The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1866-03-08
[FOR THE CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN. ]
Letters on Family Religion,
NUMRER LII.

BROOKLYN, February 27, 1866.
My dear Friend, Religious impress
sions received at home are among the in
delible memories of childhood. The in
structions of pious parents are never
entirely forgotten. They throw the
strongest restraints around the passions
of maturer years, they are the most eff
cient means God ever employs to convert
and sanctify the soul. The whole histo-
ry of the Church bears ample and en-
phatic testimony on the subject. While
it is true that grace does not run in the
blood and cannot be transmitted from
father to son by ordinary generation; it
is also true, that the Word of God is a
divine and incorruptible seed, and is never
more likely to become efectual Cor re
generation and eternal life than when
it is implanted in the soul of child by
the discipline, instruction and worship OF
a Christian household. The notion that
family religion has a tendency to dis
gust children with religion is as unphil-
osophical in theory as it is inconsistent
with fact. The oft-repeated sayings
about ministers and deacons' children
being worse than others, are mere scan
dal, magnifying an exceptional case into
a general rule. The records of the
Church tell a very different story; and
any candid observer of the course Of
human society must admit that families
piously brought up have the best promise
for the life which now is, as well as for
that which is to come. 1t is true, in
deed, that even the worship of God in
the family may be perverted, and its le-
gitimate influence spoiled, by formality,
sourness, and zeal not according to
knowledge. Even child will discern
and despise the hypocrisy of parent
who undertakes to play the part of mere
fnger-po8t in the way of salvation. A
father who swears at his son in order to cure
him of profanity, can hardly expect to
succeed. A mother who frets, and
scolds, and whines about the religious
conduct of her children must not be sur
prised if such persuaSives to early piety
yield nothing but disappointment and
bitterness. And, if there ever was a
case ike that of the Deacon in the fami-
liar anecdote, who said to his boys, "go
into the store and put the water into the
vinegar barrel, and wet the sugar well,
and then come Immediately in to family
worship" of course, such parental in
struction is even worse than an utter
neglect of religion.
But such cases are not common. The sto-
ries that are toldto show how children are
disgusted with religion by being taught
its obligations too strictly, are almost al
ways apocryphal Indeed, in most cases,
they are wicked and weak inventions to
escape responsibility, and throw the blame
of evil courses upon others. Men who
have spostatized from the God of their
fathers, (for there are exceptional cases,
in which the children of pious families,
initiate the example of the profane Esau,
and sell their birthright for a mess of
pottage,) attempt to Justify themselves
by throwing reproach upon the ashes of
pious parents, and attributing the i'm
penitence of their ripper years to the
strictness of their Christian education.
But the subterfuge is as mean as it is
false. 1t does not deceive the conscience
of any intelligent man, and often, when
it is fippantly repeated by the lips, the
heart of the speaker reproaches him for
his fial ingratitude.
You, my, friend, cannot escape from
the obligation to do your duty to your
family sincerely and prudently, by the
plea that others undertake it in a hypo-
critical or unwise manner. Many a man
makes his table snare; some by gluttony,
others by ayaricious meanness, others by
brutal severity, disgust their own children
with their meals. Is that sufficient rea-
son why you should make no attempt to
mingle sweet charities and refining infu.
ences with the associations of the family
bsard5 VIII ySu, in order sfactually tC