Review of James W. Alexander's "Thoughts on Family Worship"

This is a wonderful book. It is far more organized than the title would lead one to believe. It is not random “thoughts” on family worship; it is a systematic presentation of this gravely neglected duty by way of Scriptural arguments on the nature of the family, the church, the covenant, and worship.

After presenting a thoroughly Biblical case for the practice and Christian duty of family worship in Chapter 1, Alexander proceeds to demonstrate, both from Biblical precept and living examples, the various benefits of family worship. So, for instance, he discusses the influence of family worship on individual piety, on parents, children, on domestic harmony, on the church, on the nation, on posterity, etc. These chapters are filled with amazing practical wisdom.

He then concludes the work with some suggestions on how most effectively to conduct family worship. Yet he is cautious not to set down any hard and fast rules because he recognizes Christian liberty and the fact that each family has its own set of circumstances.

The force of Alexander's work obviously comes from real life. The work is dedicated to his parents, “by whose hands I was first led to family-worship.” A cursory look at Alexander's ancestry find several preceding generations training up their children in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord.” One could look at Alexander's own descendants and see the familial piety continuing. It is plain as day that nothing in the book is merely theoretical. When Alexander speaks of the holy influence of family worship on domestic tranquility (i.e., husbands and wives living peaceably and affectionately, children living in respect and honor for their parents and in love and respect for siblings), it is obvious that these are statements made from experience, not from ivory tower speculations. He knows by personal experience the love that is engendered between spouses when they pray with and for each other. He knows by personal experience the peace and love that obtains between siblings that pray with and for each other. He knows the personal piety that is produced by sitting daily under the reading of God's word. This is conveyed in many subtle ways. For one, his high respect for the practice is hinted at by the fact that he always writes it as “Family-Worship.” Secondly, the authority with which he writes can only come from personal experience.

There are a few features of the book that don't have much relevance to the contemporary reader. He is clearly writing in an agricultural society, so he expects that families will have long work days, but which will follow a highly regular schedule, hence he anticipates no difficulty on gathering the whole family to prayer early each morning and gathering everyone again each evening for family-worship. He does not anticipate someone working 3rd shift, but neither does he anticipate someone working 1st shift either. He recommends that family-worship be done in the evening before dinner because waiting till after dinner means dealing with a tired head of the home, tired farm hands and servants, and tired children. For most of us, this is not an issue. We are not usually eating dinner at 9 PM, nor are we exhausted from 12 hours of 19th century farm labor. Nevertheless, many of the suggestions he makes to cope with such situations are clearly transferable to our contemporary situations.

James Waddel Alexander has done the Church a great service in writing this book.

Cultivating Filial Obedience, Part 2

But how, asks the parent, shall I show this spirit of love which I acknowledge is the spirit whereby God rules heaven, and Jesus Christ holds, my heart? It seems to me that my children ought to know that 1 love them and be mindful that I provide for them; and if they would only think, they might know that it gives me nothing but pain to punish them.

But, reader, it is very possible that your children do not know as much as they ought to, and it is quite sure that they do not think as much as they ought to; and if they did, they might be very likely to think, for ought they discover, that you punish them in the same spirit in which they seek to enforce their wills among one another. Suppose your Heavenly Father proceeded on a similar assumption in his dealings with you, and with all the family of man. He could surely do it with much more righteousness.

Suppose he had said of this lost race, when he first entertained the thought of displaying his love to effect our redemption — why should I do this? They ought to know that I love them — that I built the earth, and garnished it for their dwelling place — that I up hold them, and give them all they have. If they would only think, they must know that, as I live 1 have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

This was not the language that was used in heaven. It might all be true and just, but God condescended to show us his love — to declare his pity, and to stoop to our blindness; and Jesus Christ stooped even unto death, in his accommodation to our depravity, that he might convince us — of what was written as plain as noonday, above us, if we would only look — that "God so loved the world." Now we see it; it touches our hearts: the voice of love, speaking from Calvary, awakens our love; and the displeasure qf such love, we cannot endure; we fly every sin that wounds it. It is verily true that we never should have been reclaimed, had not God condescended to our blindness, and wrought out, in blood, the demonstration that he loved us.

Throughout the foregoing remarks, it will be observed that the Heavenly Model of a Christian Family has been kept constantly in view. The author trusts that it has not been consulted in vain; and that the view of it will not fail to be instructive to parents who desire to be followers of God in the duties of their parental relations, as well as in their personal characters.

If what has been said is just, it cannot fail to appear, as a necessary prerequisite to filial obedience, THAT THE AFFECTIONS OF THE CHILD BE CONCENTRATED UPON THE PARENTS ABOVE ALL EARTHLY persons or objects. True obedience must have its origin in love; and as the obedience required in this relation is of the highest earthly nature, so the love subsisting here should be the strongest.

Parents should use every lawful endeavour to cultivate the affections of their children, that leading them in the habits of early filial piety, they may prepare them for a higher piety toward their Eternal Father. And as God cultivates your obedience by appealing to and exciting and strengthening your love; so do to your children. Do something more than provide for their wants; stoop in numberless ways to show them that you love them. Since God accommodates his demonstrations to your criminal blindness; much more should you condescend to the feeble minds of your children. Use every endearment to win them to you. Never turn from them suddenly, or receive them coldly, as they run to greet your approaching footsteps. Teach them, not only that they may, but that you expect them to be joyful at the sound of your coming. Let them caress you; and then, caress them in return. It is unworthy of you, as a parent, to call this trifling business: for it is hard to find many things so important. It is more important than your money. God thus stoops to us; giving us every day some extra to kens of his love; winning us by unexpected, unmerited pains. And when, in like manner, you win your children, and convince them, by demonstrations adapted to their understanding and ad dressing their hearts, that you delight in their love — then, you may expect them to delight in your smiles and to grieve at the tokens of your dis pleasure — then, if, for any misdemeanor, they see, not sternness, but sadness and sorrow clothing your anxious brow, and shrouding its wonted smiles, they will feel the rebuke, and seek not to grieve you again.

It is delightful to witness those families where the tokens of parental displeasure which, per chance, from time to time, are needful, take effect upon the children's hearts, and draw forth tears of child-like, affectionate penitence. Who does not see that such parents have a mighty hold on filial obedience; and that, by a wise culture, they are laying, in these infantile exercises of their children towards themselves, a promising foundation of gospel penitence and contrition, for the full developments of which we may look, with some reasonable expectation, when the child's enlarged and chastened conceptions begin to apprehend its relations to its Heavenly Father?

Remember, then, that with the successful cultivation of the obedience, you must unite the cultivation of the affections of your children. Then your discipline will avail. Whereas, on the other hand, correction will only prove an irksome restraint, of short duration, from which they will violently break loose in future years.

Avoid any words or tones, in addressing your children, but those that are replete with kindness. In this, also, the example of our Heavenly Father instructs us. There is an inexpressible tenderness pervading all his remonstrances against the sins of his people. While he threatens judgments, and sore chastisements, he yet remembers mercy, and promises to return unto them, if they will return unto him. "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool." Let the parent whose tones of reproof are harsh and forbidding, turn and read the fifty-fourth chapter of Isaiah, and ponder its heavenly spirit, and ask himself for what he would consent that such language be banished from the Bible.

And now, beloved parent, if you would be like God — if you would keep him before your eyes as the great prototype of the parental relation — then guard your words, and let every tone be love. This may be enjoined as an universal rule; whether you are making a requisition, or reproving for disobedience. If you speak, speak pleasantly; speak moderately; for often hasty words are mistaken for angry ones. If you have a requisition to make of a child which you think may be unpleasant, make it with peculiar kindness of tone; if there is a reluctance, and you have to command, look pleasant while you do it; and let your accents, while they are firm, have much of the music of love. If you are compelled to correct, do not be content to say that you are pained, but let it be shown, in the tones and looks of continuing, unchanging love. And let the beginning, and the middle, and the end of the contest find you in the possession of the same love. When the child yields a cheerful obedience, then smile upon it, and stoop to tell it, in its own simple language, how sad you did feel.

