On the Early Training of Children.
CHILDREN of many prayers and much apparent religious culture, become in some instances wretched apostates; occasions of bitter grief to their parents, a scandal to Christianity, and a scourge to mankind. How does this happen? Who shall trace out and unfold its philosophy? Who shall locate the fault in these cases so justly that it shall not lie against God's faithfulness to his promises, nor against the faith and hope of those who would above all things else "train up their children in the way they should go?" We have seen cases of the sort above referred to; but probably never without raising the inquiry, How came it to be what it is? The observations and reflections of more than two-score of years, in hundreds of families, some well-ordered and some otherwise, have resulted in giving us some very decided opinions on the subject. And first in importance and weight of influence is this: That the prime point of these failures in Christian training has been, that parents did not secure implicit submission to their own authority. Obedience to parents was not established as a principle and wrought into a habit. Submission was not secured by such means and influences that it was rendered cheerfully, under a sense of its rightfulness, and with the resulting peace and joy that true and generous submission ensures. This we believe has been a real fact in the early history of all those unfortunate cases in which parental hopes have been slaughtered, and the saddest scandals have accrued to Christianity. We have studied this class of wayward children when, along in the days of their youth, they were under special religious influence. We have seen them powerfully convicted of sin. They have told us of their dreadful conflicts under the pressure of conscious obligation to repent. In many cases they have asked us what could be the reason that repentance came so easy to others, yet seemed so utterly impossible to them. In more cases than one we have put the inquiry, Did you accustom your heart to cheerful obedience to parents when you were young? Have you ever known what it is to give up your will, and be happy about it, too—happier even than when you held out and carried your point and had your own way? In all these cases we have had but one answer—in the negative. "No, I never did submit cheerfully to the will of my father or my mother. I always either stood my ground doggedly and boldly, or I made some sort of compromise which saved me the trial of giving up my will." The first time we heard this it seemed to be sound philosophy. Alas! it was but too good a reason for the intense difficulty they now found in meeting the plain, but, in their view, hard demands of God's government. But when we heard it again and again, and when it became obvious that this was the uniform, perpetual answer of those who could not submit their will to God's will, and therefore could find nothing feasible or tolerable in the stern demand for repentance, then we came to look upon this matter of the parental training of children in a new light. It assumed a degree of importance second to nothing else in the whole circle of human influence. Neglect here began to seem like the unwitting murder of souls. We were driven to inquire, How comes it to pass that there are so many such cases, even in families where the Bible is respected, and parents seem to have an honest purpose to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? We will allude to the results of our inquiries and observations. Mr. A. and his excellent wife are very full of public business. There will be a great many hours every day, therefore, in which neither of them know very definitely where their children are, or what they are doing. If they hear incidentally of wrong things done by their children, they either find it hard to believe they were in fault, or they know too little about the case to judge and act wisely; and being moreover very short of time, and very much pressed with other duties, the case is sure not to get proper attention, and will not be discreetly disposed of. Ill tempers, and even crimes, get in the way of slipping by. Parental charity becomes only the more fondly cherished as the parents find others complaining of their children; and suspending their otherwise good judgment, they come to account it their special vocation to stand in defense of children of whom so few find any good thing to say. Hence to their parents, those children are never thoroughly known. Of course they are not governed. Of course their wills are not brought into subjection to parental authority. Mr. B. and his wife, we are sorry to say, are never decided and strong in family government, except when in a passion. When the child becomes impudent and violent, they are stirred up fearfully, and then take the case in hand with irregular and usually excessive severity. Passionate correction only maddens. It takes an age, almost, to wipe out the sense of conscious wrong which one such scene will leave on the mind of a child. It were better far to suspend all correction than to touch it while unduly excited. In the family of Mr. C. the father uses the rod and the mother kisses. She grieves over his severity; he depreciates and condemns bitterly her ruinous indulgence. Hence, even if the father were judicious without a fault, the mother practically forbids his reaching the conscience and the heart of his child. If they are known to differ radically in their government (and unless their children are idiots they will know it), it will be one of the miracles of the family state if the ends of good government are gained under their joint administration. Mr. D. has a good theory of family government, in so far as the submission of the child's will to the father's is concerned. He determines to carry this point at all events. No case of palpable wrong appearing on which to take issue, he gets up a case on very little, if any, valid grounds, and commences the operation of breaking in. Now the misfortune here is that he cannot have the conscience of his child on his side, and the submission is, in a moral point of view, valueless. Indeed, it were well if it be not far more an evil than a good. Poor Mr. D. may have a good theory in some points, but he needs more common sense in applying it. Mr. E. and his wife mean pretty well, but are slack—just a little slack. Sometimes they say it shall be so, but they lose sight of the case, and obedience is not secured. The little fellow remembered the first omission, and made a little record of it so as not to forget that by watching his opportunity or by prudent delay or resistance, the authority could be evaded, and he could have his own way. If there comes up an extreme case, and father is very much in earnest, he finds it prudent to give in once in awhile for the sake of peace and safety; but the principle of universal obedience is out of the question. You can hardly say his mind has been brought up to that question at all. It is only obedience in hard, rare, and extreme cases, and then on the score of expediency. So that the moral effect of real obedience as a principle is never gained. Now, probably more than half the parents who under this description might be called Mr. and Mrs. E., would think you slandered them if you were to suggest the exact condition of the idea of government and submission in the minds of their children. Do not they carry their point when they really set out for it? Perhaps they do; but if all was right there would be no occasion for that earnest setting out for it, every time an inclination was to be crossed and a point carried. If obedience was settled as a principle it would come easy, and a look with the eye would suffice.—Oberlin Evangelist.