The First National Curse

We have reason to believe, from no doubtful intimations, that the excessive corruption of the age before the Deluge was, in no small degree, to be attributed to the debased and vitiated state of the social relations. When, after the flood, the population of this earth was confined to a single family, and the world was about to start afresh in its great career, it was the special care of its great Lawgiver to throw around these relations the guardianship of his own almighty providence. And he did so, by inculcating a most affecting lesson, and one that sends its solemn tones of admonition to the remotest generations of men.

The narrative is brief, and though we have adverted to it before, we will transcribe it at length. “And the sons of Noah, that went forth from the ark, were Shem, Ham, and Japheth; and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah; and of them was the whole earth overspread. And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. And Hani, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward and they saw not their father’s nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be Ms servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.”

It is not necessary for our purpose, to animadvert on the scurrility of infidels in regard to the conduct of Noah; nor is it any part of our design to justify or palliate that conduct. When he awoke from his wine, he was directed by God to testify the divine disapprobation of the unfilial spirit and deportment of Ham by pronouncing a curse upon him and his posterity; while by the same direction he pronounced a blessing upon Shem and Japheth, and their descendants. Ham saw his father’s nakedness, and went and proclaimed it; and

God cursed him, and gave the curse a tremendous sweep through unknown ages of time. Shem and Japheth turned from it, refused to look at the mournful spectacle of a father’s shame, covered it up from the eyes of men; and God blessed them, and made them their brother’s master. Three times is this blessing and this curse repeated; and most abundantly has both the promise and the curse been fulfilled.

Shem is the first named in the sacred narrative, in this act of filial honor; and his descendants were eminently the favored race. He was the progenitor of the wide-spread Hebrew nation — a people renowned in literature, in arts, in arms, in wealth and intelligence — a people that once possessed power — a people from whom the Saviour of men was descended, and who were the selected depositary and dispensers of divine truth to all the nations of the earth — a people, who, notwithstanding their present abjectness and dispersion, hold the purse-strings of the world, and are destined to resume their former piety and greatness. “Salvation is of the Jews.” What has not the race of Shem performed in the great work of covering the shame of men!

Ja/pheth, who was the prompt auxiliary in this work of filial honor, was to be enlarged: he was “to dwell in the tents of Shem.” The great nations of the earth, both of ancient and modern times, are either the descendants of Japheth, or the descendants of the extensively mingled races of Shem and Ham, not in the line of Canaan. The superiority of Europe over other parts of the earth is the fulfilment of this promise.

Ham was to be the “servant of servants to his brethren.” His descendants, in the line of Canaan, were the accursed race. Other portions of his posterity were a more favored people; but the descendants of Canaan were under the curse.

It is not an easy matter, in the present age of the world, to define, with precision, the line which separates the families of Japheth from all the branches of the family of Shem. But, considering the nature of the subject, it is less difficult to point out the difference between the descendants of Canaan and the other two races. It is less difficult in a geographical view, if we patiently follow out the intimations of the sacred historian in the tenth chapter of the book of Genesis. And it is less difficult in a physiological view. As one of the three integral parts of the human family, they have for the most part been kept distinct from the rest of mankind. So far as my own inquiries have been extended, they have never been able to make any independent settlement in Europe. From the operation of causes, the consideration of which is foreign to our present purpose, they form the darkcolored race, the negro family. On them the curse rests; they were to be the “servant of servants” to the other races. And the curse has been executed. As early as the days of Joshua, one of the tribes — the Gibeonites — who by craft obtained a league with their conqueror, was condemned to perpetual servitude, and he made them “hewers of wood and drawers of water” to the people of Israel. It is a fact, I believe, well ascertained, that those of these seven nations who were not extirpated by Joshua, were ultimately driven into Africa. What their history has been since, many a dark page, depicting in glowing colors their own cupidity and cruelty, as well as the cruelty and cupidity of the other races, has disclosed. It is a tale of “mourning, lamentation, and woe.” They have been scattered over the earth; they are found among ourselves; but whether as slaves or as hired servants, whether educated or uneducated, they are, as a race, “hewers of wood and drawers of water.”

Writers on the natural history of man, have perplexed themselves to assign the cause of this degradation of the descendants of Canaan. We do not question the operation of physical causes, because the righteous Lawgiver makes use of physical causes to fulfil his penal decrees. It is enough for us to have ascertained the moral cause of this affecting degradation; and to find it in that great law of the divine government which began to be thus early executed, and which affirms that a jealous God “visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate him.” The curse upon Canaan is the curse of God upon filial disobedience and contempt; the blessing upon Shem and Japheth is God’s blessing upon filial obedience and honor.

There is no bein«: in the universe but has claims upon other beings; they are sacred claims. God has his rights; men, too, have theirs. It is among the convincing proofs of God’s goodness, that he has not turned away in indifference and disgust from this abject and revolted race, but consents to govern them, and stands forth as the guardian and protector of the rights of men, and the avenger of their wrongs. He makes their claims his own, and gives them distinctly to understand that he holds them responsible, not only for their treatment of him, but their treatment of one another.

