a character capable 
 of resisting temptation to sin, and a life pro- 
 ductive of good to the community in which one 
 may be born, to the government of which one 
 may be a subject, and to the age in which one 
 may be called to run his career. 
 
 We are not called upon by the divine com- 
 mand to educate, in order that we may be 
 kings like David or queens like Victoria, or re- 
 formers like Luther and Wesley, or premiers like 
 Daniel or Gladstone, or lawmakers like Moses or 
 Solon , 1 or prophets like Isaiah and Ezekiel, or 
 apostles like Paul and John, but because we were 
 
 1 See an excellent sketch of Solon’s life and character 
 in A nth on’s Classical Dictionary, pp, 1249-1250. 
 
THE DIVINE PROMISE. 
 
 125 
 
 created in God’s image and ordained to live so- 
 berly, righteously, and godly in this present life, 
 to be perfect in knowledge, in love, in holiness. 
 In a word we, that is, every child of Adam is born 
 to such a birthright, such an imperishable inher- 
 itance ; and blessed is that mother, that father, 
 that guardian, that citizen who is neither parent 
 nor guardian, that helps a child to the attainment 
 and enjoyment of such a divine right — a right 
 conferred by no social circle, no civil organiza- 
 tion, no political compact, but a right conferred 
 by the unchangeable decree of the Omnipotent, 
 when he made man in his own image and after 
 his likeness . 1 
 
 1 The image and likeness of God, in which man was 
 created fixes his sublime destiny and exalts him to the 
 society of angels in heaven. To the fulfillment of this 
 destiny, every child ought to be trained ; not for earthly 
 offices, be they ever so grand; nor emoluments, be they 
 ever so varied; nor privileges, be they ever so distin- 
 guished, but for a throne in heaven and the crown of 
 eternal life. 
 
126 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION \ 
 
 Cl\hptef XV. 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION UNDER CHRISTIAN IN- 
 FLUENCES THE HIGHEST DUTY OF THE PAR- 
 ENT AND THE CITIZEN. 
 
 T HESE illustrations which we have given, 
 drawn from ancient sacred history and from 
 modern biography, of the practicability of the 
 divine command, and the realization of the di- 
 vine promise, proclaim a very important truth, 
 and inculcate very important lessons, which we 
 shall now consider. 
 
 What is this important truth? Answer: The 
 highest duty of the parent and the citizen is do- 
 mestic education under Christian influences, guided 
 by Christian principles, stimulated by Christian 
 sentiments. 
 
 One of the fundamental principles of the 
 Christian system is the redemption of man from 
 ignorance and sin. We find this principle an- 
 nounced on the first page of the New Testament. 
 The Christ is there represented as Jesus — “ he 
 that shall save his people from their sins.” They 
 shall call his name u Immanuel — God with us,” 
 (Matt, i, 21, 23), “ to give knowledge of salva- 
 
DUTY OF PARENT AND CITIZEN. 127 
 
 tion unto his people by the remission of their 
 sins.” (Luke i, 77.) To this high and holy end 
 it was foretold that “ the spirit of the Lord shall 
 rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and under- 
 standing, the spirit of counsel and might, the 
 spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” 
 (Isaiah xi.) 
 
 These quotations lead us to another principle 
 of the Christian system ; it is the fundamental 
 principle of human progress in the onward and 
 upward direction, the very pivot upon which the 
 philosophy of history turns, namely, the ante- 
 mundane decree of the Creator, that man shall 
 perfect himself in knowledge and in religion. 
 (Ephesians i, 4; iii, 14-20; Phil, i, 9-11.) 
 
 It is easily perceived that these two prin- 
 ciples are akin, but not identical. The first 
 is objective, the second subjective; the former 
 represents the Creator and covenant God as op- 
 erating upon humanity ; the latter represents hu- 
 manity as operating upon itself in harmony with 
 the divine law and government. 
 
 a. it is under these principles, and only un- 
 der these, that domestic education becomes suc- 
 cessful and beneficial to the family and to society. 
 I intend my statement to be emphatic. I mean 
 what I say, and say only what I mean. Educa- 
 tion under any other conditions may produce the 
 
128 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 accomplished gentlemen and the accomplished 
 lady. But this gentleman and this lady will be 
 as butterflies, or humming birds — never the use- 
 ful bees. Like butterflies and humming birds 
 they will always be seeking the nectar of amuse- 
 ments and pleasures to gratify themselves and to 
 terminate upon themselves. To plan and to exe- 
 cute for the well-being of others will form no 
 portion of their daily thoughts, will never enter 
 into their daily schemes of employment and en- 
 joyment. Like butterflies and humming birds, 
 they will live and die ; like humming birds and 
 butterflies, their memories will perish forever. 
 
 b . Education domestic, under other principles, 
 may produce the dandy and the flirt, whose 
 thoughts and whose sentiments will be akin to 
 the gentleman and lady I have just described, 
 with this difference; — they will live, move, and 
 have their being on a lower plane of action. 
 
 c. Domestic education under other principles 
 will produce the gambler, the thief, the robber, 
 the assassin, or the drunkard, the prostitute, the 
 harlot, the debauchee, whose planning and execu- 
 ting will be the work of devils; their lives will 
 be stained by vice, crime, and blood ; their death 
 will be accompanied by condemnation and curses 
 upon the fathers who begot them and the mothers 
 who brought them into this world. 
 
DUTY OF PARENT AND OITlZEN. 129 
 
 d . Or domestic education, under other princi- 
 ples and influences than the Christian, may pro- 
 duce another class of persons, whom we take the 
 liberty to designate as the selfish, godless, idola- 
 trous financiers, who plan and execute only for 
 themselves. Money is the only good which they 
 seek and enjoy, the only god they are able 
 to cognize and worship. The accumulation of 
 wealth and honor is their only delight, the joy 
 and rapture of their narrow souls. To do good 
 with their silver and gold is to draw a sound 
 eye-tooth out of their mouth; doubtless they 
 prefer the latter. 
 
 Heartless as their silver and gold, or other 
 things without life and sensibility, they can not 
 feel for human suffering, they have no practical 
 sympathy for human progress in intellect, morals, 
 or religion. The most pressing claims of general 
 benevolence or special Christian charity are, by 
 them, cruelly ignored. 
 
 It is painful to record the fact that some of 
 these idolatrous financiers are found in the bosom 
 of the Christian Church. I have known at least 
 four or five of them. Three of these had their 
 mortal career in the very ministry of that branch 
 of the Christian Church to which the writer 
 belongs. One of these was a contemptible miser . 
 So much was he given to worship his gold and 
 9 
 
130 
 
 D OMES TIC ED UCA TIOK 
 
 silver that he was too mean to furnish himself 
 with the necessities of life . 1 
 
 Had these men been trained by Christian 
 parents, especially by Christian mothers, under 
 Christian principles and sentiments, they would 
 have been like our adorable Lord and Master, 
 the most unselfish and the most self-abnegating, 
 pouring out their silver and gold in behalf of 
 Christian education and Christian missions, as the 
 God-man poured out his heart’s blood for the 
 redemption of the world ! 
 
 What I have said about these four classes 
 of persons are irrefutable facts, and therefore we 
 name the Christian sentiment and the Christian 
 principle. The Christian sentiment springs from 
 the Christian principle. It is the logical conse- 
 quent of it. When one has thought deeply 
 about the principles which underlie the Christian 
 teachings he is almost always led to feel deeply 
 respecting the duties enjoined by Christ and the 
 apostles, by Moses and the prophets. Hence, 
 he is moved to do what Jesus commands, and 
 this he does not merely from a sense of duty 
 but also from the love of him who commands, 
 and because he commands and teaches only what 
 
 1 By this I mean those things necessary for comfort and 
 cleanliness. He lived more like a dog in his kennel than 
 as a Christian minister in a Christian homestead. 
 
DUTY OF PARENT AND CITIZEN 131 
 
 is true and beautiful and good — that alone which 
 makes humanity pure and happy ; that alone 
 which honors and glorifies him, whose attributes 
 are inimitable, and whose will is incomparably 
 good. This deep sense of the good in the nature 
 of what is taught and commended by Moses and 
 the prophets or by Jesus and the apostles, is what 
 we call the Christian sentiment. 
 
 Now, where the Christian principle and the 
 Christian sentiment are not found, their opposites 
 obtain — first in the hearts of the heads of fami- 
 lies ; secondly, in their homes. But the Chris- 
 tian principle and the Christian sentiment com- 
 bined, always create a Church in the household. 
 The converse of this statement is true. 
 
 Hence, where there is no Church in the house- 
 hold, no altar at the fireside, no God to be wor- 
 shiped morning and evening, nothing great and 
 good can proceed from it, nothing but human 
 selfishness, which is the inexhaustible fountain 
 of all the sins and crimes which man can com- 
 mit against his fellow-man or against the holy 
 Creator who made him. 
 
 I think we have fully demonstrated the truth 
 and the consequent facts, that out of the conse- 
 crated home issue all the manly virtues and all 
 the Christian graces, embodied in the persons and 
 manifested in the lives of such men as Moses, 
 
132 
 
 D OMESTIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 Samuel, and Daniel, of ancient times, and of John 
 and Charles Wesley and J. Edwards, of mod- 
 ern times. 
 
 When such men go forth from the conse- 
 crated fireside they go to make the world wiser, 
 purer, and better. They accomplish such results 
 by the lessons of practical wisdom, which they 
 teach and the godlike examples which they set — 
 examples of personal rectitude and moral he- 
 roism. 
 
