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True Education
awesome is His name.”
Psalm 111:9
. Angels, as they speak it, veil
their faces. With what reverence should we who are fallen and sinful
take it on our lips!
We should reverence God’s Word. For the printed volume we
should show respect, never putting it to common uses, or handling
it carelessly. And never should Scripture be quoted in a jest, or
paraphrased to point a witty saying. “Every word of God is pure”;
“like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.”
Proverbs
30:5
;
Psalm 12:6
.
Above all, children should be taught that true reverence is shown
by obedience. God has commanded nothing that is unessential, and
there is no other way of manifesting reverence so pleasing to Him
as obedience to His Word.
Reverence should be shown for God’s representatives—for min-
isters, teachers, and parents who are called to speak and act in His
stead. He is honored in the respect shown to them. And God has
especially commanded that tender respect be shown toward the aged.
He says, “The silver-haired head is a crown of glory, if it is found in
the way of righteousness.”
Proverbs 16:31
. It tells of battles fought
and victories gained, of burdens borne and temptations resisted. It
tells of weary feet nearing their rest, of places soon to be vacant.
Help the children to think of this, and they will smooth the path
of the aged by their courtesy and respect, and will bring grace and
beauty into their young lives as they heed the command to “rise
before the aged, and defer to the old.”
Leviticus 19:32
, NRSV.
Fathers and mothers and teachers need to appreciate more fully
the responsibility and honor that God has placed on them, in making
them, to the child, the representatives of Himself. The character
revealed in the contact of daily life will interpret to the child, for
good or evil, those words of God:
“As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear
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Him.”
Psalm 103:13
. “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will
comfort you.”
Isaiah 6:13
.
Fortunate is the child in whom such words as these awaken love
and gratitude and trust; the child to whom the tenderness and justice
and longsuffering of father and mother and teacher interpret the love
and justice and longsuffering of God; the child who by trust and
submission and reverence toward his earthly protectors learns to