The mutual dependencies and relations of the race, have their origin in the domestic circle. Do what we will for the race in other ways; every other stream will be turbid, if this fountain be left impure. Nor is there any relation, the rights of which are more watchfully protected by the authority, the truth, and the providence of God, than those which thus form the great elements of human society. The supreme Lawgiver guards the rights of the ruler and the subject, of the teacher and the pupil, and of the husband and the wife. He guards the rights of the child; and he also guards the rights of the parent. The sacred names of father and mother are not with him of little import. He has given them a place in his Law; he engraved them with his own finger on the tablet of stone; he placed them close by the side of his holy Sabbath, and threw around them the shield of those mighty thunderings, and those vivid lightnings, and that angel’s trump, and that mountain smoking, which, when the people of Israel saw, “they removed and stood afar off.”

Filial piety begins in the heart; where all right affections begin. It is of little use for a child to attempt to regulate his outward conduct toward his parents, so long as he takes no pains to regulate his inward spirit. If he has disrespectful thoughts, and unkind emotions toward them, his conduct will be very apt to betray him. The character of the young is, in this respect, transparent. Let it be the great study of a child, in his treatment of his parents, to cherish the sentiments of love, respect, and reverence; and they will not fail to eradicate those dissatisfied, complaining, untoward, impetuous, and angry passions, which so often express themselves in the outward deportment. Hatred, contempt, and even indifference will never give birth to honorable conduct. Such emotions may be restrained by motives that are mercenary, by pride of character, or by the strong hand of power; but so long as they lurk in the heart, they will neutralize, if they do not poison all true frankness and ingenuousness of character. The rash and ungovernable spirit that will not brook restraint; the proud and haughty spirit that will not submit to be admonished, and not even counselled, mark the character of many a sullen daughter and many a disobedient and rebellious son. If the young do not nip them in the bud, they need not be disappointed if they give a mournful coloring to their future history.

A child may be bribed to think well of his parents; while all these sentiments of kindness are very apt to stop where the gratification stops. Where filial respect and honor are measured by favors and benefits, they are short-lived. Parents have a right to expect from their children a different state of mind from this. Neither mercenary expectation, nor slavish fear, is the germ of honorable deportment; it grows on a purer stock. Just as love to God produces respect and reverence for God, so does filial love produce respect and reverence for parents. There is a great fault either in the conduct of the parent, or the child, where the generous and unembarrassed emotions of love and confidence are restrained and subdued in the bosom of the young.

We know there are wicked parents, cruel, dishonorable and dishopored parents, whom it is difficult to love, respect, and confide in. Nor can a virtuous child love and respect them for these unhappy qualities. Yet will such a child never forget the filial relation. He will be grieved for the sins of his parents; but he will still remember that they are his parents, and as such, he will honor them. There is no relaxation, no lifting of the bond from the conscience of the child, on account of the parent’s frailties. It is not a child’s province to sit in judgment upon a parent’s faults; but rather to weep in secret over them, and by his filial spirit to win and reform those whom he thus honors. That beautiful incident, which is recorded of Shem and Japheth, was not put upon the sacred record without design. There are few, if any finer scenes than this,*exhibiting as it does, that nice observance of propriety, that susceptibility to a parent’s honor, that scrupulousness and delicacy of filial affection, that are above praise. Children are sometimes eager in watching for the failings of their parents, and exult in the opportunity of reproaching and upbraiding them; but it is a temptation of the devil, for the purpose of bringing upon them the curse of Ham. A filial spirit is the more honorable and lovely for being expressed and cherished amid such discouragements. There is no more lovely characteristic in a child, and no brighter adornment, than that affection which smiles on a parent who is unkind; that respect and reverence which bows before a degraded parent; that noble generosity of mind, that delicate intellectual and moral texture which turns its back upon a parent’s faults, and covers them from the eye of the scorner.

Children owe their parents also the tribute of affectionate and respectful language. “A fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul.” There is a heedlessness in the intercourse of some children with their parents, which is not indeed always a true index of their spirit, and which, we have no doubt, leaves a false impression upon the mind of an observer. There are instances in which this unrestrained familiarity is carried so far, that it borders on disrespect. And though it may be too late for the parent to control it, it is not the less to be deplored.

We stand in doubt of the spirit of the age in which we live, when we hear the disrespectful language which we are sometimes forced to hear from the lips of children toward their parents. The son or the daughter that cannot command her tongue in the presence of her parents, is a child that causeth shame.

That spirit of bold contradiction in which the young sometimes indulge themselves, is a degenerata and degenerating spirit; it soon becomes contempt and mockery. Angry emotions may be cherished that are never expressed, and that cover the face of an ingenuous child with blushes as soon as he detects them. Acts of overt disobedience such a child may have been guilty of, which, in after life, it wounds an honorable mind to look back upon. But what child, in whose bosom a spark of filial honor remains, is not humbled at the recollection that he ever indulged himself in words of reproach and impudence toward those whose memory he loves to dwell upon, and to whose tenderness and care he is so much indebted? We scarcely know how such language sounds; how it sounds to the ear of a well-educated and courteous stranger; how it sounds in the ear of heaven; and only know that it is music to the ears of bad men, and triumph among fiends. It tells a fearful and melancholy tale, whoever hears it. A backbiting tongue is the mark of those who” shall not abide in God’s tabernacle, nor dwell in his holy place.1’ The tongue of man is his glory; it is one of the great peculiarities by which he is distinguished from the lower orders of the animal creation. With deep and tender interest do parents watch this growing power of speech in their children; and when that beautiful and expressive faculty which they have so assiduously cultivated, and so proudly elicited, utters its words of contradiction, reproach, and mockery, the wound is deeper than though it were made by a drawn sword.