"Provoke not your children to wrath;" do not be peevish; do not be fretful; do not be stern with your children. Our Heavenly Father is not so with us. When he corrects us, the Spirit whispers, "Whom he loveth, he chasteneth."

The following anecdote, from the Mother's Magazine, vol. vii. p. 263, is too apposite to be omitted. "Conversing the other day with an interesting little girl, between the ages of six and seven, I took occasion to impress upon her mind the debt of gratitude due from her to her heavenly Parent for bestowing upon her so good and kind a father, whom everybody loves. I was perfectly thunder-struck by her answer. Looking me full in the face with her soft blue eyes, she replied, 'He never speaks kind to me.' Perhaps this Christian father, harassed with the cares of business, was unconscious that he had roughly checked the fond attentions of his child; — but could cares, or the interruptions of his child, excuse unkindness, or a total want of tokens of endearment? Will fathers examine their habits on this point?"

It will aid all parents, who feel, under the first impulse, fretted by the fond and well meant interruptions of an affectionate child, to think, ere they repel the intrusion, of their own childlike relation to an Heavenly Father. The thought will lead them to hear the words, or receive the short caress, and then dismiss the unwitting intruder with a smile of reciprocated love. So we would have our Father do.

Manifest forbearance toward your children; for a relentless spirit is the last that fallen man should exhibit to a fellow creature. Forgive your children, and restore them to your confidence — even as your Father forgiveth you.

Parents, especially fathers, should seek, as much as possible, to be with their children. Remember that home has claims which, in their sphere, are not secondary to the claims of the counting house, or the shop. Some parents are necessarily absent more than others; but all should remember that if they would have their children's affections, they must give those children some of their time and attention. Our Heavenly Father communes with his children.

Thus, by this manifestation of uniform parental tenderness, there is reasonable hope that the affections of the child will be developed, and there will be laid the true and permanent foundation of filial obedience.

But to possess and manifest this uniform spirit of love, requires great vigilance and self-control on the part of the parent. He must seek daily, at the foot of the cross, to be imbued with the spirit of heaven. As an abiding disposition, it is of the grace of God. The father of the house- hold must draw nigh unto the Father of all. And when, christian parents, you do this and discharge your duties in any good measure as they have been described — then you will have indeed introduced into the government of your families, the same great principles and spirit by which the Eternal Father governs his children; — you will have faithfully modeled your family after the heaven above, that it may be, in itself, a little heaven on earth.

Erastus Hopkins Chapter 8 of The Family a Religious Institution, or, Heaven Its Model, Troy, NY, 1840

Cultivating Filial Obedience, Part 1

A general view has been taken, in the preceding chapter, of parental duties and responsibilities. The parent has been urged to be mindful of the object for which he is appointed to his station — of the high importance of that object — and the duty incumbent on him to administer his lesser government, upon those principles which he finds prevalent in that heavenly model after which his family is fashioned.

In speaking upon the latter topic, the duty of maintaining parental authority was specially enforced. But there arises here a question of great importance, a question concerning the mode of CULTIVATING FILIAL OBEDIENCE.

In answering this, let your attention be still directed to that family after which yours is to be modeled — that great family in heaven, where God is the Father, and where all the children, from the highest angel, down to the least of the redeemed, are obedient, and are styled "angels that do his pleasure." God requires of them obedience; but in the exercise of what spirit does he require it? Does he utter his stern mandate, and make heaven tremble? Does he gather thunder, and make the universe shake with fear, as he communicates his will? By no means. "God is love;" and he governs heaven by love: he administers all its concerns in the unvarying exercise of a spirit, beaming with kindness. The thunder of his power and the terror of his majesty, are for the lawless and disobedient; on whom they operate for restraint, or punishment. It would be absurd to suppose the obedience of heaven to be secured by the chief agency of these divine attributes. It would be the spurious obedience of fear, which could neither please God, or give joy to the creature — and not the genuine obedience of love. God secures the obedience of heaven by displaying his goodness and holiness — his equity and wisdom, and thus diffusing love and adoration of his character, in the hearts of all around him. They obey, because they love him; and this is what gives an acceptable savour to all creature-offerings — that they come from the heart.

In precisely the same way does God display himself to man in the dispensations of his grace. He reveals his love. True — He has exhibited to us many things which operate on our fears; but it is not by these things that he aims to gain our obedience. They are manifested for the sole purpose of restraining us from greater and hazardous lengths in disobedience — to make us pause, and tremble, and cry out, "What shall I do to be saved?" The obedience which we might be led to yield, under the influence of such displays, is merely of that fitful and transitory nature, which many have yielded for a little while, when con science has arisen in its power.

On Sinai, God displayed his awful attributes. But, why? It was because he came there as a Lawgiver to the disobedient, for whom, and for whom alone, the Law was ever reduced to statute form. He came not to call forth love; but to impress sinners with the truth, that it was a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God he came to promulge his violated law, and to engrave it before the eyes of a rebellious people. Hence it was, that not even so much as a beast should touch the mountain lest he die! And it is for a corresponding effect, in impressing with fear the lawless and the disobedient, that the solemn threatenings of God's word are written.

But different are those dealings which are appropriately termed, the dealings of his grace — different his manifestations when he determined to reclaim a people from among the children of men. He wins those that are his, by love; and he governs them by love. He speaks to them in ac- cents of kindness, of invitation, of forbearance: instead of threatening, he gives them promises: in- stead of terror, he shows them tenderness. He had this design when he went to guilty Adam, and promised him a Saviour; he had this design in all his promises to the patriarchs; he had this design — and it then shone forth the brightest — when he gave his only begotten Son, and caused his own glories to be displayed to human vision, in the per- son of the man Christ Jesus.

Thus, an unceasing and glorious manifestation of the loveliness of his own character, in all these displays and provisions of his grace, is what we plainly behold as that upon which he depends, instrumentally, to reclaim us to a spirit of accept able obedience. And, accordingly, we find, in the experience of the earthly church, that men may behold the terrors of the Almighty, till their spirits are well nigh crushed — but they are no better. It is not, until they behold the wonderful love of God, in Christ, and forget themselves in contemplating it, and experience the mysterious, but joy-giving sensations of corresponding love, that they enter, fully, the family of the redeemed. Love has won them, and they obey, they devote themselves cheerfully and forever to God. They were melted down under the invitation, "Come unto me, ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" and they find their love kindled still more, as they read, "In my Father's house there are many mansions," &c.

Now is it not manifest from this brief glance at the way in which God rules his family in heaven, and his family on earth, that he aims to secure, and that he actually does secure their obedience, only by love? — and that he, therefore, displays his glories to them to excite their love? In heaven, there are no terrors around him; on earth, where he has purposes of mercy, his love is preeminently displayed; while, in hell, only, where there is no hope, do his frowns and terrors dwell.

If, then, wherever he would perpetuate, or cultivate obedience, our great Father makes preeminent displays of love, in order to win that obedience as a cheerful offering; are not earthly pa- rents taught, thereby, the spirit, in the exercise and manifestation of which, they should govern their households? Do they desire to cultivate a spirit of cheerful, acceptable obedience — let them win it by love. The one that is to be obeyed must always be the one to be loved. It is so with our heavenly Father, and it should be so with every earthly father" If your children love you, they will delight to' please you, and they will feel sorrowful when they displease.you. This is the way that we should all feel toward God; and this is the way that you should train your little children to feel toward you.

Fathers, upon you especially rests the government of your families. You are supreme there, and you give a tone to all within. Your authority is the law in a higher sense than that of the mother. And, therefore, it is that a preeminent benignity should mark your deportment. If you would have yourselves obeyed chiefly, you must render yourselves loved, at least equally, by your children.

