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Patriarchs and Prophets
of character, which revealed to all that he was connected with Heaven.
He did not neglect the soul of the humblest servant. In his household
there was not one law for the master and another for the servant; a
royal way for the rich and another for the poor. All were treated with
justice and compassion, as inheritors with him of the grace of life.
“He will command his ... household.” There would be no sinful
neglect to restrain the evil propensities of his children, no weak, un-
wise, indulgent favoritism; no yielding of his conviction of duty to
the claims of mistaken affection. Abraham would not only give right
instruction, but he would maintain the authority of just and righteous
laws.
How few there are in our day who follow this example! On the
part of too many parents there is a blind and selfish sentimentalism,
miscalled love, which is manifested in leaving children, with their
unformed judgment and undisciplined passions, to the control of their
own will. This is the veriest cruelty to the youth and a great wrong
to the world. Parental indulgence causes disorder in families and
in society. It confirms in the young the desire to follow inclination,
instead of submitting to the divine requirements. Thus they grow
up with a heart averse to doing God’s will, and they transmit their
irreligious, insubordinate spirit to their children and children’s children.
Like Abraham, parents should command their households after them.
Let obedience to parental authority be taught and enforced as the first
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step in obedience to the authority of God.
The light esteem in which the law of God is held, even by religious
leaders, has been productive of great evil. The teaching which has
become so widespread, that the divine statutes are no longer binding
upon men, is the same as idolatry in its effect upon the morals of
the people. Those who seek to lessen the claims of God’s holy law
are striking directly at the foundation of the government of families
and nations. Religious parents, failing to walk in His statutes, do not
command their household to keep the way of the Lord. The law of
God is not made the rule of life. The children, as they make homes of
their own, feel under no obligation to teach their children what they
themselves have never been taught. And this is why there are so many
godless families; this is why depravity is so deep and widespread.
Not until parents themselves walk in the law of the Lord with
perfect hearts will they be prepared to command their children after