 But their elevating influence is not confined 
 to their own countries, age, and race. No ! It 
 touches all the ages and all the races, because, 
 like sun-light and sun-heat, the influence of good 
 and great men overleaps all geographical boun- 
 daries, and penetrates all climes to enlighten, 
 vivify, and stimulate the progress of humanity in 
 the Christian direction. 
 
 When Amram and Jochebed were training 
 their infant in their consecrated home, they knew 
 not that they were cradling and nursing a man 
 to be the teacher, leader, and emancipator of their 
 enslaved race and the lawgiver of humanity ; but 
 they did it. And, as parents, they were perform- 
 ing the highest duty possible to them. They 
 were blessing both Church and state. 
 
 So, also, when Elkanah and Hannah were 
 training little Samuel at their consecrated fire- 
 
DUTY OF PARENT AND CITIZEN. 133 
 
 side they were unconscious of the fact they were 
 preparing a man to be the best, the grandest of all 
 the judges of Israel, to be the faithful prophet and 
 the heroic maker of kings ; but they did it, and 
 in so doing they conferred blessings upon the 
 Church and the state. 
 
 Even so, when the unknown parents of Daniel 
 were training him by instilling into his mind the 
 truths of the Pentateuch, and thereby imparting 
 to his developing intellect the knowledge of the 
 true God, never thought they, for a moment, that 
 they were educating one of the two greatest of 
 the historic prophets and the wisest of all the 
 princely governors of the magnificent empires 
 of Nebuchadnezzar, of Darius, and of Cyrus . 1 
 
 lu He had served five kings, Nebuchadnezzar, Evil- 
 Merodach, Belshazzar, Darius, and Cyrus. Few courtiers 
 have had so long a reign, served so many masters without 
 flattering any, been more successful in the management of 
 public affairs, been so useful to the states where they 
 were in office, or have been owned of God, or have left 
 such an example to posterity. Where shall we find min- 
 isters like Samuel and Daniel! None so wise, so holy, so 
 disinterested, so useful, have ever since appeared in tJ-e 
 nations of the earth.” (Adam Clarke, Comment at the 
 end of the sixth chapter of Daniel.) 
 
 Rollin, speaking of the superior position which Daniel 
 held, among one hundred and twenty governors over whom 
 Cyrus placed him, says: “Daniel deserved such a prefer- 
 ence not only on account of his great wisdom, which was 
 celebrated throughout the East, and had been displayed 
 
134 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 But they did prepare him in the bosom of their 
 consecrated home to perform his part grandly in 
 the complex drama of human history. 
 
 In like manner have many conscientious, intel- 
 ligent, and pious parents so trained their sons 
 and their daughters within consecrated homes, 
 that they ultimately went forth with intellectual, 
 moral, and spiritual power to labor effectually for 
 the redemption and reconstruction of the globe ; 
 if not on so grand a scale as Luther and Wesley, 
 they did it successfully in their heaven-appointed 
 spheres of action. 
 
 We can not set too high an estimate upon the 
 services which such parents have rendered society. 
 It is not too much to say that the intellectual, 
 moral, and spiritual power which such parents 
 and such citizens contribute to the Church and 
 the state is of more value than millions of gold. 
 
 in a distinguished manner at Belshazzar’s feast, but like- 
 wise on account of his great age and consummate expe- 
 rience ; for, at that time, it was full sixty-seven years from 
 the fourth of Nebuchadnezzar that he had been prime 
 minister of the kings of Babylon.” (“Ancient History,” 
 Vol. I, page 135.) 
 
DOMESTIC UNITY, 
 
 135 
 
 C^hptef XVI. 
 
 DOMESTIC UNITY— THE MOTHER AND FATHER 
 CO-LABORERS. 
 
 J UST as unity is good in domestic government, 
 so, also, is it good in domestic instruction. 
 To teach is as much the duty of the parents as 
 to govern ; therefore, co-labor on the part of the 
 father and the mother in training the intellect of 
 a child will secure a more perfect development 
 of the intellectual forces. Two are better than 
 one, for counsel as well as for war; for this 
 reason, as long as they live should both parents 
 act conjointly in mental cultivation. They may 
 divide their educational work. Taste and adap- 
 tation will give the rule for such a division. 
 
 The taste and experience of the father may 
 render him the better fitted to instruct in arith- 
 metic, algebra, and geometry, while that of the 
 mother may qualify her to teach history, geog- 
 raphy, and grammar. Taste and natural aptness 
 may make the father a better teacher of zoology, 
 geology, and mineralogy, while that of the mother 
 
136 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCA TIOK 
 
 may make her more successful in botany, music, 
 and some other of the fine arts. 
 
 The father may excel in one or more of the 
 physical sciences, as astronomy and chemistry, 
 while the mother may eclipse him in one or more 
 of the intellectual forms of knowledge, such as 
 mental and moral philosophy ; and while the father 
 may give to his children an insight into the mys- 
 teries of the sublime science of theology, the 
 mother may inculcate the simple and practical 
 duties of the Christian religion. Of course, all 
 this domestic education, must be in the majority 
 of cases almost entirely of an elementary character. 
 
 To preserve as well as possible an equal in- 
 fluence over their children, both should thus par- 
 ticipate in the divine and ennobling work of do- 
 mestic education ; both should manifest an equally 
 deep concern in the present and future hap- 
 piness of their offspring, if they be parents — 
 in their wards, if they be guardians or foster 
 parents. 
 
 1. But there is a sense in which the mother is 
 the special teacher and educator of her own child, 
 and every mother ought to be conscious of this 
 truth, because it is only the mother having this 
 consciousness who diligently performs her duty 
 as a mother. It is only the mother conscious of 
 the fact that God has made her the special trainer 
 
DOMESTIC UNITY . 
 
 137 
 
 of the infant and youthful mind who will per- 
 sist in the good work of domestic education, and 
 who will delight in the glorious task. 
 
 Before the birth of a child, who can think of 
 it as the mother? When the babe is introduced 
 into this world, who can love it as the mother? 
 All along the winding, spiral journey of life, 
 who can think about that son or that daughter 
 as the mother? 
 
 O, there is a depth, a height, a strength, a 
 sweetness in a mother’s love which human lan- 
 guage can not express! Now, it is this very 
 depth and height, and strength, and sweetness, 
 which endangers her child, because if such a 
 love is not sanctified by the superior love of God, 
 and controlled by that practical wisdom which 
 cometh down from on high, her affections will be- 
 come blind and idolatrous, and she will spoil the 
 child. Her blind, idolatrous love has often ended in 
 the destruction of its object. To direct, modify, 
 and control her heart, she needs the enlightened 
 head and will that always purpose the highest 
 good of her son or her daughter. 
 
 Therefore, permit me to suggest that every 
 mother, following the example of the far-sighted 
 and devout Hannah, ought to pray for her child 
 before its birth, dedicate it to the Creator at its 
 birth, and as soon as possible take the tender in- 
 
138 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 fant to the house of God, and at his holy altar 
 dedicate it the third time in holy baptism to the 
 service of him who can do for the consecrated 
 child that which the combined wisdom and ener- 
 gies of both parents can not perform. 
 
 This threefold consecration of a child by the 
 mother will accomplish several things needed 
 for successful training. 
 
 1st. It will bring down upon the mother a 
 deeper sense of her obligation and responsibilities 
 than mere consciousness can impart. She will 
 see and feel that the deliberate, solemn, and sa- 
 cred vows made by herself to the Creator, who 
 is also her covenant God, must never be broken 
 nor willfully neglected. 
 
 2d. She will see and feel that her infant was 
 not given as a creature to be petted as one pets 
 a pretty lap-dog, or as a vain woman cherishes a 
 glittering jewel. 
 
 3d. She will comprehend the fact that her 
 heaven-sent child has an immortal soul, which is 
 far more valuable than all the treasures of earth, 
 and which, if properly trained, will “ shine as 
 the brightness of the firmanent,” and “as the 
 stars forever and ever.” (Daniel xiii, 3.) 
 
 4th. Under such perceptions and conceptions, 
 under such correct and Scriptural convictions she 
 will be prepared to begin the work of domestic 
 
DOMESTIC UNITY . 
 
 139 
 
 education, inspired by the divine command, 
 “ Train up a child in the way he should go,” 
 confiding in the divine promise that “ When he 
 is old he will not depart from it.” 
 
 5th. There will be a divine influence encircling 
 such a pious mother and her consecrated child 
 (Hebrews i, 13, 14; Psalm ciii, 17, 18; Psalm 
 xxxiv, 7), which godless parents can never realize. 
 
 6th. Acting under such thoughts, sentiments, 
 and influences, the mother will have power over 
 the head, the heart, and the will of the child, 
 such as no other human being can exert — the 
 father of the child himself not excepted. If 
 qualified, the mother can be, for she ought to be, 
 the first educator in letters, the first in morals, 
 the first in religion. 
 
 а . From the first day after the birth of her 
 child, to the hour of the day when that child 
 enters the common-school or the select-school to 
 take the first lessons which the school-master or 
 school-mistress can impart, what glorious oppor- 
 tunities nature and God have placed at her com- 
 mand to instruct, to guide, to control the immor- 
 tal mind ! 
 
 б. O, if she be wise, how she can affect both 
 earth and heaven, both time and eternity, by her 
 diligent, daily, prayerful teachings, and her Chris- 
 tian examples of holiness and self-abnegation ! 
 