That maternal influence is generally greater than that of the father, is not questioned, as a fact — though it may be questioned as a necessary, and a reasonable fact; where such influence is greater, it is because the manifestation of maternal love is greater. But why should this be? If the father is actually constituted chief in authority, is it consistent that any other one should be constituted chief in filial affections? Does not actual supremacy in authority necessarily imply that no other one rises above an equality in dominion over the affections of the governed? How can the father be supreme in the former, while the mother surpasses him in the latter? Such an unequal proprietorship in filial affections, (as is very common) — and such an ascendant influence on the part of the mother, as necessarily follows, was never designed; it wars with the intended constitution of the family, and is therefore unnecessary. Fathers may be equally loved by their children, and they should guard against that ascetic influence of their avocations, by which they too often forfeit their appropriate share of ardent, filial affection.

It will always be observed, in consistency with the foregoing remarks, that where the power of affection is diminished, the power of control is diminished also. In a loosely governed family, though extravagant indulgences are lavished, there are fewer bonds of affection; while a regulated, disciplined household, where wholesome and painful correction has been wisely administered, is the one around which the bonds of filial and parental love are most securely fastened. Indeed affection, and a wise authority, are so inseparably wedded, by Him who has ordered tho constitution of all things, that the state of the one affords a remarkably sure indication of the state of the other.

It is not only true of fathers, but, frequently, of mothers also, that they fail to hold that high place in filial affection that they should; and many such parents wonder why their children are so disobedient. You are sure that you have commanded enough — watched enough — corrected enough; and it is very possible that your children will affirm each of these particulars; — but still your children remain unruly, and they pay nothing like an appropriate attention to your wishes. If it is so, then, in applying the foregoing principles to your case, it is evident that they do not love you as they ought; for if they felt their hearts full of love, and tenderness, and every filial feeling, they would not — they could not do so.

How has it occurred in your case? — that you have failed of winning filial affections. Perhaps you have mistaken the end of punishment, and, because Solomon has enjoined the rod, you have freely used it. It is, by no means, to be said, that the rod is never to be used; but it is of the high est importance that the physician wisely administer his remedies: it is not safe to administer the same medicine in all diseases, or in all stages of the same disease, merely because the medicine is known to be indispensable to the profession. So the rod, while indispensable in all spheres of human control, is not blindly to be seized as the ever suitable means. It frequently affords the shortest and most summary process, whereby to obtain an immediate result; and it is to be regretted that so many seem inconsiderately to use it for its labor saving advantages. But those disciplinarians will reap but little success, who aim to save labor in their early work. We must learn to be patient, and pains-taking, and always, while we seek to enforce present, have an eye to future obedience. And since every remedy, in proportion to the efficiency of its action, requires wisdom in its administration, the rod should be applied with care, and with a right apprehension of its appropriate effects.

By the rod, is understood to be signified correction, without any limit as to the mode; which may be either physical, or moral. Its immediate and legitimate operation is in checking and restraining disobedience, and it can operate, therefore, only negatively in producing genuine obedience. For all the inherent virtue it possesses, it can no more be relied on to cultivate a spirit of positive obedience, and to advance the great end of education, than the punishment of the lost can be expected eventually to purge away their dross and prepare them for heaven. Reliance is to be placed, in cultivating the obedience of your children, upon an entirely different instrumentality — upon the unvarying display of your kindness, mildness, equity and love. If this fails to beget, with the blessing of God, a corresponding love in your child to you, and thus to secure his cheerful obedience, as God secures angels' and as Christ secures yours — then your child is, to present appearance, as verily lost, as is the sinner who will not be won by the dis plays of redeeming love. The rod, and the pri son, while they may yet be of use in restraining and hedging in his disobedience, can no more re claim him than hell can reclaim the incorrigible.

But still there is an advantage in using the rod. This advantage, however, is found among its secondary effects. In perfect consistency with the previous statements, it may be maintained, that when applied by our heavenly Father to his earthly children, for their benefit, it has no inherent efficacy in reclaiming them. The benefit of the chastisement flows from the love that administers it. The rod causes God's people to smart — and they pause — and here all would end; but they look and see their Father's love — they think of the tears of Jesus as he wept over refractory Jerusalem, and this recognition of the tenderness of their Father is that which reclaims them to obedience. The rod would never do it; but it reveals the love which lies behind it, and speaks through it; for it is not, in itself, a means of grace, any more than is everlasting punishment.

Punishment, then, is efficacious in two respects. It is a salutary and effectual restraint upon those who trample under foot all the remonstrances of love — and it is a needful token of paternal dis pleasure, to touch the hearts of those who are generally obedient. For the former end, it is used by God, and may be freely used by us for the utterly incorrigible, who must be kept in chains of suffering and fear; while for the latter purpose, God employs it for the benefit of his people; and parents, in imitation of the great Father's exam- pie, may, in like manner, use it for their hopeful and affectionate children. But let it not be forgot ten that punishment, whenever resorted to, in hopeful cases, is to be used only as an emblem of painful displeasure. So that, really, the efficacy of all your corrections and discipline must depend up on the love which your child bears you. If he so loves you that he cannot bear your displeasure, then the needed correction will touch his little heart. But if he loves you not at all, or but little, the benefit of your discipline will be proportionate. Thus it is all-important that your child should entertain for you a supreme and ardent affection; else, all that you do toward cultivating obedience in early life will be of little avail.

In too many lamentable instances this seems to be overlooked, and parents who are truly anxious, and conscientious seize the rod, and forget that, as certain kinds of evil spirits go out only by prayer and fasting, so disobedience can be effectually driven from the heart of a child only by love: arid they ply the rod; and they speak in tones of sternness and severity, and the mandate goes forth with an accent that makes every infant heart tremble. And it is very possible that the parent does all this without an angry feeling, but merely under the influence of a commendable determination that his authority be sustained. But he errs in executing his purpose; the child feels the rod, but he does not see the love. The parent may be conscious of its real indwelling, but he does not reveal it. Sinai, in its influence upon our lost race, effects nothing in cultivating obedience, until we read the same laws, shedding a milder radiance from Calvary.

 

Erastus Hopkins Chapter 8 of The Family a Religious Institution, or, Heaven Its Model, Troy, NY, 1840

Review of Erastus Hopkins' "The Family a Religious Institution."

This is a book I never wanted to end. Rev. Hopkins has thoroughly imbibed the Scriptural doctrine of the family and he teaches it masterfully.

The gist of the book is that the family is a microcosm, a model, if you will, of God’s reign in heaven – and it was intended to be. He starts with the fact that God is the original father on whom human fatherhood is modeled – not the other way around. And since the family is an institution created by God (before the Fall even!), it is ipso facto, a religious institution. Every act that every member of the household makes should be conducted with this notion in mind. 

Family worship, catechesis, religious education, all play a central role in Hopkins’ teaching. It is a dereliction of parental duty (a duty, mind you, placed upon us by God), to entrust our children’s intellectual and spiritual education to forces outside the home. Outside influences may be utilized as aids, but they are never to be substituted for the parents’ primary role. Whatever any other relation may be, the role of parent is irrevocable and irreplaceable. It can be neither avoided nor skirted without incurring Divine displeasure. God gave the children to you, placed them upon your knee, entrusted their lives from infancy onward to your care and oversight. And you can never separate yourself from these responsibilities. But if you see the fitness of the institution, the beauty of its design as a picture of God's relationship to His church, why would you want to?

Hopkins has a masterful chapter on the importance of creating a culture of filial obedience in the home. Little children, infants, toddlers, etc., live under the complete authority, direction and rule of their parents in a way that exactly mirrors the parents’ life under the rule of God. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that children in Christian home be taught to obey their parents from birth. The only real acts of religion minor children living at home are capable of, are submission and obedience to their parents – “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” By teaching the importance of obedience to parental authority, you are instilling the substrate of a blessed adult Christian life.