To speak with uniform respect to their parents, and of their parents; never to allow themselves in irreverent raillery at their parents’ expense, even amid the scenes of their more secluded mirth; to resist, at the onset, the temptation to passionate and provoking language, however great the cause of provocation; to repress all words of malice and of the “scorners who delight in their scorning;” to set a “watch upon the door of his lips,” and cultivate that courtesy which shrinks from wounding a parent’s feelings by an incautious, or unguarded word; is a tribute of respect which no dutiful child withholds.

Children honor their parents likewise hj filial and dutiful deportment. The language of the Bible on this topic cannot be misunderstood. It is addressed to us in such forms as these: — “Children, obey your parents in the Lord; children, obey your parents in all things; for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.” “Hear ye children the instruction of a father, and attend to know understanding.” “A son honoreth his father.” In carrying out the spirit of these instructions, they say, “Hearken unto the father that begat thee, and despise not thy mother when she is old.” The same general sentiment, though of more comprehensive import, is beautifully expressed by that requisition of the Levitical law, “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man.”

These tokens of outward respect, this docility, obedience, and kindness even to old age, constitute the great features of that external deportment which marks the filial character. A filial spirit is an obedient spirit; nor is it anywhere so severely brought to the test as by that absolute submission which is due to parental authority.

The disposition of children, in this article of their deportment, is widely different. Some there are who bluster and talk stoutly against submission to parental authority, and who for the moment refuse to obey; but who, like the young man in the parable, “afterwards repent,” and do what they are required to perform. Others there are, who are all courtesy and smiles in the presence of their parents; and who, while they never utter a disrespectful word, yet go away and persevere in their quiet and noiseless disobedience. We justify not the reluctant obedience of the former; but “of the twain,” it is the former who does the will of his parents. Few things are more grievous to a parent than the silent, unobtrusive and obstinate disobedience of the child whose language is, “I go, sir, but went not.” No child honors his parents like the one who promptly obeys. Whatever else such a child may be tempted to do, he never thinks of disobeying his parents; his parents’ will, clearly expressed, is to him invariable law.

Nor does he ever outgrow their authority where it is lawfully exercised. And even where the parents cease to exercise it, there are filial duties. There are the sentiments of reverence and kindness; there is respect for the opinions of parents, and deference to their wishes. In the frailty of old age, it may be amid misfortune and calamity, poverty and dependence, there is a strength of filial devotion that is gratified by ministering to parental wants and comforts, and there is a tenderness, an honest pride, that are gratified only by such tributes of affection.

With a single exception, the authority of the parent is absolute and universal. The child is relieved from his obligation to obedience, only where the law of the parent comes in collision with the law of God. He may enter into relations which modify, and in some particulars supersede his filial relations; the daughter may become a wife and mother, and the son a father and husband; and these latter relations, while they never annihilate, obviously modify the filial relation. Where the duty of the wife and the mother interferes with the duty of the daughter; or that of the husband and father interferes with that of the son; the daughter is more the wife and the mother than she is the daughter, and the son is more the husband and father, than he is the son. Collisions of this sort are very rare; where all the parties are wise, they will indeed never be found to exist; but where they do exist, the law of God relieves the child from his obligation to his parents. The wife must obey the husband, rather than the father; the husband must forsake father and mother, and “cleave unto his wife.” In all cases, God’s law is the paramount rule; and wherever the parent is either so weak, or so wicked, as to require what God has forbidden, or forbid what God has required; the child is under no obligation to obey. If the parent, for example, commands his child to steal, to curse and to swear, or to profane the Sabbath; or if he forbids the child from worshipping God, or from becoming a professed disciple of Jesus Christ, or from reading the Bible; it is the duty of the child, meekly, but firmly, to obey God rather than man. The parents’ claims are, and ever must be, subordinate to God’s. “Henceforth,” says the Apostle, “we know no man after the flesh.” “He that loveth father, or mother,” says the Saviour, “more than me, is not worthy of me.” The ties of kindred must give way to the ties of faith and love; every earthly consideration and alliance must bow to his claims who is our fathers’ God, as well as our God. Here the limitation ceases. Submission may be unpleasant; it may, and sometimes is, not a little trying to the feelings of the child; it may countervail his judgment, and he may consider his parents in error; but so long as it crosses not an enlightened conscience, a dutiful child, while he modestly retains his own convictions, will yield. He will consent to suffer in his feelings, his plans, his judgment, his interests, rather than be disobedient.

