PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY

The ‘Correspondence’ section of old periodicals is often interesting and instructive, showing, too, that the same problems arise in each generation. The following is from the September 1883 issue of ‘Things New and Old’.

‘R.S.’, Northumberland. We judge that carelessness in parents as to where their children go, is a sign of a bad state of soul. If the Israelites were to instruct their children so carefully, both as to their redemption from Egypt, and the passage of the Jordan into the land, how much more diligent ought we to be in instructing our children in the eternal realities of redemption, and our present entrance by faith into the heavenlies in Christ! What grace is needed for this! But to allow our children, whilst they are at home and under our care, to go where the eternal character of redemption is set aside, and thus expose them to unbelief and confusion, is the very opposite of the teaching of the word of God. “And ye, fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord”. We must, however, be very careful that the obedience we inculcate should be in the Lord, truly according to His mind. The word to them is, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord; for this is right”. Just as it would be wrong to obey if a heathen parent commanded a child to go and worship idols.

In these matters, then, it is all-important that parents are assured that the obedience they require is in the Lord, especially in this day of

increasing infidelity and superstition. We feel we have all much cause for humiliation in these matters.