One paragraph in this section stands out, and deserves particular mention. The wisdom of this paragraph is remarkable. It cuts against the grain of much of contemporary Evangelicalism (even ostensible Reformed evangelicalism). Personal observation is that babies are baptized, a few years in the nursery are passed, after which the church constantly pressures for an Augustine-like conversion experience, not unlike that peddled by the Arminian evangelists – almost as if they don’t really believe the promise of Genesis 17:7. Hopkins writes: "And we hold that the religion of such little children, as far as its manifestations are concerned, must consist, for the most part, during that period in which they are too young to understand much about God, in exercising the same dispositions and forming the same habits toward the earthly father, that they are hereafter to possess toward God. And the usual operations of divine grace, in blessing and succeeding parental exertions, and in answering parental prayer, are to be seen, — not in the little infant outstripping its years, and descanting on the wonders of redeeming love, and striding on to angels' themes — but, rather, in its faithful, affectionate, conscientious and cheerful fulfillment of its earthly father's will."

The book closes with a two-part study of the family covenant. If the family is modeled after heaven, as a creation of God, then we have much to learn from the simple, basic instincts with which God has endued parenthood.Again, it is better to simply quote Hopkins than to paraphrase:

“Look at the famished mother whose little children are gathering around her, and pleading, in vain, for bread. Her own body faints with hunger; but that is nothing to the aching of her heart under the cries of her babes. See a man approaching with a half loaf for her relief. Hear him tender it on the condition that she will eat it, for her life is valuable, and it is not sufficient for them all. How almost valueless the offer! Her children cannot share it!
“God forbid that I should say the offer of personal salvation would be almost valueless, if it were not associated with the family covenant; but this I may say, that the connection of the latter with the former does enhance, beyond measure, the value of redemption. Our children are provided for, and we may say to others, as Paul to the jailer, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.’ We can go with the full blessing, — with balm for every wound. 
“But, it may be said, this partakes more of feeling than argument; that we cannot reason from the fact that such an arrangement would please us, that therefore it is so. True — but still it is safe to reason that God has as truly made provision, in the kingdom of his grace, for those right desires which he has implanted; as he has, in the kingdom of nature, for our natural wants. While we cannot reason from depraved, we may reason from correct desires. And there is a fitness in the belief that the whole economy of grace is nicely adjusted to the wants of our spiritual and social natures. 
“Who has reared the family institution, and constituted all its endearing relations — was it not God? Who has woven these tender ties; and whose eternal fingers have bound around us these silken cords of household love? Is not the answer, — God? Who has so bound the parent to the child that in order to the full enjoyment of any blessing by the former, it must be shared with his children? Was it not God? 
“These feelings and all their proper, outgrowing desires, God has implanted, and from their indication we may safely reason. He has not made us to thirst, without causing the earth to gush forth with springs; nor to hunger, without causing it to teem with plenty; nor to be weary, without providing ‘tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep.’ And has he implanted within us these higher emotions, without providing for them in the economy of his grace! On no other supposition than the one advocated, can we understand why an abundance of children is so frequently promised, as a blessing, to God's people. Such was the promise to Abraham; and such were made, frequently, to the children of Israel. But is it a blessing to bring forth children unto eternal death? Can such an increase be promised by God as a blessing, unless at the same time he has made sure provision for their good? Such a provision we believe he has made, instrumentally, and every generation of parents may know that if they will keep all the commandments of God always, it will be well with their children forever. God multiplies the generations of the righteous, because he knows that they, like Abraham, will command their households after them. And he cuts off the generations of the wicked.”

Let those paragraphs sink in. God’s kingdom grows through the family in the line of generations. This is why large families are always portrayed in Scripture as a sign of God’s favor! It is through this that He grows His church and overthrows the counsel of the wicked. As Jeremiah 10:25 warns, God will pour out His wrath on families that call not upon His name.

This leads to the subject of prayer as a family. While not knocking private prayer, Hopkins argued forcefully that children will only learn prayer by example. He writes: “How can you expect them to pray to God, unless they see you pray, and thus confess your dependence, going to him for all things? If you would teach them to pray, and to be chiefly mindful of God and unseen and eternal things, there must be something - some arrangement holding a prominent place amid your household, calculated continually to cultivate these spiritual habits. Precepts will effect but little. Let them see that you are ever mindful of God, and of the great end of your spiritual existence - that you are thus mindful when you first wake from slumber, and when you lie down at eventide. Let them see that God is so prominent in your thoughts, that you cannot undertake the duties of the day without his blessing, nor rest in quiet at night without a committal of yourself and your beloved household to his kindness and care. Let them see that while they are your children, you acknowledge yourself to be a child of a greater Father, and kneel down with affection, and simplicity, and sincerity, to pour out your soul before him. Let your language in these exercises be simple, and your words few, that your children may neither be weary, or entirely uninstructed. O what a place and a posture is this for the parent, by solemn illustration, to teach his family the beauty of penitence for wrongs committed, and the delights of chastened love and obedience! Secret prayer does not subserve the desired end. It is witnessed only by the eye, and it enters only into the ear, of God. Household worship is the needed arrangement.”

I could cite paragraph after paragraph in demonstration of this book’s greatness, but to do so would be to virtually duplicate the whole volume. Suffice it to say that replacing every book on Christian parenting that has been published in at least the last 80 years with this one would be a trade worth making a thousand times.

Hopkins concludes the book with this reminder that captures much of the essence of the work: “Forget not, beloved readers, if you are parents, that, as such, you are invested with a mighty influence, and that on you is reposed a weighty responsibility; that, as such, you are to rule for God, to make your own dwellings little sanctuaries, to employ your inalienable authority for righteousness; and that, as such, you have a precious covenant of grace proffering to you all needed aid. Look upward; be holy — be prayerful — be diligent.”

Religious Instruction at Home

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AT HOME

BY THE REV. JOHN P. CARTER

If the importance of a Christian duty is to be estimated by the emphasis with which it is enjoined in the word of God, then the religious instruction of the young demands a degree of attention which, we fear, it does not ordinarily receive.

No sooner had the Lord instituted his covenant with Abraham, by the rite of circumcision (Gen. xviii. 9-14), "to be a God unto him and to his seed after him," than that father of the faithful, "took Ishmael, his son, and every male of his household, in the self-same day, as God had said unto him," and administered unto them the token of the Lord"s covenant. And in the following chapter is recorded the testimony of God to parental faithfulness: "I know Abraham, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." (Gen. xviii. 19.)

At the institution of the Passover, commemorating the redemption of God"s people from the servitude of Egypt, and in immediate connexion with the ceremonial observances to be attended to in that impressive ordinance, the parent is commanded: "Thou shalt show thy son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt." "And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt from the house of bondage." (Ex. xiii. 8, 14.)

And when Moses would impress the people with a deep sense of their exalted privileges, as a nation, in having "Jehovah their God so nigh unto them in all things that they called upon him for;" and having statutes, and judgments so righteous as all that law which he set before them that day — he adds, " Only take heed to thyself and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thine heart all the days of thy life; but teach them thy sons and thy sons" sons." (Deut. iv. 8, 9.) Again, when exhorting the people to obedience, in the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy, he says, " And these words which I command you this day, shall be in thy heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." And the summary of parental instruction contained in this chapter, concludes with these impressive words: " And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us." (Deut. vi. 20-25.)

In the 78th Psalm, written, as is supposed, in commemoration of Asa"s victory over the Israelites, when many out of the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon, were brought back to the pure worship of God, occurs the following passage: "For He established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children, that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children, that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments." (Ps. lxxviii. 5-7.) The calamities which befell the Ten Tribes that revolted from the house of David, do not exceed what might have been foreseen and predicted by any pious Israelite, as the consequences of the abolition of the divinely-instituted worship of Jehovah, and the setting up of the idolatrous worship of the calves at Dan and Bethel; a measure, in the judgment of Jeroboam, essential to the permanence of his usurped authority. (1 Kings xii. 25-33.) With this change in the national religion, family religion must have experienced a corresponding mutation. For when Jeroboam had cast off the Lord"s priests from executing the priest"s office and had ordained him priests for the high places, and for the devils, and for the calves which he had made, it cannot be supposed that the families adhering to him, would be inclined, or permitted to attend to that injunction of Moses, " Ye shall command your children to do all the words of this law," which saith, " Thou shalt have no other gods before me;" " Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image."