140 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 c. No ball room, no opera, no theater, nor any 
 other amusement, could induce such a mother to 
 abandon her child to the care of a servant or a 
 neighbor. 
 
 d. Remembering that “ the boy is father of the 
 man,” and that the girl is mother of the woman, 
 she will not sacrifice the future of her child to 
 the present, but will, in the present hour, sow the 
 good seeds in order that the future may yield 
 the golden harvest of all the manly and womanly 
 virtues and all the Christian graces. 
 
 2. As the mother is the first teacher, so, also, 
 she is by the very law of nature the first guide of 
 her offspring. To impart instruction to a child 
 is only one-third part of its training. If the 
 mother stops at that, she will leave untouched 
 two-thirds of her work — yes two-thirds of her 
 important and formative task. It is not enough 
 that she teach her child the difference between 
 the right and the wrong; it is not enough that 
 she point out the distinctions which the difference 
 creates. It is her bounden duty to lead the 
 young moral agent away from the wrong into the 
 right, and holding him or her by the hand, keep 
 the child there in that good old path of right- 
 eousness in which there is no death, but life ev- 
 erlasting. 
 
 The infant needs to be guided, the child must 
 
DOMESTIC UNITY . 
 
 141 
 
 be guided, the youth ought to be guided until he 
 or she be confirmed in the right. 
 
 3. The mother is also the first commander . 
 As nature has made her the first teacher and first 
 guide of the child, so, also, is she made the first 
 commander of her little boy or her little girl. To 
 teach a child is an important work, to guide it is 
 equally important, to command is sometimes more 
 necessary than to teach or to guide the wavering 
 steps of the infant, the child, or the youth. These 
 are inseparable parts of the work of education 
 which the mother is daily called to perform. 
 
 Some silly sentimentalists object to this part of 
 parental labor : “ To command a child to do 
 
 this or that, to forbid a child to do this or that, 
 sounds too much like slavery. You may teach 
 a child, or advise, or guide him, but you must 
 never command , and should the child refuse to 
 obey you must never enforce the command by the 
 rod. O ! no ! That is slavery, that is cruelty. 
 That takes the spring out of the boy.” 
 
 Such people seem to believe that they are 
 wiser than God, and far more loving than he. 
 The inspired apostle tells us that “ God is love.” 
 This is a true witness, “ God is love.” But, not- 
 withstanding he enforces obedience by a command 
 and by a rod. To command and to bless the 
 obedient, to command and to punish the disobedient 
 
142 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 are parts of his method of governing the universe. 
 Nature teaches this to the heathen and to the 
 Christian. Revelation confirms and illustrates 
 the certainty of this method to every Christian 
 father and mother. God approved the character 
 of Abraham because he commanded his children 
 and his household. He also made that fact a 
 reason for revealing to that patriarch his purpose to 
 destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. (Gen. xviii, 17-19. 
 He also tells us the end for which Abraham com- 
 manded his children and his household. It was 
 two fold: a. That they should keep in the paths 
 of righteousness, b. That the blessings promised 
 to him and to his children might be realized. 
 
 Just at this point this divine statement con- 
 cerning Abraham is worthy of analysis. To make 
 this we are compelled to go behind the naked 
 statement. 1st. God had promised that the 
 descendants of Abraham should be a great and 
 mighty nation. 2d. That all the nations of the earth 
 should be blessed in him. (Gen. xii, 1, 2.) 3d. That 
 this mighty nation should be innumerable as the 
 stars in heaven and the dust of the earth. (Gen- 
 esis xiii, 16; xv, 5.) 4th. That kings should be 
 among his progeny. (Genesis xvii, 6.) But every 
 one of these promised blessings was conditioned 
 upon Abraham’s domestic government — the home 
 training — the household education which God re- 
 
DOMESTIC UNITY. 
 
 143 
 
 quired him to impart to his children and to his 
 servants. 5th. But while God promised these 
 things, Abraham was required to do something 
 more than to teach “ justice and judgment ” — he 
 must enforce them by commands. 6th. His 
 children and his servants were under obligation 
 to obey as well as to learn. 
 
 We are now justified in affirming, that as to 
 command is a part of the method of the divine 
 government, so, also, it must be a part of the 
 method of every wise family government. 
 
 In all nature and throughout all her ramifi- 
 cations, order, law, and government prevail ; and 
 above all these, and over all these, there is au- 
 thority. This last thing gives vitality, strength, 
 power, and stability to the others; it also clothes 
 them with a divine dignity which they could 
 neither acquire nor retain without it. 
 
 That mother, therefore, is wise who to her in- 
 struction and guidance adds commandments, and 
 gives as a reason for all, her divine authority, 
 vested in her by one who is infinitely above her 
 and above all others who pretend to teach and 
 to govern. 
 
 Such is the divine task committed to every 
 mother as a portion of her daily work. It is one 
 which no mother can omit, neglect, or ignore 
 with impunity. It is beautiful, important, glo- 
 
144 
 
 DOMESTIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 rious ! The diligent, faithful discharge of it will 
 prove a blessing to herself as well as to her chil- 
 dren, and her children’s children. She is a 
 crown of glory to her husband — a queen among 
 women ! 
 
THE FATHER'S WORK. 
 
 145 
 
 C^kptef XVII. 
 
 THE FATHER’S WORK AND INFLUENCE. 
 
 ET us never forget the father is the joint 
 
 JL/ factor for producing a noble character in his 
 son and in his daughter. This statement is finely 
 illustrated in the case of the parents of Madame 
 de Stael. Her character is due, not to the train- 
 ing of her mother only, nor her father only, but 
 to the joint action and influence of both. In the 
 training of this extraordinary woman, the influ- 
 ence of the father dominated that of the mother. 
 I presume that in many cases it will be so ; be- 
 cause, in domestic life, as well as in the social cir- 
 cle, in civil life and in political spheres, the stronger 
 character will always dominate the weaker. 
 
 Happy are those parents whose influences are 
 equally felt by their children, up to whom sons 
 and daughters look with equal love and venera- 
 tion. And yet I may be allowed to express the 
 opinion that, where the father is the most thor- 
 oughly educated, has traveled more, seen more 
 of life, and has also lived much longer than the 
 
 10 
 
146 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 mother, this dominant influence may be ex- 
 pected. But, with all this admission, I believe 
 the mother is the natural molder of character. 
 
 How can the father aid the mother in her 
 important and glorious work ? I now have special 
 regard to the formation of moral and religious 
 character, because I have indicated on a former 
 page how he can aid her in imparting knowl- 
 edge to the intellect. But of what use is the 
 well-disciplined intellect if the heart and the will 
 be not properly trained? Have we not some- 
 times seen men of the most powerful intellect, 
 and of the finest culture in a literary and artistic 
 point of view, mere blanks in society ; and, at 
 other times, have we not seen such individuals so 
 debased in morals as to be a curse to themselves 
 and to others? Yes, all these things we have 
 witnessed, and more; for we have frequently seen 
 such talented and highly cultivated men acting 
 the part of skeptics, scoffers, and sneerers. 
 
 We, therefore, answer the important question 
 by saying, the father can aid the mother in mold- 
 ing the character of the child. 
 
 a. By his fervent, effectual prayers in behalf of 
 his unborn offspring. Will not the Creator hear 
 and answer such a prayer? I am certain he will. 
 A good child is a good gift. When talented, 
 the gift is increased in its value ; and, when the 
 
THE FATHER'S WORK. 
 
 147 
 
 gifted child has a consecrated intellect, the value 
 of the gift is augmented in a threefold degree. 
 When inclined to the true, the beautiful, and the 
 useful, the gifted, consecrated child becomes a 
 real blessing to the community as well as to the 
 parents. The well-known character of the Creator 
 warrants us in saying that he is pleased to give 
 us children with such endowments and such incli- 
 nations, in answer to our earnest and faithful 
 prayers . 1 
 
 b. Moreover, the father can aid the mother by 
 his fervent, effectual prayers for his child during 
 infancy, childhood, and youth. The father is the 
 priest as well as the head of his family. God 
 requires him to pray for his children as well as 
 to instruct and govern them. 
 
 Job is said to have offered burnt offerings 
 continually for his children, and, also, that he 
 
 1 See Psalm cxxvii, 3-5, in which we are told that “chil- 
 dren are. a heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb 
 is his reward.” And we have also another statement 
 which teaches the same truth. Here it is: “ But the an- 
 gel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias, for thy prayer is 
 heard, and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and 
 thou shalt call his name John, and thou shalt have joy 
 and gladness, and many shall rejoice at his birth, for he 
 shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and he shall drink 
 neither wine nor strong drink ; and he shall be filled with 
 the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb.” (Luke 
 i, 19, 20.) See the comment of Dr. Adam Clarke in loco. 
 
148 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 continually “ sanctified them,” which fact leads us 
 to declare that it may be done now. (Job i, 5.) 
 
 c. The father can aid the mother of his chil- 
 dren in her noble work, by occasionally taking 
 one of them by the hand and leading that one 
 into some secret place, consecrate him or her to 
 the service of the living but invisible God in 
 such a spirit and manner as will make an indeli- 
 ble impression upon the young immortal, causing 
 him or her ever after to feel that there is an 
 invisible Father ever watching over human ac- 
 tions and working out happily the destiny of all 
 who love, fear, and obey him. I also feel war- 
 ranted in saying that the Holy Spirit will, in the 
 dreadful hour of temptation, quicken the con- 
 science of such a consecrated child by reminding 
 him or her of the consecration which the father 
 made, and of the obligation to keep that conse- 
 cration untarnished. Thus the Holy Spirit may 
 stimulate the consecrated child to resistance and 
 to victory. 
 
 d. The father can also aid the mother by 
 enforcing order, law, and government. Children 
 generally regard their father as the one having 
 authority to govern, and most children are in- 
 clined to obey him when they hesitate to obey their 
 mother. This may be natural instinct, but their 
 consciousness may and will ascend to the lofty 
 
THE FATHER'S WORK. 
 
