230 MOTIVES FOR PARENTAL CARE. their family, until he was thirty years of age; and forgot not, when he hung on the cross, to provide an effectual support and protection for his mother. Let all children remember, when they are weary of labouring for their parents, that Christ laboured for his; when they are impatient of their commands, that Christ cheerfully obeyed; when they are reluctant to provide for their parents, that Christ forgot himself, and provided for his mother amid the agonies of crucifixion. The affectionate language of this Divine example to every child is, Go thou, and do likewise."* Addressing you as a disciple of the Saviour, it is right to presume that examples of an opposite description are not necessary; but perhaps some ungrateful, disobedient child may read this page. Let him consider, that in numbers of instances filial impiety has met with its just reward, even in this world. A few months ago a young man, not far from Derby, was unexpectedly killed by a blow from another man. Visiting the village where he had lived, not long after, it was stated to me that he at times had struck his mother. His guilty hand struck her that gave him being, and the hand of a neighbour struck him into eternity. § 4. Are you a parent, a father or a mother? Consider how much depends on your attention to your children's eternal welfare. Consider the awful responsibility which attaches to you. Speaking of this responsibility, an excellent Christian and missionary observes, "Every Christian parent is the pastor over his own household,' a king and a priest unto God.' How solemn the engagement to take the care of souls as a public minister! Yet the responsibility lying upon such a person is by no means so great, as that upon parents respecting their children; not even so solemn as that which lies upon an individual in reference to his servants. Children are parts of ourselves; have derived their existence from us; and can we bear that these parts of ourselves should endure the bitter pains of eternal death? and that through our neglect? -Christian parent! thou art anxious, often even to sadness, in reference to the health, the education, the opening prospects, of thy children. Every thing that threatens their health, or their earthly prospects, is deprecated with an anxiety which drinks up thy spirits. And yet all this care, and all this so * Dwight. MOTIVES FOR PARENTAL DUTIES. 231 licitude, is expended upon the body, and upon an existence which, like a vapour, appeareth for a moment, and then vanishetli away. Perhaps you are not chargeable with a total indifference to their spiritual interests: you expect to see them at family worship; you take them with you to attend on the services of the Christian sabbath, and you set them a good example. It may be, that you admonish them occasionally on perceiving something wrong in their tempers. But would you excuse, in your minister, such a cold, such an official, discharge of duty as this, if you saw no anxiety in him to save the souls of his hearers, if he made no pathetic, no earnest appeals to the heart and to the conscience? If you would not excuse this in a man who is a comparative stranger to the greater part of those whom he addresses, can such an indifference to the spiritual, the eternal interests of his own offspring be excused in a parent? "I was blessed with a mother who frequently took my sister and me aside to pray with us; and often have I heard her pray with such earnestness, mingling her tears with her petitions, and throwing so much of the feelings of the mother into her prayers, that, young as I was, it went to my very heart. "I was lately informed, by a pious and able minister in Somersetshire, that on the evening when the first permanent religious impressions were made on his mind his pious mother was detained at home. But she spent the time devoted to public worship in secret prayer for the salvation of her son; and so fervent did she become in these intercessions, that, like our Lord in Gethsemane, she fell on her face, and remained in fervent supplications till the service had nearly closed. Her son, brought under the deepest impressions by the sermon of his father, went into a field after the service, and there prayed most fervently for himself. When he came home, the mother looked at her son with a manifest concern, anxious to discover whether her prayers had been heard, and whether her son had commenced the all-important inquiry, What shall I do to be saved?' In a few days the son acknowledged himself to be the subject of impressions of which none need be ashamed; impressions which lay the foundation of all excellence of character here, and of all blessedness hereafter. 232 MOTIVES FOR PARENTAL DUTIES. "O ye Christian mothers! Have you thus in reference to your children, wrestled in birth again, till Christ be formed in their hearts the hope of glory?' Have you taken them aside, and prayed with them and for them, one by one? There is something most touching in such a scene, and to the heart of a child almost irresistible. It is a holy violence, put forth to snatch a darling child from impending destruction; and, like the prayer mentioned by the apostle James, will unquestionably avail much.'' ܙܙܖ § 5. If you are a parent, consider the happy effect which results from such pious care. Frequently active parental piety meets its speedy reward, in the early piety of the dear objects for whom it prays, and over whom it watches. Thus were the seeds of piety sown in the hearts of our Baxters and Doddridges and Wattses, and how speedy, how rich, was the harvest! In other instances instructions and prayers for a time have appeared in vain. The seed has seemed buried beneath a frozen, barren soil; yet at length it has sprung up, and bore fruit a hundred-fold.