On this topic, I may not suppress the remark, that in all these expressions of affection and honor, both parents are entitled to share. Not more filial honor is due to the father, than to the mother; the law of God makes no difference. He guards the gentle, the weak, and the more affectionate. A mother’s claims are like a mother’s watchful and unceasing tenderness.

It is recorded to the lasting disgrace of the great Roman orator and statesman, and who next to Seneca and Cato, the censor, was one of the best men that Rome could boast of; that in all his writings he never mentions his mother. Not far from a thousand of his letters to his familiar friends are now extant, but though she lived to be the witness of her son’s advancement, and was herself a lady of patrician rank, the sacred name of mother is not found among them all. This is paganism; it is refined and polished paganism; but it is not the religion of the Bible.

“Honor thy father and thy mother;” “children, obey your parents f this is the language of God’s word; it is the spirit of the whole Book. Of the mother it is said, “Her children shall rise up and call her blessed.” Solomon, when he was exalted to the throne of Israel, “rose up to meet his mother, and bowed himself unto her, and sat down on his throne, and caused a seat to be placed for the king’s mother, and she sat on his right hand.” This is Bible religion. When Jesus of Nazareth hung on the cross, he did not forget his mother. Amid the horrors of that scene which put out the sun, and shook terribly the earth; it was not a grave for himself that he thought of, but a home for her. Among the three last sentences he uttered, were these touching words, “Woman, behold thy son;” and then turning to the disciple whom he loved, “Behold thy mother.” This is Christianity.

Sacred are the thoughts, holy the memories that are associated with the name of mother. Had she youth and vigor; they were exhausted in watching over the cradle of her children, or toiling while they slept, or were at play. Had she beauty; she veiled it but to the eye of her children; it withered in making them beautiful. Had she accomplishments, and was she fitted to shine in the circles of gaiety and fashion; she sought not these distinctions, it was her highest ambition to be employed in the culture of her children. Had she a taste for amusements; her children were her joy, she studied to subdue every rival claim, that her time, and thoughts, and all her fine perceptions might be devoted to her children. Had she prayers; they were offered for her children. Had she tears, it was for her children she shed them; smiles, it was to see them smile; fears, it was to shield them from apprehension; hopes and endeared objects to secure, it was that they might be a credit to themselves, to their parents, and to their race. Did she suffer; it was for them, and so far as it could be, that they might not suffer; and did she die, it was with their names upon her heart, and with lips pallid and cold, that she gave them her blessing.

I know not what to think of the child who allows himself to trifle with a mother’s claims. Yet have I seen such children, and have marked them. “Proud and haughty scorner is his name,” who scorns a mother’s authority. That son is to be held in very low estimate who is emboldened to disregard a mother’s wishes, or resist her com* mands, merely because God has given him the more physical strength. He gains the victory, but alas! such victories do but effect his ruin. There are few indications of a more rash, obdurate, and depraved mind, than is expressed in unfilial and undutiful deportment toward her who bare and cherished him, and who, if she has had anything to live for, it has been in and for her children.

These are plain and weighty duties, and there are not wanting plain and weighty considerations to enforce them. They are not the sympathies of our readers which we would fain enlist in. this part of our subject, so much as their conscience. We ask an unperverted and honest conscience to judge of these obligations, and make an appeal to them to follow its dictates. No conscience is beyond the reach of conviction on such a subject; nor is there a child or youth so fro ward that he can live an easy and quiet life in persevering disobedience to his parents, if he will give a candid hearing, and a due consideration to the following plain and obvious thoughts.

Among other reasons why this debt of children to their parents ought to be paid, is the fact that it is created by the law of nature, and enforced by the revealed law of God.

The law creating it is founded in the superiority of the parent, and the inferiority of the child. All men allow that this law exists. It is a palpable revolt against nature to question either the parent’s claim or the child’s duty. The most disobedient child no sooner becomes a parent, than he requires the duty and enforces the claim. The obligation is founded in natural sentiment, and demanded by its. own reasonableness. The obligation of justice, truth, and benevolence is not more real, nor more obvious, than this obligation of filial honor. Men in their wildest and most savage state recognize it; sages and philosophers who had but a mere ray of that moral sentiment which the Sun of Righteousness has thrown upon Christian lands, recognize it. So absolute did they regard the parent’s authority, that the laws of pagan lands, not a few, invested the parent even with the power of life and death over his children. The parent is not more the natural guardian of his child, than he is his natural lawgiver.

This law of nature is nothing less than the law of God; it is God’s voice speaking in nature, delivering this edict through human reason, and enforcing it by the natural impressions of the human mind. He utters the same voice in the sacred writings. The natural relation between the parent and the child is the groundwork of that revealed precept, “Honor thy father and thy mother;” “children, obey your parents in the Lord.” This is God’s law, who alone has a right to give law to all the inhabitants, and all the families of the earth. Children may be tempted to think that their parents usurp authority over them; but it is authority which God, the great Lawgiver, has put into their hands: in complaining of it, they complain of God, and in resisting it, they resist the ordinance of God. The duty of submission to it is as plain as it can be made by the revealed will of the almighty Legislator; revolt from it is rebellion against the Lord and proprietor of all things, and may well be followed by deep convictions of conscience, and deep repentance.