 149 
 
 plane of reverence, when the fifth commandment 
 has been skillfully applied to the conscience of 
 the consecrated ones. 
 
 e. Lastly, fathers can aid the mothers by heed- 
 ing the divine command as it is given in the 
 epistle of St. Paul to the Church at Ephesus/ 
 See the sixth chapter and third verse : “ Ye fathers, 
 provoke not your children to wrath, but bring 
 them up in the nurture and admonition of the 
 Lord.” 
 
 In this command to fathers, all cruelty and 
 severity is forbidden, both in words and in 
 deeds. Mark, if you please, every species of 
 cruelty and severity is forbidden the father; but 
 not strictness, for the idea of strictness is in- 
 cluded in " admonition” and “ nurture.” To be 
 watchful, solicitous, careful about the moral de- 
 velopment of a child is to be strict ; to restrain 
 our children from evil is to be strict; to pro- 
 hibit them from associating with bad neighbors 
 and bad relatives — that is, to keep them out of 
 bad company — is strictness . 1 Such duties the 
 
 1 Strict, Severe. — “ Strict , from slrictus , bound or con- 
 fined, characterizes the thing which binds or keeps in con- 
 trol ; severe (v. austere), characterizes in the proper sense 
 the disposition of the person to inflict pain, and, in an 
 extended application, the thing which inflicts pain. The 
 term strict, therefore, is taken always in a good sense. Se- 
 vere is good or bad according to circumstances ; he who has 
 
150 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 father is bound by the most solemn commands to 
 perform, which he can not disobey without imper- 
 iling his own soul and the souls of his children. 
 
 The true idea of parental government is given 
 us ia the hundred and seventh psalm. It is a 
 government of “ loving kindness ” and “ tender 
 mercies.” And yet this idea does not exclude 
 needful punishment. To correct a child, even 
 with a rod, is an evidence of parental love; of a 
 love that is as wise as it is tender and genuine. 
 It is to love after the example of the divine 
 Father. * 1 
 
 Hear what Isaiah saith of God’s unutterable 
 love for his covenant people. “ Can a woman 
 forget her sucking child, that she should not 
 have compassion upon the son of her womb?” 
 “Yea, they [mothers] may forget, but I will 
 never forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee 
 upon the palm of my hand.” (Isaiah xlix, 14, 16.) 2 
 
 authority over others must be strict in enforcing obe- 
 dience, in keeping good order, and a proper attention to 
 their duties.” (Crabb’s “Synonyms,” page 204.) For 
 strictness the Word of God has no rebuke. But it de- 
 nounces and punishes all forms of cruelty, for cruelty is 
 Satanic. 
 
 1 “ Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but 
 the rod of correction will drive it far from him.” (Prov. 
 xxii, 15.) 
 
 2 1 have seen more than one mother and father who dis- 
 regarded the command expressed, that is, the precept 
 
THE FATHER'S WORK \ 
 
 151 
 
 Notwithstanding such love for his covenant 
 people, God did punish them on account of their 
 sins. This was done, not to torture, still less to 
 destroy, but to correct, purify, and fit them for 
 a higher life. It was a demonstration of his lov- 
 ing kindness and his tender mercies. Even so, 
 also, will it be with a discriminating and judicious 
 father, whose love is neither blind nor stupid, 
 but is wise and far-seeing. He will not yield to 
 the present desire of his child for indulgence of 
 the back or the stomach, to sacrifice his future 
 usefulness and well-being, because he knows 
 that the present is always fleeting, therefore, 
 always changing in color or in form, sometimes in 
 both, sometimes not in form only, nor in color 
 only, but also in its very nature. And he also knows 
 the coming future is approaching, with purpose and 
 power to change the form, the color, and the 
 very nature of things; to crush out the evil and 
 to introduce the good, to abolish the evanescent 
 and to establish the permanent. 
 
 given in the twenty-second chapter of Proverbs, and the 
 fifteenth verse, live to repent and to utter useless regrets for 
 allowing a boy or a girl to do whatever appetite or mere 
 desire might dictate, or evil companions persuade them 
 to practice, and to see unrestrained foolishness of the 
 child make a fool of the man, and the sorrow of the father 
 who begot him, and the mother who introduced him into 
 this world. 
 
152 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 Knowing that his son or his daughter can 
 not live in the past, is changing with the present, 
 and must live in the future, he will prepare his 
 child to be a man or a woman whose talents and 
 learning, whose piety and godliness, whose char- 
 acter and usefulness shall have power to bless the 
 future and lift it up to the highest possible plane 
 of excellence in all that is valuable to man and 
 pleasing to God, 
 
SPECIAL TRAINING OF GIRLS. 
 
 153 
 
 Cll&pte* XVII I. 
 
 SPECIAL TRAINING OF GIRLS. 
 
 “ That our daughters may he as corner-stones polished after 
 the similitude of a palace — Psalms cxliv, 12. • 
 
 U P to the present hour we have been thinking 
 and writing about a child and its training 
 without particular reference to sex. We can not 
 finish this essay until we have dealt with a child 
 in the form of a girl, born to affect society as a 
 boy never can. If “ the boy is father of the 
 man,” the girl is also mother of the woman. She 
 is more. In a certain sense she is maker of the 
 man. 
 
 A young man may become a better scholar 
 than his mother, and may ultimately know more 
 of men and things. But what he is in intellect, 
 in morals, in religion, in character, is due more to 
 his mother than to any other mortal being ; because 
 if his mother has not given him a powerful in- 
 tellect, the schools can never give it to him. But 
 it is through the intellect 1 that we know the 
 
 1 “ The intellect gives us light simply ; what has some- 
 times been called a dry light. With the sensibility added 
 we have light and warmth blended, and a field for the in- 
 
154 
 
 D OMES TIC ED UCA TIOK 
 
 right from the wrong as well as the true from 
 the false. The student who can not endure pro- 
 longed and difficult studies, owes that weakness 
 more to his mother than to any body else . 2 
 
 His first ideas of the Creator, of what is proper 
 or improper, he received from his mother. The 
 first religious ideas, the idea of God as an object 
 of worship and prayer, were given him in the 
 moment when she made him bend his knees to 
 say, “Our Father who art in heaven.” If his 
 mother does not plant and cultivate the seeds of 
 greatness in him until they have taken deep root 
 in the soil of his mental nature, I doubt if any 
 common-school, or select-school, or high-school, 
 or college, or university can ever succeed in 
 making him great. 
 
 If all we have said of a mother’s influence 
 over a boy, a lad, a full-grown man be true, it is 
 far more so of a girl, a lass, a mature woman, be- 
 
 tellect that covers the whole range of possible combina- 
 nations of intellect and feeling where no conscious will or 
 purpose is involved. With the will added we have not 
 only light and warmth, but the chemical rays. The action 
 of will not only opens new fields to the intellect, but gives 
 new materials and forms to the sensibility. It is here and 
 here only that we find any thing of a moral character.” 
 (‘‘Outline Study of Man,” by Dr. Mark Hopkins, D. D., 
 LL. D.) 
 
 2 The law or principle of heredity may modify my 
 statement. 
 
SPECIAL TRAINING OF GIRLS. 
 
 155 
 
 cause the girl remains longer under the sole care 
 of her mother, sees more of her hidden life, and 
 imbibes more of her spirit than the boy can pos- 
 sibly do. Almost always in her habits the young 
 woman is but a repetition of her mother . 1 How 
 careful then ought a mother to be in her own 
 habits, in order that her little girl may form no 
 bad ones from her examples. 
 
 Habits of personal cleanliness and neatness 
 ought to begin with the beginning of the life of 
 her little girl. Habits of cleanliness and order 
 in playing with her toys should be taught and 
 enforced. To gain this end the little girl should 
 be required to keep her toys from being soiled by 
 filth of every kind; to have a place for every toy, 
 and to keep every toy in its place. 
 
 In putting on, taking off, and putting away 
 she should be early taught to take care of her 
 clothes ; and as soon as she has attained sufficient 
 age and strength, she ought to be required to 
 assist in keeping house. Not only to keep every 
 
 1 Every close observer of families wherein are daugh- 
 ters must recognize this fact. The gossiping mother, 
 by the very force of her example, produces the gossiping 
 daughter, and the habitual slanderer produces her like- 
 ness and image in a slanderous daughter. The slovenly 
 mother trains her daughter into slovenly habits, and the 
 neat and orderly mother cultivates these desirable habits 
 in every one of her girls. 
 
156 
 
 DOMESTIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 thing in order within the house, but, also, to 
 keep every thing out of the house which belongs 
 to the yard, and keep every article out of the 
 yard which belongs to the house, to keep out of 
 the garret what should be placed in the cellar and 
 out of the cellar what should be kept in the gar- 
 ret; to keep out of the parlor what belongs to 
 the kitchen, and out of the kitchen what belongs 
 to the parlor, and that such utensils as are proper 
 only for the bed-chamber should never be found 
 outside of it. 
 
