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ON PARENTÁL AND FILIAL DUTY.

"Hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake "not the law of thy mother *"

THE importance of the parental duties,

and those of filial obedience, is more generally acknowledged than practically confirmed, "To train up a child in the

way he should go," is often the favorite subject of a parent's thoughts; and to hear the instruction of a father, and to forsake not the law of a mother is, as frequently, the vain theory of youth and inexperience. If the duties which belong to the parent were more uniformly and strictly enforced, the duties

* Prov. i. 8.

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which belong to the child would be more consistently practised. Severity, reserve, or indiscriminate indulgence, prevent a due reception of God's holy word in the youthful mind, and unfit it for the trials and disappointments of the world. In the progress of life the mind will become a receptacle of virtue or vice, of wisdom: or folly; and an early remembrance of the great Creator is the best antidote against the temptations with which it is surrounded. The analogy betwixt the earth and the human mind is, in Scripture, very beautifully illustrated, but no where carries with it such point and wisdom as in the Parable of the Sower; and from our divine Master's explanation of it, we may learn, that the seed which is sown in the ground, and the word of God which is implanted in the mind, are, in their growth and progression, of a very similar nature; and were the latter religiously attended to by a parent,

so many would not receive the word of Gods and understand it not; so many would not hear it irreverently, or by chance; nor would it afford to any one only a transient gleain of joy, without root or stability, forgotten at the approach of trouble or persecution, and unable to bear, with fortitude, the trials of human life! Neither could it be displaced by " strange and divers doc"trines," disturbed by every wayward argument of infidelity, nor, like the seed scattered among thorns, would the deceitfulness of riches, or any other temptation render the mental soil barren and fruitless, nor sooner or later would the tares rise up and destroy the promised blessing. But a due preparation of the mind would cause the word of God to be received, to be understood, and to bring forth in some an hundred fold, in some sixty, in some thirty, productive here of the fruits of holiness, and of a

joyful harvest in the realms of immortality!

It is much to be feared that a nominal profession of Religion too generally prevails. To adorn, not to enrich the mind, sometimes appears to be the business of i life; Religion a secondary consideration, and terrestrial pursuits the end of our being; and thus, too often from a neglected, or more properly speaking, a perverted education, the growing evil may originally be traced. The affluent have little excuse for neglecting to cultivate the minds of their children, but the vanities and pursuits of this world; and let reason ask if these can be alledged as a just defence at the tribunal of God, in the world which is to come, for irreligious opinions, for carelessness of the welfare of an immortal soul? Yet men are too apt to complain under the afflictive disappointment, which arises from the misconduct of a child; but

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when the world, or a parent's example appears to tolerate every reigning folly; when idleness, or irrational pursuits, -lead to gaming and unjust extravagance, all bearing the semblance of pleasure and enjoyment; what right have we to expect that the inexperienced mind will escape the general contagion, or be guided by the grace of God, rather than by the follies of the world? Be it ever remembered, that early religious instruction gives the fairest chance to counteract the evil propensities of our nature, and that a father's instruction would not so frequently be disregarded, if the mild precepts of a mother's law were steadily and religiously enforced, even in the days of childhood: if many a fair Infidel in practice, though professionally a Christian, would, like the Roman matron of old, consider her children as the most valuable and estimated of her jewels.....

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