Nor is it an arbitrary law. “Obey your parents in the Lord,” says the apostle, “for this is right” It ought to satisfy us that God wills filial obedience, and that his wisdom and goodness stand pledged for the rectitude, the excellence of the precept. But the Lawgiver condescends to vindicate this law. And who will challenge either its excellence or wisdom? Every virtuous mind approves it; no child looks upon it as arbitrary or oppressive, whose reason is not perverted, and whose conscience and heart are not steeled against all right influences. The domestic relations need such a law, to preserve them from anarchy; the young need it, to keep them from premature ruin; the world needs it, else it would be ah ungoverned world.

It deserves consideration, that this law holds the first place in the great code of laws which relates to the duties which men owe to one another. In the first table, God himself holds the first place, as he ought to do. In the second table, obedience to parents holds the first place; nor are there wanting important reasons for giving it this pre-eminence. It is the first of all the subordinate relatians among men; it lies at the root of all other relations; and where the spirit of insubordination exists in this relation, it prevails elsewhere.

Next to the divine government, the first government instituted in every age of time is the patriarchal. So inseparable is obedience to parents from all the moral and social virtues, that this command has universally been regarded by ethical writers as comprehending all those duties which grow out of the various relations of human society. The relation between parent and child is the seminal relation between the government and the subject, the master and the servant, the guardian and the ward, the superior and the subordinate.

If the spirit and habits of insubordination are not formed in early life, the probability is, that they will never be formed. The man struggles with his exacting will and his imperious passions, because the child did not struggle with them; and he remains an uncomfortable and jostling member of society, because he was not trimmed into shape, and form, and order, in the days of his youth. His character is formed, not by talent merely; nor yet by genius and industry; but in close alliance with these, by that vigorous self-discipline and self-control which commences, and is, in no small degree, perfected by his filial obedience.

That impatience of restraint and headlong impulsiveness in a certain class of minds, and that sullen and dogged obduracy in another class, on which such multitudes make shipwreck, is here restrained and subdued. There is a large class of persons that will not be taught except by experience; and it is pity that they are not taught in early life. The mass of those who learn the lesson at a later period, usually learn it by experience dearly bought. If the testimony of others does not influence them; if their own observation does not; if the wrecks of fortune and fame which the tide of ungoverned passion has thrown upon the lee-shore of human life do not, and they abandon themselves to the tardy correction of their own errors; this one thing is certain, that they must be sufferers. Nothing will teach them but suffering; nor is it the less severe, because they have brought it upon themselves, nor the less mortifyiug, because they might have avoided it. Well will it be, if the trials they encounter, and the shame they endure, prove not, like the punishment of Cain, “greater than they can bear.” With reduced hopes, and abased pride, they sink below their proper level; below their prospects and condition, below their domestic alliances, and far below their original purposes. And no thanks to themselves, and it may be, no thanks to their parents, if they are not at last found among the “loafers” of society, and because more and more exacting, less and less satisfied with themselves and all around them.

Good citizens are formed from dutiful children. Sons are good husbands, and daughters good wives, who first learned to be dutiful children. I would never seek a disobedient daughter for a wife; nor does that lady give proof of discernment, who accepts a disobedient son as her husband. Were I a merchant, I would not -seek a clerk; were I a mechanic, I would not seek an apprentice; a ship-master, I would not, unless it were from motives of compassion, ship a seaman, from a family where children had never learned subordination to their parents. Well-governed families are the best security for a well-governed and happy community; obedience to parents is, in its own nature, fitted to form such a community; and more especially where this early habit is the fruit of religious training, that dutiful and amiable spirit which is enjoined by the fifth commandment constitutes one of the most important elements of moral character. It is one of the strongest restraints from evil, while the honored parent lives; and even long after that revered head sleeps in the dust, will it be found one of the great conservative principles of the child, if not among the selectest instrumentalities of leading him to the practice of godliness. Those tears are not shed in vain, with which a dutiful child waters his parent’s grave; on that green turf, flowers grow that never lose their bloom.

This debt of children to their parents is also a debt of honor. The claim of the parent is one of those rights which can never be perfectly enforced by human laws; no human authority can enforce the fulfilment of this sacred obligation. It makes its appeal to the magnanimity of the child. Laws deeply engraven on the inner man enforce it. It is the adornment of the child when he punctually meets the claim. He has no brighter earthly crown. The wreath is fresh and green, and on its leaves is found the honey-dew of his youth. “My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother; for they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.” Vain ostentation and empty decorations are they which so many of the young seek after, compared with that becoming, filial deportment, which wins the affections and conciliates the confidence of the wise and good.