 Long before the little girl is able to under- 
 stand the abstract principles of classification, she 
 can be trained in the habit of classifying utensils 
 and objects that resemble one another. As a 
 help to the habit and power of classification, I ad- 
 vise all parents, especially mothers, to direct the 
 attention of their little girls to botany, in the 
 early study of which they can be made to see 
 that order, classification, and system pervade all 
 the works of God, and, therefore, that God him- 
 self is our model in these respects, and that it is 
 always useful, beautiful, and good to imitate his 
 examples in all things possible. 
 
 The natural love of children for flowers will 
 make the science of botany easy to them. No 
 books will be needed to induct them into it. 
 The plants and flowers will be their books, the 
 
SPECIAL TRAINING OF GIRLS. 
 
 157 
 
 flower garden, the parks, the fields can be made 
 the instruments of instruction. Nature is God’s 
 opened volume to be read, studied, understood 
 by the simple little child, as well as by the astute 
 and learned philosopher. 
 
 In the arrangement of the calyx and its sepals, 
 of the corolla and its petals, in the relative posi- 
 tion of stamens and pistils, in the varied forms 
 and colors and tints of all these, in the branch- 
 ing of trees and their different arrangements upon 
 their trunks, in the forms and arrangement of leaves 
 upon the branches and of flowers upon the stalk 
 or axis, the little girl can be made to see how 
 wonderfully and beautifully the Creator has con- 
 structed the forms of vegetable life, guiding him- 
 self, so to speak, by order and classification. But 
 the little girl will soon pass out of infancy into 
 childhood, when the brain power shall have been 
 augmented, then a repetition of the same teach- 
 ings will impart to her higher views of the ideas 
 which these botanical things represent, and the 
 habit of order, classification, and system will be- 
 come fixed. Then, when she has passed from 
 childhood into adolescence, she will be thoroughly 
 prepared to comprehend the abstract principles 
 of classification in natural history. 
 
 The young woman thus trained will carry into 
 all her studies the principles, as well as the habit 
 
158 
 
 D OMES TIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 of classification and generalization, into all her 
 domestic affairs, into all her social relations. 
 Therefore, she will be the better wife and the 
 better mother, the more useful member of any 
 given community, a better leader of that com- 
 munity. 
 
 Rising higher in the heavenly idea and work 
 of training the girls of every family, how careful 
 and diligent ought mothers to be in the inculca- 
 tion of the womanly virtues and the exalted and 
 elevating Christian graces. Let us proceed to 
 treat these as they present themselves to our 
 thoughts. 
 
 a. As I have shown elsewhere, the first lesson 
 a little girl ought to be taught is obedience to her 
 parents — ready, cheerful, and uniform. But, as I 
 have treated the subject of obedience at length 
 in chapter fourth, I will, in this connection, dis- 
 miss it, with the remark that the girl who will 
 not habitually obey her parents is doomed to 
 write no history at all, or one which will be 
 blotted by vicious, perhaps criminal, indulgences, 
 or unprofitable amusements or extravagant and 
 wasteful pleasures. Persistent disobedience in a 
 girl is the prophecy of a career which will end 
 in personal misery, if not in personal shame and 
 disgrace. Therefore, at the very beginning of 
 life the mother ought to guard this point, and 
 
SPECIAL TRAINING OF GIRLS. 
 
 159 
 
 take special care to exhibit to her infant girl 
 the divine beauty of obedience, impelling her ill 
 the right direction, as though an angel was beck- 
 oning her onward in the pathway to heaven, 
 while other angels were whispering in her ears, 
 “ Honor thy father and thy mother, as the Lord 
 thy God hath commanded thee, that thy days 
 may be prolonged, and that it -may go well with 
 thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth 
 thee.” (Deuteronomy v, 16.) 
 
 b. There is, also, the virtue which we call 
 modesty . If modesty be beautiful in a boy, it is 
 exceedingly so in a girl. The immodest girl is 
 impudent, bold, daring, fond of the company of 
 boys, especially vicious boys. The modest girl 
 shuns them, as the modest woman shuns libidi- 
 nous men. Opposed to impudence, the modest 
 girl is respectful in her language and behavior. 
 Opposed to boldness and a daring spirit, the 
 modest girl is retiring. Opposed to arrogance, 
 she has an humble opinion of herself. Opposed 
 to rudeness, she is gentle in her manners. 
 
 Not by precept only, but by example also, 
 the mother ought to teach modesty. Not by 
 precept and example combined only, but by ear- 
 nest daily prayers she should implore God’s pro- 
 tection in behalf of her little girl, her childish and 
 her youthful daughter, in order that all the 
 
160 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION . 
 
 elements which constitute a modest woman may be 
 vigorous and invincible in her when she shall 
 attain mature age, for then she will wield a 
 healthy influence upon the social circles in which 
 she may move. Her modesty will shield her 
 from the approaches of the men who make a 
 business of the seduction of young women. Her 
 modesty will also repel those satanic old women 
 who are the tools of the seducer. 
 
 c. Veracity , that is, the habit of always speak- 
 ing the truth, and nothing but the truth, at all 
 times, and in all places. She should be taught 
 that to tell a lie, in order that she may hide a 
 fault, is meaner than the fault, whatever that 
 fault might be. And, as a help to forming the 
 habit of truth telling, under all circumstances, 
 parents should never punish a child for acci- 
 dentally breaking an article, howsoever valuable as 
 an utensil or an ornament the article may be. 
 The dread of punishment will induce a timid 
 child to lie, whereas reproof and caution, kindly 
 given, will make her always ready to speak the 
 truth about any mischief she may do, through 
 carelessness or sheer accident. In a word, make 
 your little girl to believe and to know that lying 
 is, under all circumstances, contemptible and de- 
 grading, but that veracity is, under all circum- 
 stances, ennobling and honorable ; that a liar is 
 
SPECIAL TRAINING OF GIRLS. 
 
 161 
 
 to be detested and shunned ; that the veracious 
 is to be cherished and rewarded. 
 
 d . Honesty is another of the womanly vir- 
 tues. Therefore, it ought to be carefully and dili- 
 gently cultivated in the mind of the little girl. To 
 steal a pin is as mean and as wrong as to steal a 
 horse; to steal a cent as wicked as to steal a 
 twenty-dollar gold piece. As a liar is a person 
 to be expelled from respectable and good society, 
 so, also, is a thief to be ruled out of the com- 
 munity and confined in the penitentiary, and 
 therein compelled to work until he has earned 
 sufficient money to restore what he has stolen. 
 
 Such teachings as these should be imparted to 
 the girl as early as possible — that is, as soon as 
 she can understand them. Let her know that 
 stealing is the life employment of a rat and a 
 fox, and that she ought not to be as mean as 
 rat or fox. 
 
 There is also the womanly, moral virtue, 
 which we call industry. Teach the little girl 
 that to labor for one’s own bread and butter is 
 good, is honorable. God’s example ought to be 
 set before her. That beautiful panorama of the 
 creation which Moses has given to humanity, in 
 which God, as the great architect and the great 
 workman, is seen executing his own plans and 
 working out his own details, ought to be set 
 11 
 
162 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 before the mind of the little girl, again and 
 again, in prose, in poetry, and in song; by the 
 flowers of Spring, by the fruits of Summer, by 
 the harvests of Autumn, by the snows and ice 
 and cold of Winter. And this ought to be 
 repeated till she becomes familiar with it, till her 
 heart burns under its light, her imagination glows 
 with its beauty, and her little fingers are made 
 active in imitating the divine model . 1 To work 
 for human well-being and the well-being of the 
 humblest sentient creature is God’s delight; it is 
 also to his honor and glory. He is a contemptible 
 fool who thinks otherwise, and who believes that 
 he degrades himself when he is imitating the 
 
 *God be thanked for Froebel and the kindergarten 
 system, which he has elaborated for the training of the 
 little ones in habits of industry and invention. At 
 this point I desire to call the attention of mothers, whether 
 partially or thoroughly educated, to an interesting and 
 useful work, written jointly by Mrs. Horace Mann and 
 Elizabeth P. Peabody, entitled, ‘‘Moral Culture of In- 
 fancy and Kindergarten Guide,” in which they will find 
 many valuable suggestions. For mothers of advanced 
 education I also commend a work entitled, “The Paradise 
 of Infancy,” by Edward Wiebe, published by Milton 
 Bradley & Co., Springfield, Massachusetts. It is “a 
 manual for self-instruction in Friederich FroebeFs educa- 
 tional principles and a practical guide to kindergart- 
 ners.” This interesting and instructive work can be pur- 
 chased at Mr. Schermerhorn’s, No. 14 Bond Street, New 
 York. 
 
SPECIAL TRAINING OF GIRLS . 
 
 163 
 
 Almighty. Such truths and such facts should be 
 impressed upon the minds of the little girls. 
 
 e. Akin to industry is thrift, generally called 
 economy or frugality. It is a useful and noble 
 virtue. It makes the wife the husband’s treas- 
 urer. Saving his earnings, she increases his 
 wealth, his riches, his reputation, his influence, 
 his usefulness. 
 
 On the contrary, the woman who lacks thrift 
 is a hole in her husband’s pocket, diminishing his 
 wealth, riches, reputation, usefulness, and honor. 
 It is sinful to waste what others labor to gain. 
 