By the event referred to in the 78th Psalm, from which we have quoted above, a portion of the revolted tribes were brought back to their allegiance to Jehovah and to the house of David, by the victorious arms of Asa; and the pious Psalmist, celebrating this triumph, introduces his subject in a style significant and striking: " I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us; we will not hide them from their children, showing to the generations to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done." (Ps. lxxviii. 2-4.)

By the house of Judah likewise, we infer that the duty of parental religious instruction was to a great extent neglected, from the prevalence of idolatry among all classes of the people. For it can not be supposed that the Lord would have commanded "the fathers to make known His truth to the children," as a means of preventing idolatry (see Deut. iv. 9, ad fin.), and then would have suffered the nation to fall into the most degrading forms of idol-worship, unless those fathers had forgotten the covenant of the Lord their God, and hidden from their children, "the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works." Although this national sin brought upon them the threatened wrath and displeasure of the Most High; and although they endured the consequences of this guilt in the horrors of the siege, the oppression of conquerors, and finally in their deportation to the bonds and servitude of Babylonish captivity; yet there is reason to apprehend, even after their restoration from that captivity, that there prevailed great inattention to the duty of family religious instruction, and disregard of those high and sacred obligations involved in the constitution of the family; the canon of the Old Testament Scriptures closing with this remarkable language: "Behold, I will send you Elijah, the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord; and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse." (Mai. iv. 4-6.)

From this brief account of the subject under consideration, drawn from the history of God"s people under the old dispensation, it is obvious that the neglect of a duty so plainly enjoined, and upon the faithful performance of which so much depended, must have been a sin of no ordinary magnitude. And connected as this sin was, with many of the more flagrant offences of the Jewish people, as a nation and as individuals, it need not surprise us that, in God"s dealings with them, it should have met the fearful retribution of his justice, in every age, from the time that Rebecca instructed her son in the arts of deception, to the period when his descendants rejected their Prince and Saviour, madly invoking the malediction, "His blood be upon us and our children."

In the New Testament, which contains the doctrines and institu tions of the Christian religion, the duty of parental religious training occupies a position not less prominent than in the Old Testament. In the gospel, truly, " The hearts of the fathers are turned to the children, as well as the disobedient to the wisdom of the just." (Luke i. 17.)

Our Saviour rebuked his disciples for forbidding children to be brought unto him, saying, " Suffer the little children, and forbid them not to come unto me; for of such is the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. xix. 13.) And to qualify children and youth for this membership in the kingdom of heaven, so far as education and discipline can accomplish that end, they are brought into covenant relation to God, on the faith of their parents (1 Cor. vii. 14). Promises are made to them (Acts ii. 39). Special instructions are addressed to them (Col. iii. 20; Eph. vi. 1-3). Parents are cautioned against provoking them to wrath, and are enjoined to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Eph. vi. 4; Col. iii. 21). They were, doubtless, dedicated to God in the baptism of households (Acts xvi. 15, 33; 1 Cor. i. 16). And instances are recorded of their walking in the truth (2 John 4), and of their acquaintance with the holy Scriptures from childhood (2 Tim. iii. 15).

Thus, in both the Old and New Testament, the duty of family religious instruction occupies a position of importance which should bespeak for it the awakened attention of Christian parents and of the Christian Church. Its continued neglect cannot but prove fatal to the usefulness and happiness of families, and disastrous to the prosperity of Zion.

THE MATTER OF INSTRUCTION.

In further consideration of this important subject, we propose to speak of what should be embraced in a course of early religious in struction.

As "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God," the Bible should be the principal text-book in the religious teaching of the young. For this purpose, among others, was this precious volume given to the world. "The entrance of thy word giveth light; it giveth under standing to the simple."

The adaptation of the word of God to the purpose in question appears, first in the fact that the reception and contemplation of the truths of revealed religion, more than any other subjects of study, elevate and strengthen the mind. Children, that are for several years conversant only with the ordinary affairs of the family circle or with the common occurrences of life, experience a pleasing expansion of thought and development of mind when they visit places at a distance from home. But the youthful mind, though previously accustomed to retirement, soon comprehends the variety and confusion of a large city, and is presently familiarized with scenes of beauty and grandeur. The mountain range, the cataract, the extended ocean, or the starry firmament, though, perhaps, never viewed without a degree of interest, yet, as they become familiar, gradually lose their power to affect even the youthful mind with those sensations of awe, admiration, or astonishment, which were at first awakened by their contemplation. The same effect upon the mind results from familiarity with the events of history and the demonstrations of science. There appears to be a point beyond which the study of created things ceases to develop intellectual power and to increase the capacity of the mind. Whether the ability of such studies to strengthen the mind is limited by their own essentially finite nature, or results from the native incapacity of the human mind to investigate such subjects beyond a certain degree, we assume not to decide. No such arrested progress, however, attends the study of. divine truth. Acquaintance with the revealed things of God imparts to the mind the desire and the capacity for all that is truly great and good. Familiarity with one truth of revelation invigorates for the contemplation of others more complex, extensive, and profound. As the mind advances, the more is it strengthened for the pursuit of higher attainments in knowledge. Its progress is as the light which beams upon " the path of the just, shining more and more unto the perfect day." In contemplating the deep things of God and acquiring the knowledge of the manifold relations of the creature to the Creator, the immortal spirit enters upon ceaseless astonishment, admiration, and praise; ever approaching the eternal throne; never reaching it, yet ever advancing.

But, in the second place, this invigorating and elevating influence of divine truth is not confined to the intellectual faculties alone; the whole moral nature, also, is by it powerfully developed. For although, in our fallen condition, the law of our natural conscience is so far obliterated as to be unavailable in ascertaining our duty to God, yet there remains the original faculty by which we distinguish right and wrong; and to this faculty, in an especial manner, are the teachings of the word of God addressed. Our innate moral sense, though naturally depraved, is susceptible by education of still further perversion and degradation. It is also susceptible by education of great improvement. The education of which we speak is the aggregate result of all the influences of education and example to which an individual is exposed until his principles are settled, and his habits formed.

Let heathenism, for instance, train a child in her dark places, which are full of the habitations of cruelty, and he will know no higher deity than the elements of nature: he will strangle his aged father as an act of humanity; and conscientiously sacrifice his own offspring to devils. The same child, educated by Romanism, will regard it mortal sin to think for himself on matters of faith: he will yield his body and soul to the polluting domination of the confessional, as the only way of pardon. He will verily believe that the gift of God is to be purchased with money; and that the great and blessed God himself is pleased with vain oblations, pomp, and parade. But the same child, trained under the influence of the gospel and instructed in the great doctrines of the Bible, will manifest a clearness of mind, a tenderness of conscience, and a strength of moral principle which can be produced by no other educational instrumentality: so peculiarly adapted is the word of divine inspiration to operate upon the natural conscience.

"The fear of the Lord," using the term in its usual specific sense, is not only "the beginning of wisdom," but is also one of the most powerful motives that can be addressed to the natural heart. This sentiment, when once habitual, becomes the master influence of the life. Though it may not cleanse from secret faults, yet it strongly tends to keep back from open and presumptuous sins, such as profane swearing, Sabbath-breaking, fraud, violence, intemperance, and the like. It inclines to the path of duty and is the strength of moral obligation. And yet, while its tendency is to hold its possessor in subjection and obedience to God, it is remarkably adapted to remove from the character the fear of man, and an undue respect for the creature. The existence and majesty of God, his present moral government over his creatures, and the final retributions of his justice, are the truths which tend to cultivate in the youthful mind the controlling sentiment of which we have spoken: and these are the doctrines recognised and inculcated throughout the Bible.