For the consideration and respect of their fellow-men, the young are more beholden to their filial character and deportment, than to their external condition. We respect the humble child of poverty, who honors his parents; while we have no respect for the proud and degenerate progeny of affluence, who, because he can shake his purse in the face of his parents, despises and dishonors them. What lustre does it throw around the character of a child that he uniformly treats his parents with affection and respect; that he is watchful of their claims and wishes, and even jealous of himself, and timorous lest he should be betrayed into rudeness, or even into those unfilial faults that are the result of inattention! A most beautiful characteristic of a well-bred child, is this delicacy of filial sentiment. Sweet is the remembrance, as he looks back upon by-gone years, if he can say he never inflicted a pang in the bosom of his parents. Men there are who would be more grateful, and prouder than they are, if they could honestly make this declaration their own. I may not stop to analyze it, if I could; there is a cord in the human bosom, every fibre of which vibrates to this claim of honor.

We dwell on such recorded instances of filial piety with pleasure; history takes pains to narrate them, and sometimes with more than her usual beauty and elegance. If Virgil had purposed to exhibit the hero of the ^Enead in the most attractive colors, he could not have selected a finer scene than that in which iEneas is represented as bearing on his shoulders his aged and blind father Anchises from the flames of Troy. If the infirmities and decrepitude of old age meet with indifference anywhere, let it not be found in the bosom of filial partiality and tenderness. Every sentiment of honor forbid it! When a Campanian lady made a display of her jewels at the house of Cornelia, the daughter of Scipio Africanus, and entreated her to favor her with a sight of her own in return; she produced her two sons, and said, Hcec mea ornamental these are my jewels! Roman resentment could not quench a mother’s pride; and while it sacrificed the two Gracchi, perpetuated their fame.

No valley of human life is so humble, nor are any of its scenes so tragic, but such instances of filial attachment give beauty to the vale, and interest to the tragedy. The most beautiful example of this is found in the conduct of One with whose character you are all familiar. The youthful Son of Mary might be supposed to be exempt from this obligation; yet it is recorded of him, that “he was subject to his parents.” He acknowledged the relationship, and he paid the debt. They had caressed and nourished him; they had cared for him, labored for him, prayed for him; and he honored them. Let the bold and froward youth, who is never shame-faced except at the unwelcome thought of submission to his parents, remember, that He whom angels worship, was honored by honoring his father and his mother.

What man would not be humbled and ashamed to stand over his parents’ tomb, and be constrained to remember that lie had lived to do little more than grieve and dishonor them? All sin is dishonorable and base; men cannot commit it, and respect themselves, or be respected. The apostle Paul, in enumerating the sins of the heathen, includes filial disobedience in the same category with crimes the most base and dishonorable: —” Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents? An honorable mind shrinks from such associations. It requires great hardihood for a disobedient child to put a bold face upon such baseness. The consciousness of it disconcerts him; the remembrance of it in maturer years will cover his face with blushes. It gives a right-minded man a low opinion of himself, that he has treated his parents with disrespect and unkindness; it is a punishment to him to think of it, and he feels a secret compunction at his own dishonor.

Nor is this all. The faithful discharge of this filial obligation has its reward. The Apostle, speaking of the precept which enjoins filial piety, remarks, that it is the first command with promise;” intending by this remark to give emphasis to the thought, that however God might more liberally reward the obedience of a pious child hereafter, it should not be without its reward in the present world. The language of the law is, “Honor thy father and thy mother, tlmt thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” As a general rule of God’s providence, long life and prosperity are the allotment of dutiful children. There are no doubt moral causes to be assigned for this arrangement, both remote and proximate; because a dutiful child is more usually a virtuous man, and human life and comfort are not a little dependent on those moral virtues which grow out of a filial spirit. On the other hand, an undutiful child is more usually a bad and vicious man; and human life is made miserable and shortened, and secular enterprise withers under those traits of immoral character which grow out of a spirit that is unfilial.

But whatever be the causes, the promise itself is made good. It would be an important chapter in political economy, which should patiently trace the connection between filial piety and competence, comfort, and usefulness; and which should also trace the connection between poverty, suffering, disappointed hopes, and a premature grave, and disobedience to parents. Could we lift the veil and look into the interior of the domestic relations, and could we read the secret history of providence; we should find this great principle of the divine government abundantly disclosed and confirmed by facts. We hazard little in saying, that if you look to those in this land, in this metropolis, and in your own sphere of observation, who prosper in the world, you will not find them among those who grew up to manhood disobedient, contemptuous, insolent children.

I have marked the history of many rich men, and men of influence in this community, and have inquired into the history of others; and I have not found one among them all who was the grief of his parents. God approves the deportment of the dutiful son and the dutiful daughter, and rewards it. It is with some hesitation that the writer utters what he is now about to say; nor would he do so, if the families to which he refers could be identified by any of his readers. It may be supposed that having, for more than forty years, the charge of a large congregation, and being officially familiar with domestic scenes and trials not a few, as their pastor and counsellor, he should have treasured some important facts on this painful subject. He has done so; and in looking back upon those who were children when he assumed his pastoral charge, he well remembers those who were distinguished for their insubordinate spirit, and for the misery they brought into the domestic circle. Nor can lie recollect one of them who is not now either struggling with poverty and dishonor, or else in his grave.