 What a sublime idea of thrift the Creator has 
 given us in the indestructibility of matter. And 
 what a beautiful lesson of frugality in the muta- 
 tions of its forms. In nature nothing is wasted. 
 What becomes useless in one form, or at one 
 time or stage of its existence, is changed into a 
 new form of life, beauty, and usefulness. Thus 
 he converts the minerals into vegetables and 
 flowers, these into animals, which are slain, and 
 their flesh becomes strength and life-prolonging 
 food for man ; who, when worn out by labor, 
 goes to sleep in the dark, silent grave, not to 
 perish there, but in order that he may be trans- 
 muted into the form of an angel. 
 
 The relation of thrift to industry is that of 
 the savings-bank to the financial results of labor. 
 
164 
 
 D OMES TIC ED UCA TIOK 
 
 That which is surplus is not thrown away upon 
 amusements and sinful pleasures, but is preserved 
 for future use and laid up for the day of sick- 
 ness and old age, when the man and the woman, 
 through manifold infirmities, are unable to labor 
 for their own support; also to enable them to 
 contribute liberally to the various forms of Chris- 
 tian benevolence as well as the education of their 
 own children. 
 
 Such is the Christian idea of industry and 
 thrift. The Christian must work and make 
 money, and he must also save it, in order that he 
 may be able to give. To be worthy of the name 
 of Christian we must study, understand, heed, 
 and follow the teachings and examples of Jesus, 
 who was son of man as well as Son of God, who 
 descended from heaven to give. 
 
 He was always giving, till he gave his life 
 away a ransom for all. And, though now in 
 heaven, he is still giving, and will continue to 
 give till he shall have given heaven itself and 
 the crown of life to every one who obeys his 
 teachings and practices his examples. 
 
 But we can not give until we shall have, but 
 to have, we must be industrious and thrifty in order 
 that we may have to give. Such are the lessons 
 which mothers should take special care to incul- 
 cate in the minds of their little girls, and to cul- 
 
SPECIAL TRAINING OF GIRLS. 
 
 165 
 
 tivate until blooming womanhood shall make the 
 habit an inviolable rule of life. 
 
 /. Temperance is akin to economy. It is the 
 guardian virtue of the other virtues, because it 
 gives just what it signifies — self-control, under all 
 temptations which may arise from the principles 
 and emotions of self-love. Our natural appetites 
 say, “ Eat and drink.” Temperance says, “ Yes, 
 but be careful — yes, be careful in what you eat and 
 drink.” Reject the hurtful. Eat and drink only 
 that which is wholesome; and what is wholesome, 
 eat and drink only what is enough to satisfy hun- 
 ger and thirst. Again temperance relates to 
 amusements and pleasures. Self-love leads the 
 young into divers amusements and pleasures. 
 Well, they may be good or they may be bad ; if 
 bad, self-control says have nothing to do with 
 them. Shun them. Run away from them. But, 
 if they be good, then use them moderately. Do 
 not allow them to control you, because if you do 
 they will soon become your masters. Let nothing 
 on earth be your masters, because, if you do, 
 they will by and by lead you to destruction. 
 Therefore, in all things be temperate. 
 
 Avoid gluttony. Too much of the most nutritious 
 food becomes injurious, because it creates gluttony. 
 Too much of the most healthy drinks may induce 
 intemperance , therefore, avoid extravagance even 
 
166 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 in the use of milk and water. As for excitants, 
 such as coffee and tea, keep away your little girls 
 from them. Strong tea, especially green tea or 
 mixed tea, is ruinous to the nerves. Excitants of 
 all kinds stimulate the nervous system so as to 
 affect the temper, and often affect permanently 
 the moral sentiments and character. In view of 
 which we say emphatically, teach your little girl 
 temperance in all things. As for intoxicants, 
 they are “ liquid fire and distilled damnation;” 
 therefore, teach your little girl to fly from them 
 as from deadly serpents or consuming fire . 1 
 
 Such, by way of distinction, we call the 
 womanly virtues; because the well-being of so- 
 ciety demands these virtues in every woman, be 
 she educated or non-educated, be she rich or poor, 
 popular or obscure. 
 
 Hence, every mother should carefully, dili- 
 gently, and prayerfully cultivate them in her 
 daughter through all the stages of development, 
 from early infancy to mature womanhood. The 
 more careful, diligent, and prayerful she may be 
 in such a work, the more certain will be her suc- 
 
 lr The attention of mothers is hereby invited to an article 
 on “ Brain Poisons,” written by Professor B. T. Brown, 
 M. D., of Indiana University, which can be found in his 
 “ Elements of Physiology and Hygiene,” pp, 248-262. See 
 also “ Gospel Temperance,” chapter xx. 
 
SPECIAL TRAINING OF GIRLS. 
 
 167 
 
 cess. God looks down from heaven upon such a 
 mother with great delight, and never fails to re- 
 ward her labor of love . 1 
 
 1 Mothers and fathers will find some valuable sugges- 
 tions in Herbert Spencer’s essay on ‘‘ Intellectual, Moral, 
 and Physical Education.” In his treatment of “ Moral 
 Education,” he fails however to invoke the aid of the su- 
 pernatural power of the truth of God, and the Spirit of 
 God. We say Mr. Spencer does not invoke divine aid , 
 without which all mere human efforts avail but little in 
 the development of moral character. So, also, we do not 
 hesitate to say that every system of education which ex- 
 cludes or ignores the divine power is defective at the 
 very point where it ought to be most perfect. This sug- 
 gestive essay of Herbert Spencer can be obtained for fif- 
 teen cents by purchasing “ Humboldt’s Library of Popular 
 Scientific Literature,” vol. i, No. 5, New York, J. Fitz- 
 gerald & Co., 294 Broadway. 
 
168 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 &|kptei c XIX. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 B UT there are higher and nobler qualities than 
 the moral virtues which the wise mother 
 will desire her daughter to possess. They are 
 the beautiful Christian graces. These are na- 
 tives of heaven, and can be obtained by seeking 
 them in the kingdom of heaven. There and there 
 only can they be found. Their names are Faith, 
 Hope, Love, Humility, Self-abnegation, Holiness, 
 Righteousness. 
 
 These seven graces are essentially Christian, 
 and distinguish their possessor from what is ordi- 
 narily called a virtuous woman. Each of these 
 graces is a spiritual power within itself, and there- 
 fore imparts a spiritual power to the soul in 
 which it dwells, so that, while it controls its pos- 
 sessor, it also makes him and her a blessing to 
 others. 
 
 Thus, Faith enables us to recognize God in 
 all events, either as causing them or controlling 
 them, so that we shall not be murmuring and 
 repining at the losses of property, or health, or 
 
THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 169 
 
 friends, or at the financial disparity between one’s 
 self and one’s neighbors, but always under ad- 
 verse circumstances, to say with Job, “ Though he 
 slay me, yet will I trust in him.” 
 
 Hope cheers one amidst obstructing difficul- 
 ties and disappointments, to persevere and to 
 work in behalf of the good cause, expecting 
 sooner or later to conquer and to triumph, even 
 in the present life, and with a face turned heaven- 
 wards, to anticipate the coming glories of the 
 new creation . 1 
 
 Humility shields us against pride, vanity, and 
 flattery. Balancing all our talents and attainments, 
 she causes us to be useful to the high and the 
 low, to the rich and the poor, to the vilest and 
 the best. 
 
 Self-abnegation makes us ever ready to empty 
 ourselves, and if need be, to die that others 
 might live . 2 
 
 behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: 
 and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into 
 mind. Isaiah lxv, 17. et. “We according to his promise, 
 look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness.” 2 Peter iii, 13. See, also, Rev. xxi, 1. 
 
 2 Saint Paulin Philippians ii, 5-8 says: ‘‘Have the 
 mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus ; who being 
 in the form of God counted it not a prize to be on an equal- 
 ity with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a 
 servant, being made in the likeness of men ; and being 
 found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming 
 
170 
 
 DOMESTIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 Holiness gives ns freedom from sin and power 
 to repel all her poisoned arrows. 
 
 Righteousness imparts ability to plan and to 
 execute for the well-being of mankind, and al- 
 ways to dispense equal rights, equal privileges, 
 and equal justice to all. 
 
 And Love ! Divine love , placing us and keep- 
 ing us at one with God and the universe, will 
 ever be guiding us safely through the winding, 
 spiral pathway of life, and in the hour of death 
 she will clothe us with the shining robes of 
 immortality. 
 
 These seven graces follow the new creation as 
 
 obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross.” I have 
 quoted from the new version of the Testament. The 
 sense is the same as the old version. Dr. Adam Clarke, in 
 loco y translates as here, “ he emptied himself.” Dr. Louis 
 Segond, of Geneva, in his new translation of the original 
 says, “ He despoiled himself,” s’est depouil/e lui-meme. Os- 
 terwald renders it by “ He annihilated himself.” This 
 is very strong, “II s’est aneanti soi-meme.' 1 In my judg- 
 ment it is the deepest sense, and comes nearer to the fact of 
 Christ’s history, especially at its terminus, abandoning his 
 dignity, glory, and power for the time being, he reduced 
 himself to the condition of a servant, that we, the slaves 
 of sin and Satan, might become “ kings and priests.” 
 