† * Ward's Sermons on the Design of the Death of Christ. Many pleasing facts might be adduced in illustration of this observation. One has been mentioned, another follows. A pious aged woman, a member of a church under the care of a Mr. Irish, an American minister, had one son; she used every means in her power to train him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; he was the child of many prayers. The youth grew up, but was of a gay dissipated turn; she still followed him with her entreaties, faithfully warned him of his awful situation as a sinner before God, and told him what his end would be, dying in that state. One day he went to his mother and said, "Mother, let me have my best clothes, I am going to a bal! to-night." She expostulated with him, and urged him not to go, by every argument in her power: he answered, "Mother, let me have my clothes, I will go, and it is useless to say any thing about it." She brought his clothes, he put them on, and was going out-she stopped him, and said, "My child, do not go. He said, he would; she then said to him, "My son, while you are dancing with your gay companions in the ball-room, I shall be out in that wilderness praying to the Lord to convert your soul." He went, the ball commenced, but instead of the usual gaiety, an unaccountable gloom pervaded the whole assembly. One said, "We never had such a dull meeting in our lives;" another, I wish we had not come, we have no life, we cannot get along" a third, "I cannot think what is the matter." The young man instantly burst into tears, and said, "I know what is the matter, my poor old mother is now praying in yonder wilderness for her ungodly son." ." He took his hat, and said, "I will never be found in such a place as this again," and left the company. To be short, the Lord converted his soul. Mr. Irish baptized him. He was soon after taken ill, and he died very happy. Praying breath is never spent in vain. Baptist Magazine. The following anecdote was lately related to me by an aged member of a Christian church: A minister of the gospel in the north of England had a dissolute son: he was an officer. The father had long sought the eternal welfare of his wicked child, but apparently in vain. On one occasion a remark was made to the father on the hopelessness of his son's condition. He replied by expressing his confidence, that so many prayers would not be lost. At length the father died. The son was still a profligate. Some time after his father's decease, the son was riding the horse on which his father had been accustomed to travel to preach the gospel, when a thought to the following effect MOTIVES FOR PARENTAL DUTIES. 233 The happy and important effect of such instructions, even where conversion does not immediately follow, has been evident in a multitude of cases. Young persons who have received a pious education, cannot easily forget that eterna world which has been often set before them. However they may slight religion, death and judgment still alarm them. They know they are wrong, and that their parents are right. Conscience will not let them sin at ease. Its warnings mar their pleasure, and often check their career, or render them wretched when they expect delight. And perhaps years after those who prayed with, and taught them, are gone to the grave, they are led to the Saviour, whose love was unfolded to them in their early years. * § 6. Where parents would promote the eternal welfare of their family, let them sedulously and devoutly attend to family devotion. If a parent, not only pray for your children, not only occasionally in your closet pray with them, but daily in your family. Let your house be a house of prayer to the living God. Many excuses are offered for neglecting this duty; but the real cause of neglect is coldness and indifference to the things of God, and the eternal welfare of a family. Let that be subdued, and other excuses will vanish like mists before the rising sun. Who at the judgment-bar will plead against family worship, or offer one excuse for its neglect ? A striking testimony to the effect of family devotion and consistent piety, is recorded in the life of the late venerable minister of the gospel, Mr. Scott. His son observes, "To his constant and edifying observance of family worship, in connexion with the steady consistent spirit and conduct, which, notwithstanding imperfections incident to human nature, they could not fail to remark in him, is, I am persuaded, very much to be traced, not only the blessing of God, which I trust has descended on his own family, but the further striking and important fact that in very few instances has a servant, or a young person, or indeed any person, passed any length of time under his roof, without appearing to be brought perma darted into his mind: "Poor creature, you used to carry a saint, and now you carry a devil."-The issue was, he embraced religion, and his father's prayers were answered. Let no parent be discouraged from persevering in pious labours; but labour in hope, and pray in confidence. I once, to my surprise, met with some professors of religion that did so; but for this circumstance I should not have supposed that such persons had existed. For further observations on family devotion, see Doddridge's Address, published by the Religious Tract Society. 234 BLESSED EFFECTS PRODUCED nently under the influence of religious principle. And yet it was not much his practice to address himself closely and minutely, as some have done with very good effect, to such persons individually. It was not so much by preaching directly to them, as by living before them, making an edifying use of incidents and occasions, and being so constantly instructive, devout, and benevolent in family worship, that, under the blessing of God, he produced so striking an impres sion upon them.' Consider too, that in training up children in the way of piety, you may be diffusing good for ages to come. Many are the instances in which God has so blessed these exertions, that for age after age the stream of piety has continued to flow. One generation after another has caught the sacred flame, has felt the sacred principle, and though religion flows not in the blood, yet it has descended, like a fair inheritance, from parent to child, through a long succession of years. One instance of this kind, out of myriads, occurs in the case of the celebrated John Wesley. His mother was a pious woman, the daughter of an eminent nonconformist minister. He again was descended from a religious mother, who took so much care of his education, that he was under serious impressions so early, that he declared he knew not the time when he was unconverted. In this instance we see religion flowing on through four generations, and had we information to trace it farther back, might probably trace it for many more. the other hand, a parent who neglects training up his children in the way of life, may be a principal means of diffusing ignorance and wretchedness, guilt and damnation, among his descendants for generations to come. On § 7. Though the remarks here made have a peculiar reference to the effect of parental example and instruction, yet let them not be confined to that only. The influence of displaying piety at home is felt, and may be great, whatever be the situation which the disciple of Jesus fills. When one member of an irreligious family has been converted, if that member has adorned the gospel, has united piety, prudence, and prayer, it has often led to the conversion of many others. Some years ago I knew a youth awakened to the importance of religion, and deeply impressed with his own condition. He began to inquire for the path of peace; others of his fa |