For the most part such young men have not “lived out half their days.” One there was, whose presence was the breaking up of all tranquillity

VOL. II. — 10 and happiness in his father’s house, and whose conduct brought down those gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. His history is briefly told. He became a wanderer and a vagabond, and after struggling with disease and suffering, found an early death, and sleeps now in yonder distant graveyard among the hills of the Hudson. There was another, an only son, rude and exacting, wilful and unsubdued, the heir-apparent of wealth and honor, who found his home in the States’ Prison, and who sleeps in dishonor “where the prisoners rest together.” There was another, not only an only son, but an only child, who inherited a large fortune, whose filial disobedience plunged him into low vices, and who died at the mid-day of manhood weeping over his folly, and whose body rests within a mile of the spot where I am writing. There was another, who had no vice but that of profanity, and a temper which, in his domestic intercourse, was often enraged almost to madness, who, at the age of eighteen, was the first officer of a ship that sailed out of Boston; but he died before he reached his twentieth year. “With tears, his mother once said to me, “I am thankful there is such a place as the sea.” And there was another, carefully trained up and tenderly cherished, who survived his father only to break a widowed mother’s heart. Feeble and timorous woman as she was, she was wont to go at midnight to seek him out in some of the purlieus of the theatre. He became too ungovernable fop the land, and on the ocean his insubordinate spirit subjected him to such severities, that he never returned to tell the tale of cruelty. He did not die under the lash, but sickened and died of his wounds in one of the West India islands.

Go to the almshouse, if you wish to see disobedient children. Go to the prison, and you will see them there. Go to the gallows, and you will see them there. Many is the heart-rending confession which the officers of justice and the ministers of religion have listened to at the scaffold, that the beginning of the mad career which brought the culprit to his untimely end was his disobedience to his parents. I no longer expect to see a disobedient child, and one whose disobedience grows upon him, prosper. Such a child may change his course and become penitent and reformed, and, so far as it is in his power, undo what he has done; but if his repentance comes not with his early manhood, he will bear the burden to his grave. He that has seen a thoroughly practised son of disobedience ever turning out an honorable and useful man, has at least “one marvellous thing to tell of.”

The God of heaven is watchfully observant of the conduct of children toward their parents. He is no indifferent spectator of that kind spirit and those refreshing smiles which light up the hopes of parents, and breathe their sweetness into the domestic circle. Nor does he look with indifference on those angry frowns, and that rebellious spirit which depress a parent’s hopes, and keep the domestic circle in fermented apprehension. When that discouraged father and that heart-broken mother bow in secret to tell Ilim their despondency and their griefs, those bitter cries enter into his ears. That anguish children trifle with, God regards. Those apprehensions which distress the parent, He cannot bear any more than they. Let no wayward son or daughter imagine that the Governor of the universe wraps himself up in dark clouds, and sits there silent and unseeing. Let every youth know, that, so long as God is on the throne, it is not safe thus to wring a parent’s heart. The widow’s God and Judge, and the parent’s Avenger is he in his holy habitation.

The instructions of the Bible on this part of our subject are fearfully solemn and affecting. Poor Ham and Canaan! Bleeding Africa, what lessons hast thou been reciting to the young! And they are the first lesson read to the world just recovered from the Flood. I have heard a son damn his father; and I could not but call to mind the law, “Every one that curseth his father or his mother, shall be surely put to death!1’’ I have seen stubborn and rebellious sons, who “would not obey the voice of their father, nor the voice of their mother;” and when they chastened them, would not hearken; and I thought of those words, “All the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die” The God of heaven looked upon such a child as not fit to live. And though this was Jewish law, the lesson which it teaches is for Jew and Gentile. The child that despises parental instruction and rebuke, that tramples on parental authority, and instead of those tokens of gratitude for parental affection which nature dictates, and God requires and honors, returns evil for good, and cursing for blessing, is a giant in iniquity, and furnishes an example of such hardened impiety as strikes the mind with horror. Sooner or later the judgments of heaven shall overtake such a man. I have seen such men, hanging in gibbets by the highway, in other lands, and on the banks of great rivers, with their flesh decayed, and birds of prey hovering over them, and their bones bleaching in the wind; and I remembered that it is written, “The eye that mocketh at his father, and refuseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.”

Perhaps I shall incur censure by the remark with which I am to close this long chapter. Yet is it forced from my bosom. It relates to the growth and increase of this aggravated sin of disobedience to parents in the land in which we live. Every eye sees them, every ear hears them, every parent knows them. Public sentiment in this land has a strong tendency to the conclusion, that rulers and subjects, teachers and pupils, masters and servants, parents and children, are here free and equal! This is too much the doctrine of the land, and of the age. It is to some extent the natural growth of our free institutions. The current of the public mind is strong toward the breaking down of all distinctions among men. There may be, and there is, not a little that is valuable in such views, in opposition to the claims of an arrogant aristocracy; but the domestic relations are not the place for them. There is one circle where the doctrine of equal rights, unrestricted liberty, and universal fraternity must be repudiated; that circle is a well-governed family. Be the advocates of this doctrine elsewhere, if you will; but let patriarchal government stand on the firm basis on which God has placed it. Men may break asunder the bonds between the parent and the child; but woe be to the man and the pen that does this accursed work!