 Note well his profound humility is accompanied by 
 a perfect obedience. Indeed they are inseparable virtues. 
 They are ever cognizant of law — I use the word in its 
 highest as expressive of the divine will. Pride, the an- 
 tagonist of humility is ever ready to rebel against law and 
 to trample the poor and the weak under her feet. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 171 
 
 light follows the sun. They may be called beams 
 from the Infinite. No amount of literature, nor 
 science, nor philosophy, nor art, nor culture 1 
 can bestow these immortal powers upon any child 
 of Adam. They are divine; but can be attained 
 by earnest prayer to God, who is always willing 
 and ready to bestow them upon “ the broken 
 heart and the contrite spirit.” (Psalm xxxiv, 18; 
 li, 17 ; Isaiah lvii, 15.) Such is the teaching of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ in his sermon on the 
 Mount, and in his farewell discourses to his dis- 
 ciples. (John xiv, 21-23.) 
 
 The womanly and moral virtues qualify any 
 female for a proper discharge of many of the du- 
 ties and obligations of life — but not for all. The 
 Christian graces lifting her up on a higher plane 
 of action; enable her to discharge all the moral 
 duties and obligations of life by imparting to her 
 a spiritual might, a strength — a power which is 
 supernatural. Therefore, as the moral virtues 
 bind us to our fellow-creatures, the Christian 
 graces unite us to the Infinite God. So, then, as 
 the former lift us above the level of the vicious 
 and the criminal, the latter exalt to the associa- 
 
 1 1 here employ the word culture to signify the com- 
 bined influences and results of all literary, scientific, phil- 
 osophical, and artistic attainments on the mind and the 
 manners of an educated person. 
 
172 
 
 DOMESTIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 tion of angels, and the “spirits of just men made 
 perfect.” (Hebrews xii, 22-29.) 
 
 Train up the little girl in these moral virtues 
 and these Christian graces, and you will give her 
 the power to develop herself into the highest and 
 most beautiful form of womanhood, because it 
 will be the Christian — than which none can be 
 higher, stronger, nobler, or more beautiful. She 
 may then rank among the noblest wives, the no- 
 blest mothers, the noblest benefactors of her race, 
 her country — humanity. 
 
 On such a moral and spiritual base you may 
 erect the broadest, highest, most beautiful edifice, 
 adorned with the gold, silver, and precious stones 
 of literature, science, art, and philosophy. Such 
 an edifice will neither fall nor totter, because the 
 ideal woman of the royal mother of king Lemuel 
 will be realized in her. 1 
 
 In addition to the method for the special train- 
 ing of girls which we have given, I would sug- 
 gest the employment of the biographies of women 
 distinguished for their talents, learning, or Chris- 
 tian usefulness. My models for their study and 
 imitation would not be such a genius as Madame 
 De Stael; but rather of Mary Somerville, and 
 
 1 1 beg mothers to read and ponder well Dr. Tweedie’s 
 chapter on “ Daughters.” See his eloquent work entitled 
 “ Home, A Book for the Family Circle,” pp. 148-158. 
 
THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 173 
 
 above the latter I would set Susannah Wesley, 
 because her character and domestic discipline 
 have effected infinitely more for the solid and 
 permanent well-being of humanity than the lit- 
 erary attainments of Madame De Stael, or the sci- 
 entific acquirements of Mrs. Somerville ; for just 
 as far as the moral and the spiritual rise above 
 the intellectual and the literary, so, also, does the 
 influence of Susannah Wesley excel the influence 
 of Madame De Stael or Mrs. Somerville. 
 
 The influence of Madame De Stael was liter- 
 ary and political, that of Mrs. Somerville was 
 scientific and philosophical. The influence of 
 each will.be modified and limited by the lapse 
 of time, by advancement in literature, politics, 
 and science, but the moral and spiritual influ- 
 ences of Mrs. Susannah Wesley will increase in 
 volume and power with the advancing waves of 
 conquering Christianity. 
 
 In the training of girls the father ought to 
 unite with the mother in her daily work divine. 
 We have already indicated how this can be done 
 by dividing the work of daily intellectual instruc- 
 tion with his wife. But in molding, coloring, 
 and tinting the moral and religious character of 
 his daughter, he can greatly aid the mother by 
 his own upright character, if that character be 
 strong and luminous as was the character of Job. 
 
174 
 
 DOMES TIC ED UCA TIOK 
 
 Such a character will exert a greater influence 
 over the feelings, sentiments, and thoughts of the 
 growing girl than all the instructions which he 
 may daily impart. 
 
 If his character be spotless, if his life be orna- 
 mented with noble deeds, wrought in behalf of 
 God and man, he will become an inspiration to 
 his daughter, provided the seeds of nobleness be 
 in her heart, for then she will glory in him as 
 Madame De Stael gloried in the character of her 
 noble sire. She will endeavor to be among 
 women what her father is among men — a leader 
 in the right direction — in the direction of the 
 Great Leader of leaders and Commander of com- 
 manders in the shining pathway of human progress. 
 
 His well-balanced government in the home ; 
 his fervent, faithful, powerful prayers at the 
 family altar and in the secret closet, can do much 
 in aiding the mother’s efforts to develop in her 
 growing daughter, a noble and beautiful woman- 
 hood, noble and beautiful, because good and wise 
 and useful . 
 
 This harmony in government, this unity in 
 action, this oneness and sublimity in aim, ought 
 to characterize the daily conduct and work of the 
 parents of children and the guardians of wards 
 and proteges. We will see the force, beauty, 
 and emphasis of this thought when we consider 
 
THE CHRISTIAN GRACES. 
 
 175 
 
 the original design of marriage. The man Adam 
 and the woman Eve were sinless when the divine 
 command, “ Be fruitful, and multiply, and replen- 
 ish the earth,” was given. They were to be fruit- 
 ful, to multiply, and replenish the earth with just 
 such sinless beings as they then were. Therefore 
 parents, at the present time, ought to endeavor to 
 fulfill this divine command just so far as they 
 have the power. 
 
 Parents animated by so high and holy an aim 
 will be aided by a power above their finite and 
 wavering energies. “ For this purpose the Son 
 of God was manifested, that he might destroy the 
 works of the devil .” * 1 
 
 1 See the whole passage from which we have quoted, 
 
 1 John iii, 1-10. See, also, the Psalm cxix, 1, 2, 3. The 
 statements of St. John are an assurance of supernatural 
 aid in our conflict with evil. Upon the pious household, 
 where such parents dwell, outside evil influences will be 
 brought to bear. Mischievous relatives and neighbors 
 will whisper in the ears of their children, saying, “ Your 
 parents are too strict.” “ Our parents let us do as we 
 please.” Thus will they try to break up the order and 
 discipline of a well regulated and God-fearing family. 
 The Lord be merciful \o such mischievous persons, for 
 they seem unconscious of the fact that Satan is employing 
 them as agents for the accomplishment of his work of 
 destruction. And it is against such mischievous persons 
 parents should exercise the most diligent watchfulness, 
 because their intimacy in a family render them the most 
 insidious and effective enemies or antagonists of a well- 
 regulated household. 
 
176 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 a. From all the light which Revelation and 
 history pour upon this subject which I have been 
 discussing, I am led to the conclusion that, to 
 promote the highest well-being of the Church 
 and the state in all their ramifications, I know of 
 no higher duty which a parent and a citizen can 
 perform than the education of their children in 
 the homestead, under Christian influences. 
 
 b. Certainly, there is none more healthy, none 
 more far-reaching, none more powerful to pro- 
 duce good rulers, be they crowned heads, reigning 
 through life, or presidents, ruling for a limited 
 period, none more powerful to produce good sub- 
 jects of an empire or good citizens of a republic. 
 
 c. In the near future, from the well-disciplined 
 Christian families shall issue the well-governed 
 Christian Church and the well-governed Chris- 
 tian state ; both existing, expanding, developing 
 under the protection and guidance of unerring 
 wisdom and omnipotent goodness, both perpet- 
 uating themselves till the nations shall be sum- 
 moned before the Judge of all the earth, who is 
 Lord of lords and King of kings. To whom be 
 glory, honor, and dominion forever and ever. 
 Amen . 1 
 
 1 See Isaiah, the whole of the eleventh chapter, and the 
 whole of Psalm lxxii. 
 
SACRED SONGS . 
 
 177 
 
 dltkptei* XX 
 
 SACRED SONGS 
 
 HE sacred songs here given are all original; 
 
 X so, also is the music to which they are set. 
 They were designed to aid earnest Christians in 
 self-dedication, and in the dedication of their 
 children and their homes to the service of God. 
 The music was composed, at my request, by two 
 of the young itinerant pastors of the African 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, whom I knew to 
 be good vocalists, in order that they might exer- 
 cise their gifts as composers. 
 
 The sincere and earnest prayer of the writer 
 is that the Father of all the families of the earth 
 may bless his efforts to aid thoughtful and ear- 
 nest Christians in the consecration of themselves, 
 their children, and their homes to the service of 
 Him who has promised to bless the households 
 of the godly, and whose loving kindness and 
 tender mercies are “ from everlasting to everlast- 
 ing upon them that fear him, and his righteous- 
 ness unto children’s children.” 
 
 12 
 
178 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 Personal and Home Consecration. No. 1. 
 
 ‘ As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”— Joshua xxi v : 10. 
 Bishop D. A. Payne, D. D., LB. D. W. G. Alexander. 
 