And this influence of sacred truth is not temporary. It grows with the growth and strengthens with the strength. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto, according to thy word." Many a young man has, by this means, been kept from the path of the destroyer, from which he could hardly have escaped, had his childhood been uninstructed in "the admonition and fear of the Lord."

Nor do the advantage and influence of Scripture instruction terminate with the inculcation of sound morality and with the restraining and moulding of the external deportment. The Sacred Scriptures, through faith in Jesus Christ, are able to make wise unto salvation. And the salvation of the soul should be the great and ceaseless aim of the parent, in teaching his child out of the lively oracles of God. Children, at a very early age, can understand their need of a Saviour and the plan of salvation. Their earliest remembrances should be associated with the love of God as displayed in the transactions of Calvary. They should be early familiarized with the name of Jesus; with the holiness of his character, the benevolence of his heart; his sympathy for the distressed, his special regard for children; with the greatness and goodness of his miracles; and above all, with the shedding of his blood in atoning for sin: that he is both able and willing to save sinners. Let the first great idea impressed upon the infant mind, in lines of indelible distinctness, be the idea of the God-Man Christ: the mighty God over all, the sympathizing friend of sinners; the pattern of their life, their Protector and Help in trouble, their Redeemer, their Judge, their God!

Thus made acquainted, from their youth, with the Holy Scriptures, they are not only kept from receiving "for doctrines the commandments of men;" but in the day of God"s merciful visitation to their souls, when they shall be effectually called by His Spirit into the kingdom of his Son, it will not be their part to occupy the room of the untaught, who are necessarily confined to a limited sphere of usefulness, while they are learning what are the first principles of the doctrine of Christ; but with sanctified affections and enlightened minds, they are qualified to enter at once into the active and efficient service of the Master. The individual, who, in youth, has been thoroughly instructed from the Scriptures and trained in the path of duty by parental faithfulness, needs but the life-giving influence of the Holy Spirit on his soul, to introduce him into a sphere of use fulness, and to invest him with a maturity of Christian character, to which he would have been a stranger, had his early religious training been neglected.

The religious training of our children will be incomplete, however, if they are instructed only in the general principles of Christian faith and practice. They should likewise be thoroughly indoctrinated in the peculiar views of our Church, and faithfully instructed in her history.

These subjects have been unfortunately, too often omitted from the early instructions of our children, in order, as it is alleged, "to avoid giving undue importance to non-essentials; and that the youthful mind may not be biased by sectarian prejudices." We apprehend, the Presbyterian Church has not yet fully realized all the evils resulting from this error. We deprecate as much as any, the bad effects of early prejudice; and "the tithing of mint, and anise, and cummin, to the neglect of the weightier matters of the law." And as the most efficient guard against these very evils, we earnestly recommend to the parents of our beloved Zion that they familiarize their children with the distinctive doctrines and order of the Presbyterian Church; exhibiting them in their proper place and showing their real importance in the system of divine truth. It will not fail to appear that the truths of the gospel, as held forth by Presbyterianism, "are like apples of gold in pictures of silver." And we need not fear that any one will be a Presbyterian from prejudice, who is well instructed in the scriptural authority of that system and in the eventful history which has distinguished its progress.

In recommending that Presbyterian children be instructed in the peculiarities and history of their Church, we assume that their pa rents believe and love those peculiarities and appreciate that history. Then by what reasons soever the system promulged in the standards of the Presbyterian Church is entitled to our credence, by which we have been induced to profess it publicly, and by which we are justified in holding it forth to the world; by the same reasons are we laid under all obligation to communicate that system to our children.

What system ever held by man is superior to that popularly known as Calvinism, in its power to benefit the world? What other system ascribes the same glory to the infinite Majesty of heaven, and at the same time is so calculated to develop the highest qualities of human nature? By this system the man of distinction and extensive use fulness is made to feel that he has nothing but what he has received, that it is God who maketh him to differ, " working in him to will and to do;" whilst his more humble fellow-servant, no less important in his appointed sphere, is encouraged to improve his single talent with the utmost diligence. Inculcating the sovereignty of God and his changeless purpose of justice and grace, it inspires the heart of man with high resolves for the glory of God and the good of man; and nerves his arm with invincible prowess for the execution of noble enterprises. And whilst it affords to the believer, effectually called, the assurance that "he shall never perish," being "kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation" — it extends to the impenitent sinner the encouragement which he needs: " It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." "By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God."

The brightest pages of history derive their radiance from the records inscribed by the principles of our system. In the progressive development of liberty, knowledge, and righteousness, those principles have exercised a controlling influence; and they enroll among their advocates multitudes of the wise, great, and good in every age, that have arisen to bless mankind.

Above all, we believe this system to be the precious truth of God, which he has revealed concerning himself and concerning our duty and destiny. And we may regard him who holds it, as occupying that mountain elevation which commands the radiant bow in full perfection, at once the memorial of justice, and the pledge of mercy. Shall we fail then, to impress upon the minds of our beloved off spring the proper estimation of such a system as this? Shall we not faithfully indoctrinate them in its principles, that they may imbibe its healthful and invigorating spirit and be enriched by its priceless blessings?

Especially is this demanded in such a day as the present, when this way is evil spoken of by many contradicting and blaspheming; and a fearful current of infidelity and atheism threatens to deluge the land. " We will not hide it from our children, showing to the generations to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works."

AN APPEAL TO PARENTS.

In the constitution of the family, Divine Providence has invested the parental relation with peculiar authority and influence for the discharge of these duties; and nothing so strengthens that authority and augments that influence as the assembling of a family, morning and evening, to be led in their devotions by parental piety, and to be instructed out of the law of the Lord.

The responsibility of a father is commensurate with the near relation which he sustains to his offspring. God has, for a season, committed to parental stewardship the immortal soul of the child. How much depends upon the manner in which are met the duties involved in that stewardship! To a great extent, success or failure; honour or degradation in the world; weal or woe in eternity. And in what terms may we define the turpitude of that parent who fails to acknowledge God before his household and to speak to his children of salvation? Not only does he deprive himself of one of the richest pleasures known to the sanctified heart, but he defrauds his little ones of a divine inheritance and contemns the authority of heaven. The total neglect of family religion is commonly attended with the decay of personal piety, loss of interest in the cause of religion generally, derangement of secular business, feuds among brethren and sisters, the alienation of children from parents or the untimely breaking up and dispersion of families, and other evidences of God's just displeasure.

The observance of a formal morning and evening service at the family altar, in which the children and domestics take no part, and which is accompanied by no religious instruction, accomplishes little more than to remind the household that a profession of religion is made in their midst. Should the devotions of a family be conducted even with spirit and zeal, but still be unaccompanied by proper instruction, and left unappropriated to the purpose of "training in the nurture and admonition of the Lord," the members of that family will derive from such devotions but feeble ability to withstand the influences which tend to divert them from the path of virtue; or to correct those false impressions made upon the minds of our youth, by which they are sometimes enticed from the faith of their fathers. On the other hand, when family religion is made to consist in mere instruction, however appropriate or orthodox it may be, to the exclusion or neglect of devotional and spiritual duties, and more especially if the instruction relates chiefly to outward ceremonies and forms — those under its influence may be expected to become formalists and bigots; or in disgust at all religion, to withdraw to the dark and unhappy recesses of infidelity.