We sometimes tremble when we look at the signs of the times. It may require greater watchfulness than even the more sober and reflecting possess, to. stem this tide of popular opinion. It may demand more determined resolution than even the resolute boast of to prevent the loosest and rankest notions of government from corrupting the domestic relations and annihilating the spirit of subordination. With all our civil privileges, the difficulty is no small one, of instilling this spirit into the minds of the young. There is reason to believe that in no Christian land is the difficulty so great, and the temptations to filial disobedience so many, and so strong. The young boast themselves that they live under a free government, and will not be in bondage to parental restraint. From the restrictions of domestic authority, they make their appeal to public opinion; and instead of encountering universal frowns, and meeting from on every side the cry of shame! shame! their undutiful and revolting spirit finds abettors, and they are implicitly encouraged in their rebellion. Instead of covering their faces with confusion, and being covered with reproach, they speak loftily and bear themselves like princes.

As men, as parents, as the friends of liberty and the rights of man, we enter our solemn protest against all these loose and pernicious notions. Much more do we protest against them, as God’s ambassadors, and in his name, set in array against them the unchanging edict of his holy law. The thought may never be lost sight of, that this great law changes not with the changing maxims of the world, the changing forms of human governments, nor the changing habits of human society. It is ever the same, and in every land. There is no relief from it, either in lands that are pagan, or Christian. It is not less binding under governments where, from the excess of liberty, there are strong temptations and great facilities to disregard it, than under governments where aristocratic influence, or despotic power give stringency to the parent’s authority, and where public opinion frowns with severity on filial disobedience. This law of heaven is everywhere silently going into effect; it is everywhere being executed, whatever may be the views and usages of men. God’s blessing is all the while descending upon the obedient, and his curse upon the disobedient.

Much does the writer wish that he could address his countrymen on this topic as its importance demands. There is a spirit abroad in this land, which is corrupting our social institutions at this their fountain-head. It will not be many years before this truth will be realized, and it will be seen only to be lamented, that there are powerful influences at work which are gradually and rapidly relaxing the bonds of filial obligation. We feel that they are agencies greatly to be deplored, because they are at war with God, and at war with the highest and best character, and interests, of the rising generation. Yet do they .find abettors everywhere around us; they are fostered by every form of political and religious radicalism; fourierism, with unblushing infidelity and ungodliness avows them; while even our modest democracy is unconsciously supplying the secret aliment on which they live.

I say not these things as a politician, but as a moralist, and a defender of laws that are of higher than human authority. If, with all their excellence, our political institutions are exposed to this abuse, well may we take the alarm. The true friends of civil liberty will find their hopes defeated, just in the measure in which filial insubordination becomes rampant. The Bible is the great charter of human liberty; but it is liberty with order; it has a place for everything, and puts everything in its place; a place for the parent, and a place for the child. It may be quite unfashionable for children to honor their parents; a dutiful child may be the laughing-stock of his companions, and full-grown men may justify him in breaking away from parental restraint; but God’s eye is upon him for good, or evil, as he obeys, or disobeys his immutable law. It matters not where he is born, nor how he is educated, nor to what extent the spirit of disobedience prevails around him, nor how popular the principles by which a wayward spirit is justified; there stands the law, “Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long in the land which 10* the Lord thy God giveth thee.” Men may lose sight of it; parents and children may lose sight of it; the halls of legislation, the courts of justice, the press and the pulpit even may lose sight of it; but there is One who will not lose sight of it. God never changes; his principles never alter; his law never alters. The spirit of disobedience to your parents, my young friends, may fall in with the spirit of the age; but it falls out with the immutable principles of the divine government Men may seduce you, and flatter and honor your disobedience; but God will rebuke and dishonor you. He will “curse your blessings;” he will “corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces,” in this world; and in the next, he will set his mark upon you, and shut you out of his kingdom. Dishonor your parents, and you give the devil the advantage he is seeking, in order to bind you in his chains. Honor them, and you will thus far honor God, and will be honored of God and man. You will make your parents happy, and it will be no grief of heart to you. How few causes of domestic misery would there be, if children were dutiful! How refreshing the smiles that light up such a circle! Such are the families where God is wont to be honored, and where he is wont to dwell. Next to his church, they exert the great conservatory influence in this lost world. Amid all its wickedness and woe, in such families as these, is found one of the great redeeming qualities of the race; they stand as way-marks, indicating the entrance to the path of life.

Blame me not that I use great plainness of speech, and that I am urgent in this expostulation. No class of men are more influenced by the popular breeze, than the young. They are apt to float with the current, and their hopes and principles are tossed upon the changeful billows. Take heed, therefore, that you be not driven by the tempest, nor engulphed by the storm. It is not a pure and tranquil, but an ignited and tempestuous atmosphere which you are breathing. You may be the sport of the breeze, and rest your hopes in the undulating waves of public opinion; but there is only one firm resting-place in this changing world. God is a rock; his work is perfect. It is only here, that hope casts her anchor safely. This rock of ages lifts its head high above the billows. The law of the Lord is perfect; his word abideth forever.