 -I N — N — |S- 
 
 
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 sEs^s-rs= 
 
 Before earth’s deep foundation was, Thou didst ordain me, Lord, 
 Thy workmanship in Jesus Christ, To good works always given, 
 Then let me in thine image glow, Thy spotless pur-i - ty ; 
 
 Do - minion have, complete, entire, O’er all my ransom’d soul, 
 Then shall my house he thine abode, And filled with light divine, 
 Here let the truth, like noonday sun, Chase darkness far away ; 
 How blessed then my house shall be, With holiness and peace ; 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 To be made perfect by thy laws, And blameless by thy word. 
 Cre - at - ed as I was at first, A new-born heir of heav’n. 
 Thy love unspeaka - ble be - stow, O Ho - ly Trin-i - ty. 
 Bap-tize me with ce - les-tial fire, And sanc-ti - fy the w hole: 
 A tern - pie fitted for the Lord, Whose glory there shall shine. 
 Here let the Christ — that Holy One— Hold un-disput - ed sway. 
 Here heav’n on earth we then shall see Begun and nev-er cease. 
 
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 CHORUS. 
 
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 Baptize me, Lord, baptize me, Lord, Baptize my longing soul ; 
 
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 Baptize me with ce - les-tial fire, And sancti-fy the whole. 
 
SACRED SONGS. 
 
 179 
 
 Personal and Home Consecration. Ho. 2. 
 
 As for mo and my house, we will serve the Lord.”— Joshua xxiv : 10. 
 Bishop D. A. Payne, D. D., LL. D. J. W. Randolph. 
 
 
 
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 1 Before earth’s deep foundation was, Thou didst ordain me, Lord, 
 
 2. Thy workmanship in Jesus Christ, To good works always given, 
 
 3. Then let me in thine image glow, Thy spotless pur - i - ty ; 
 
 4. Do - minion have, complete, entire, O’er all my ransom’d soul, 
 
 5. Then shall my house be thine abode, And filled with light divine, 
 
 6. Here let the truth, like noonday sun, Chase darkness far away ; 
 
 7. How blessed then my house shall be, With ho-li-ness and peace ; 
 
 
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 To we made perfect by thy laws, And blameless by thy word. 
 Cre-at - ed as I was at first, A new-born heir of heav’n. 
 Thy love unspeaka-ble be-stow, O Ho - ly Trin - i - ty. 
 Bap-tizeme with ce - les-tial fire, And sanc-ti - fy the whole. 
 A tem - pie fit - ted for the Lord, Whose glory there shall shine. 
 Here let the Christ— that Holy One— Hold un-disput - ed sway. 
 Here heav’n on earth w'e then shall see Begun and nev-er cease. 
 
 
 
 
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 Bap - tize me, Lord, baptize me, Lord, Baptize my longing soul ; 
 
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180 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 The Consecrated Home. 
 
 “Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation ; for I know 
 him , that he will command his children and his household ; and they shall 
 keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment.'’— Gen. xviii : 18, 19. 
 Bishop D. A. Payne, D.D., LL.D. W. G. Alexander. 
 
 
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 1. My house shall be the house of God, My hearth his altar bright, 
 
 2. Lord, let no e - vil here preside, No crime thine altar stain: 
 
 3. Lord, make my soul thy temple pure, Let all my tho’ts be thine ; 
 
 4. My wealth I con - se-crate to thee, My sons and daughters too ; 
 
 5. Green as the firs 'mid ice and snow, ’Mid spring and summer blight, 
 
 6. Then when our work on earth be o’er, And all our victories won, 
 
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 My house be ordered by his word, En-lightened by his light. 
 Let man - ly vir-tues here a - bide, And Christian graces reign. 
 Let all my tal-ents thee a - dore, And worship at thy shrine. 
 From all the vie - es make them free, To all the virtues true. 
 
 In all the grac-es let them grow Sym-met-ri - cal and bright. 
 Bring us to heav-en thee to adore, The glorious Three in one. 
 
 
 
 jaja 
 
 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 
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 at-ed home, Which angel guards surround, 
 
 
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 A home, a con-se-crat-ed home, Which an-gel guards surround. 
 
SACRED SONGS. 
 
 181 
 
 Eeveal Thyself to Me. 
 
 “He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that 
 loveth me, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”- 
 John xiv : 21. 
 
 Bishop D. A. Payne, D.D., LL.D. W. G. Alexander. 
 
 1. Come, O thou great Emman-u - el, My soul cries out for thee ; 
 
 2. Come ! fill me with that love divine Which puri-fies the soul, 
 
 3. Wis - er than serpents, — pure as light, — As harmless as the dove; 
 
 4. Our lives we con-se-crate to thee, In thee a-lone we trust ; 
 
 5. Come, thou great Emmanuel, deign With mortals here to dwell ; 
 
 6. Thy kingdom come, thy will bedone, Hereasinheav’n above. 
 
 Ssih 
 
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 Oh, come, and in my bo-som dwell, Reveal thyself to me. 
 And let me in thine im-age shine, A new ere - at - ed whole. 
 Oh, make me perfect in thy sight! If not in deeds,— in love. 
 From ev-’ry e - vil keep us free, From all un-ho - ly lust. 
 Come, in our hab - i - ta-tion reign, And all things shall be well. 
 Oh, make it glorious as the sun, And pure as truth and love. 
 
 
 ! - : EF 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 
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 Re-veal thyself, reveal thyself, Reveal thyself 
 
 
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 Bit. 
 
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 Oh, come, and in my bo-som dwell, Reveal thyself 
 
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182 
 
 I) OMESTIC ED UCA TION. 
 
 Hymn for the Consecration of Children. 
 
 Bishop Payne. 
 
 Bertha B. Wolfe, 
 1 
 
 g .... gL:-.g 
 
 
 1. Our chil-dren, Lord, to us weregiv’n, To train on earth as 
 
 2. Our children, Lord, we give to thee, In thine own im - age 
 3 When wicked friends would lead astray Their youthful feet from 
 
 4. Convert them by thy might-y pow’r, Convert them now this 
 
 5. In love and wis-dom let them grow, In all the gifts thou 
 
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 heirs in heav’n ; 
 let them be ; 
 Avis -dom’sway; 
 ver - y hour; 
 canst be - stow ; 
 
 i 
 
 This truth Ave see, and now a - gree, To 
 From all the pow’r of dark-ness.keep Their 
 Oh, shield them by thy gra-cious pow’r, And 
 Let thy good Spir - it from a - bove Fill 
 Let their ca-reer be as the light, A 
 -m- -m. 
 
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 train them, Lord, for heav’n and thee, 
 tho’t-less souls a- wake, a - sleep, 
 
 save them in that e - vil hour, 
 their young hearts with faith and love, 
 his - t’ry brill -iant in the right. 
 
 
 Our children, Lord, we 
 
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 to thee ; From all the 
 
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 vic-es make them free, And make them good by loving thee. 
 
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SACRED SONGS. 
 
 183 
 
 Consecration -of an Infant Son. 
 
 Bishop Payne. B. B. Wolfe. 
 
 
 z &-~\ — J 
 in faith and pray’r, Thy 
 a - new his heart; Oh, 
 
 J 1. u God, my child to tliee I give 
 
 2. Now, Lord, convert his soul, Cre-ate 
 
 3. How helpless is my child, To do that which is right ; By 
 
 4. And let him nev er stray In the 
 
 5. A bright and shining li.s?ht, May all 
 
 for-bid - den road, But 
 his his - t’ry be; Lord, 
 
 £=^P=M=i 
 
 faith-ful ser-vant, let him be In love, and ho - ly fear, 
 make his bruised spir - it whole, And liv - ing grace im-part. 
 na*- ture it is week and wild, Oh, help it with thy might, 
 
 guide him in the ho - ly way That leads to thine a - bode, 
 make him mighty in thy might, To work for man and thee. 
 
 Then like the cloudless sun, Which sets in 
 r g-_ -g— r -g-— g- T g-4-g- 
 
 gold-en hues, 
 
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 rious one, His life shall be a 
 
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184 
 
 DOMESTIC EDUCATION. 
 
 Consecration of an Infant Daughter. 
 
 Bishop D. A. Payne, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 Rev. L. J. Coppin. 
 
 
 *S=!!!5 
 
 1. My infant, Lord, to thee I glad-ly bring, She is of earth and 
 
 2. A birdling, I would teach its ti - ny wings to soar up, where each 
 
 3. But thou, and thou alone, canst give it might, To spread her wings for 
 
 4. Theneome,oh,come,my baby take and train For life’s great work! She 
 
 5. To thee I con-secrate my helpless child, Whose nature may be 
 6. Breathe in her soul the life— th’ ethereal life, Nor hatred, pride, nor 
 
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 yet aheav’nly thing; As the nude birdling in its mother’s breast, 
 bright arch-an-gel sings, To join the songs of flaming ser-aph - im ; 
 
 re-gions out of sight; To nes-tle in the glories of a throne; 
 must not live in vain; Of mundane birth, a more than mundane thing, 
 rough, and crook’d, and wild, If thou dost not with plastic pow’r divine, 
 lust be ev - er rife Within her heart; but as an an-gel, she 
 
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 CHORUS. 
 
 
 
 
 
 So is this ba-by on my anxious breast. 
 
 And with the ransom’d sing th’ eternal hymn. 
 
 Which none can reach, but love, and love alone. Oh, like an angel 
 To thee, O Lord, my ba - by now I bring. 
 
 Remould her in thine image, yes, in thine. 
 
 May ev - er feel, and speak, and act for thee. 
 
 ^ w | 
 
 may she ev-er be ! And think, and speak, and act thro’ life for thee!