The appropriate remedy for all these evils — the efficient guard against results so painful to a Christian parent"s heart, is that which we propose in the recommendations of this article: The instruction of our children and households in the truths of the word of God, from the Scriptures, and as they are contained in the standards of our Church; and the training of them to know their "heavenly Father as a prayer-hearing and a prayer-answering God." The faithful parent, desiring the divine blessing in his habitation, will not only impart this instruction and attend to this training as ordinary duties; but he will seek frequent occasions to speak to his children individually and in private, upon the great concern of their salvation*; warning them affectionately and earnestly to seek God, and to give their hearts to the Lord Jesus in the morning of life. And His anxiety, refusing to be satisfied with warning alone, will con duct them singly to the throne of mercy, imploring in their behalf the effectual grace of God to bring them to Christ, to give them new hearts and to adopt them into his family. Nor does his concern for them cease here; but in his secret devotions also, with strong cries to God, will he bear them before the throne upon the arms of a vigorous faith, until it shall appear that "the children of such prayers cannot perish." But while he is thus exhorting and teaching his children and making them the subjects of earnest and constant prayer, he is careful in his daily walk to set before them an example which they may safely follow; to lead them into no temptation; and to place them in no situation where their morals may be corrupted or their judgment perverted. The children of such a parent shall rise up and call him blessed; they shall be as olive plants around his table; and at last, it will be his distinguished blessedness to appear in the eternal Presence, saying: "Behold, I, and the children Thou hast given me."

This article is from "The Home, the School, and the Church," Volume 2 (1852). This was journal published by the Presbyterian Education Board of the PC USA from 1850-1860

Domestic Christian Education

From 1850-1860, the Presbyterian Educational Repository, overseen by Cortlandt Van Rensselaer, published a journal entitled, The Home, The School, and The Church. 

The following is from the conclusion of an article written by Rev. Isaac Ferris, D.D. Entitled “Domestic Christian Education.” After having argued the Christian parent's natural, Christian, and covenantal duty to bring up his children in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord,” he concludes with some suggestions for Christian parents to do just that.

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There are several important measures not so frequently the subject of remark, which are now to be proposed for your consideration.

1. In the first place, the observance of occasional seasons of closet prayer with each child, is a very important measure.

Every Christian parent, it is presumed, will pray for his child; indeed, will he not as often as he goes to the mercy-seat, remember those whom God has given him. In addition to this general player, it is suggested that he adopt, as a part of his plan, a retiring from time to time to pray with each child singly. As a means of good, this has been seen to be a measure of blessed influence. There is something in the circumstances of the parent with his child in such a situation, calculated to move the hearts of both. A child that loves his parent will be melted as he sees the earnest, tender entreaty in his behalf. His own individual case will be brought more fully and forcibly before his mind. He will realize more distinctly the presence of God, and his dependence on him — a spirit of devotion will be inspired, while his heart is bound more tenderly to his parent — a barrier to the world's influence will be raised up — conscience will be kept active. A child thus dealt with, in the overflowings of Christian love, may possibly under temptation break away from parental counsel; but something will have been deeply implanted, which will often goad him, and which will afford the best hope of his return.

Has this course been tried, do any ask? It has, and with happy effect. Out of many cases let me mention a few. The first is that of a Christian parent, whose beloved child had become wayward, and had fallen into a habit which threatened most unhappy consequences. He had tried advice, entreaty, and correction, in vain. With a heart deeply grieved, he took his child to the closet — the case was the subject of prayer — it was an affecting season — both wept — the child's heart was melted, and the issue was all a parent could wish. Another is the case of one, who had lost a mother's care when very young; a pious father was spared, whose practice it was every evening as he carried his son to his couch, to pour out his heart over him in prayer. The earliest recollections the son had of the father, were of him in the attitude of prayer for him. These exercises were never forgotten — that son has been for years a useful minister of Christ in a neighboring city. Another is the case of one, whose pious mother was left to pursue a Christian parent's duty, unaided by her companion. Often did she retire with her son to pray, when all was hushed in sleep. He felt the exercise. He pursued for a time the way of folly, but even then felt an invisible check. A mother's prayers, with other instruments which she had much to do in applying, brought him to choose the better part. In the ministry of reconciliation now, he has often blessed God for that mother's care and prayers; and how far others may have been benefited by his labors, and have reason to join with him, this congregation have for years had the opportunity of judging.

2. The devotion of some time on the Sabbath evening to the examination of Divine truth with an assembled family, deserves special regard.

The parent, truly anxious for his children, will suffer no opportunity of dropping a good word, or any striking occurrence, or any awful calamity, private or public, to pass unimproved. He will seek special seasons, and fix on those whose attending circumstances most favor his object. Now, for a season the most favorable, we are led to the Sabbath evening. This is a season peculiarly fitted for gathering around us our beloved circle, and seeking their everlasting good. Then the bustle and distraction of the world are removed — then there is a freedom from interruption, which cannot be secured at any other time; then naturally all are brought together; the public exercises of the Sabbath have prepared the mind for solemn reflection, as well as furnished the materials for profitable remark. And thus situated and prepared, never can a parent hold converse with his children more profitably. Refreshed and mellowed himself by the truths he has heard and the exercises he has engaged in, out of a full heart he can mete instruction and advice to his charge. The Sabbath evening is thus honored, and by that circle will be loved. There certainly is not a more interesting sight than that of a family, consisting of children of different ages, thus gathered around a beloved parent, and hearing from his or her lips the words of eternal life. Often there will be seen the glistening tear, the heaving breast, under an apprehension of the evil of sin — of personal unworthiness, or in view of a Savior's sufferings — often there the seeds of eternal life will be planted. Such a circle, how truly a nursery of Heaven! It is to be regretted that the evening of God's holy day is not thus more frequently improved. It is now in many cases the dullest season in the week, or, though occupied in religious exercises, passed far less profitably than we have suggested. Public exercises are allowed to supplant this interesting service, or confine it to a very brief space. Far be it from me to say a word which shall keep any one from a proper attendance on the house of God, and yet it must be acknowledged that attendance on public ordinances has become much of a gossiping matter. Many seem to think that religion requires no time for reflection; that all a man has to do to sustain a religious character, is to rush from one public exercise to another as often as possible, and the oftener the better. Every one must be aware that in a city there are persons who may be variously detained, and parts of families only who can attend at a given time, and many who, from years and other circumstances, may require a third service, and should have the opportunity of attending; but many, very many more are they whose Sabbath evening would be best spent in the bosom of their families, and who can only on the Sabbath evening enjoy calmly the company of their children. In the practice to a considerable degree prevalent, there is much selfishness on the part of parents: they seek through the whole their own interest, to the neglect of their children. There is a beautiful symmetry in true religion — every duty and every interest has its proper place, and the Christian parent should, for the sake of example, as well as the welfare of all around him, study to cultivate this symmetry, and have every duty in its appropriate place. His children's welfare, as well as his own satisfaction and profit, must be consulted, and if to the latter be devoted the Sabbath day exercises, he may well give the evening to the former.

The course suggested may cost him labor and patience; but what good, com pared in any degree with his children's immortal interests, does not cost him labor and patience? The course suggested has been long and extensively pursued in Scotland, and seems to have a close connection with the remarkable success of parental efforts in that country, already spoken of. This mode of spending the Sabbath evening has a fascinating effect on children. There are many who look back to evenings thus spent as among the most interesting and happy they have enjoyed. If the preacher may refer to his own experience, he would say that he fixes on the Sabbath evenings thus passed in his youth, with five or six other children around a pious mother, when the Westminster Catechism was regularly recited, and the Scriptures read, and an account given of what had been read and heard through the day, as among his happiest evenings. He believes, moreover, that those exercises have proved no unimportant part of his preparations for the ministry, though at the time he had no thought of the use Providence might make of them.

3. Care should be taken to improve and impress the public dispensation of Divine Truth.

The preaching of the gospel, as commonly enjoyed, is rather fitted for mature minds. It may be very simple, and yet will involve much, the force of which none but minds of maturity will perceive. This peculiarity cannot be altered, it being affected altogether by the circumstances of the congregation, who cannot be addressed in a childlike familiarity, and to whom the same description of illustration which gives the greatest zest to the instruction of children and youth, would be unsuited. While this is the fact, it is to be lamented that so little is effected for children by the exercise of preaching, and yet the defect is not without a remedy. While k will be acknowledged to be desirable in the highest degree that all ages should find this divine institution profitable, it is very much in the parent's power to make it so to his children. There is a plan practiced successfully by many, which deserves the attention of all. It is that of regularly examining children on the sermons they hear, and expecting them to bring home some account of the heads of a sermon, and the various topics illustrated. When this plan is pursued, it gives the parent an excellent opportunity for impressing the truth delivered, in a very familiar manner, and dwelling on and carrying out those points which may strike him as particularly important. This plan cultivates the habit of attention, and while it exercises both the memory and the judgment, is valuable as an exercise of mental training. If the power of analysis be of almost indispensable importance, such an exercise, which will unquestionably to a degree cultivate it, must be highly esteemed. There is nothing which, in such a space and in so pleasant a manner, shows the value of analysis so clearly as a well studied sermon. In it every part has its place, and all united make a grand whole, bearing on one end. The plan of which we speak will call for attention on the part of the parent, and of this both his mind and his heart will find the benefit. The first efforts of a child in this work may only give him the text; but this recorded in his book is great gain. His next effort may give him a meager skeleton of a sermon; yet in a short time it will be surprising to himself to see how much of a public exercise he may bring home. At thirteen years, in most cases, the account he will furnish will be in a degree complete. And what will be gained as to the habit of attention in the sanctuary? And how, as the whole plan is carried out on the part of the parent, will he drink in instruction and soon apply for himself? The habit of bringing divine truth thus directly home will be blessed, and how many thousand times better this than the practice of many parents, who return to their families to show what captious hearers they are, and by their conversation and conduct undermine all the confidence their families might otherwise feel in the sermons they hear?

4. It is a matter of great moment that every parent furnish his children with suitable reading of a pious character.

Reading will be found one of his most valuable auxiliaries — one by which in a sense his children become their own teachers. Care should be taken, however, by the parent, if he would avail himself of it fully, to select or lead the way to that sort of reading which shall impress his own instructions, and mend the heart, while at the same time it interests. Now for this, it must not merely be religious reading, but that reading which presents religion in a style suited to his years. We have many choice treatises on the great subject of Christianity, which may bring joy to the adult Christian, but which will be dry as husks to the young mind — and forcing the child to read these, or confining him to them, will create a distaste not only for them, but for religion itself, as he will be led to associate with it the idea of some intolerable burden. Every Christian can judge of this for himself, for who of them would not feel the same, if confined to the study of a book on science, which entered into its minutiae, while it took for granted the necessary elementary know ledge on the part of the reader. There is no necessity of our falling into this mistake at the present time. A great change has taken place, and while books of excellent character for adults are multi plied, our religious juvenile literature, has, not only within a few years, become a distinct department, but very extensive. The Christian parent has now the opportunity of selecting from a large number, works which precisely meet the need of his children, writ ten in the most interesting style on all the ordinary subjects on which he would dwell, and adapted to the youthful mind.

The parent should not, let me say, think his work done when he places these books within the reach of his children; on the contrary he should make it his business to inquire carefully into the reading of each child, and may well make such inquiry a part of his Sabbath evening's engagements; while at the same time he may have select books read aloud, in order, for the purpose of calling out remarks from his children, and for making his own observation and application.

5. The pious observance of family worship is an important auxiliary in Domestic Christian Education, and even an essential part of it.

Regarded as a general duty, every one claiming to be a Christian, and indeed every parent should have his altar in his house, around which his children are daily gathered. It is in the matter of Christian education "an engine of prodigious power." If the several services be pertinent, brief, varying with circumstances, lively, they will make an impression. Is the Word of God read on every occasion, in proper portions, as one of the exercises, not only is the truth of God impressed on the mind, but it is regarded as the family oracle: the young, seeing the place it occupies with a pious parent, will cling to it as the Book of books. And how much may we hope to gain by this, when we remember that the young man cleanses his way by cleaving to God's Word. Picture to yourself, a family on their knees at worship — hear the prayer a beloved father offers so feelingly: he adores God, and acknowledges his own and his family's dependence on Him, traces every blessing, the rest of every night, the comfort of every day to Him — how does this tend to cherish a reverence for God and the feeling of obligation in the bosoms of all? He confesses his sins and his family's, he seeks to come into the dust at God's feet, and cannot go without his pardon — how calculated this to make his children feel their accountability — to awaken solicitude for their own state — to lead them to God for pardon? He commits them to God, prays for security, for blessings, for all they need — how calculated this to check the foolish self-dependence to which our nature is prone, to keep his children under a sense that all is in God's hands? Look at this exercise as Providence leads to its variation, by the sickness or death of friends — or the occurrence of difficulty, or deliverance from imminent danger — and does it not speak directly to the heart, does it not aid in the cultivation of those feelings at which a Christian education aims? Blessed institution indeed. A master mind (Cecil) has spoken thus of it — "worship thus conducted may be used as an engine of vast power in families. It diffuses a sympathy through the members. It calls off the mind from the deadening effect of worldly affairs. It arrests every member -with a morning and evening sermon, in the midst of all the hurries and cares of life. It says, 'There is a God' — 'There is a spiritual world' — 'There is a life to come.' It fixes the idea of responsibility in the mind. It furnishes a judicious and tender father or master an opportunity of gently glancing at faults, where a direct admonition would be inexpedient. It enables him to relieve the weight with which subordination or service often sits on the minds of inferiors."

6. Finally, a careful observance of the Sabbath is indispensable as a part of a Domestic Christian Education.

The observance of the Lord's day is urged mostly on the ground of a moral claim on the part of God, and the view we now take may be considered novel — it is nevertheless correct. Look at the place the Sabbath holds; does not its observance bear on all the interests of religion, and can a man be called religious who does not keep it? And if the Sabbath have not a hold upon a man, will any thing else have? Do not all religious interests in the church, in society, in a man's own heart, rise and fall with the observance of "the day the Lord has made?" Now when we speak of a proper observance of the Sabbath, we mean its consecration as entirely as possible to the business of religion — to worship, to religious reading, while the business of the world, the indulgences of the world, and all bustle are shut out — such an observance, as makes this day stand out in holy pre-eminence above all the other days, as The Day of God. Now with such a view of it, we ask what will be the influence of such observance on a growing family; will not such observance of one- seventh of the time fill the house with a holy atmosphere; will it not make a family feel there is a solemn reality in religion? will it not raise the tone of pious feeling in such house? will it not, in a most blessed manner, stand as a check upon the influence of our worldly pursuits; and as such an observance associates the Sabbath here with the Sabbath of heaven, will it not lead the young heart to heaven? Can a Christian parent, if he would bring up his children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, pursue a more effectual means than thus hallowing God's day? For confirmation of all this, I beg you to look to the families where God's day is not honored; where the political newspaper or secular periodical is read in preference to the Scriptures — where business, or visiting, or pleasure walking, or frivolous conversation, occupy the attention, and see if there you find a due sense of religion, or children growing up with the feeling that religion is a matter of any moment, or growing in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. No, God's impress is on this matter. The parents in such a family may give sage advice, they may supply any quantity of religious reading, though they are not likely to do this; they may sit down regularly at the communion-table, and yet their profanation or neglect of the sanctity of the Sabbath will destroy all. They shall see their children grow up, thoughtless, giddy, lovers of the world and not at all of God.

Many conceive such an observance of the Sabbath as we speak of, will make it a heavy, dull day; if it be so, it is their own fault, for religion has nothing heavy or dull about it. A judicious parent will find no difficulty on this point. He will study and lay himself out so to direct reading and the study of divine truth and conversation, that the Sabbath will be a delight.

Two things should enforce what has been said: your time with your families is short; they will either be taken from you or you from them — and if you neglect your duty to their souls, while you have them, you will plant a thorn in your dying pillow. By all that is dear to you in the interests of your children; by all your desires to see the Church of your Redeemer sustained by their active, holy efforts; by the fearful consequences which you have seen to follow the neglect of parents; by all the griefs by which the hearts of others have been wrung; by all your anxieties to have your children members of that great family which shall assemble around the glorified Redeemer at last, and sing His praises for ever, I charge it upon you, be faithful.