The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-12-07

mon Rev. F, Dc MIL IuiudBe utiehS words of counsel to parents and children from the text Proverbs xxx. 1T. ''The eye that mocketh at his father and despis- eth to obey his mother the ravens of the valley shall pick It out and the young eagles shall eat it..
 Horrible is the Solomonic word picture. The gibbet, the stenchfui corpse the skeleton protrudins through the torn and mortifyins flesh. the feathered german dizers banqueting upon the carrion, the changing, rusty chains holding aloft the putrefying mass-these are the theme of my text. It Is a warning to all boys and girls, as we'll as to all grown men and women, that filiable contempt Is never justifabie in Gods sight No matter what our parents may do or say, we must always respect and honor them, be- cause they are our father and mother. If we ever allow ourselves to despise them. then we shall incur the anger of God. who by one of the Ten Command ments explicitly enjoined that parents be honored by their offspring. And with that command public opinion Is fully in accord. The son who dishonors his par ents is despised in his life, and his very memory Is gibbeted by public contumely after his death. He iE held up to public scorn and derision, as were the ancient robbers and state criminals. whose heads used to be stuck upon long poles and for weeks exposed to public view from the top of the arch of London Temple Bar, until at last all the flesh disappeared and nothing. remained but the bleached skulls.
 But though God denounces children who despise their parents. no matter how heinous the parental sins and shortcom- ings may be- yet as I begin to study my text in its connection with other pass ages of scripture the more I find that many of the most common filiai sins can be traced back to parental sins Some years ago, upon the Holstein ranch in California, three little orioles were taken from a nest and confined within bird cage. No sooner was this done than the mother bird appeared and tried to liber- ate her young. Failing in this, she flew away and brought to her inearcerated babies a sprig of the deadly larkspur. Tn a few minutes those three fiedglings with foaming mouths lay dead in the bottom of the cage. If the mother bird could not free her young. then she preferred to kill them How often, alas, have human par ents seen their offspring in a captivity to sin to which death would have been pref erable, and the saddest reflection they can have Is that this captivity Is the re- suit of the moral poison they have them selves administered. By thoughtless mis- takes and culpable negligence they may have inspired their children with a con- tempt for themselves which has been the beginning of an evil life. ending in spirit ual death.
 I shall try this morning to enumerate some of the shortcomings and sins into which neglectful and selfish and sinful parents have fallen in their dealings with their children. I would enumerate those parental sins because the inspired author who penned the words of my text Is also the Solomon who wrote that if conse- orated, godly parents would train up a child in the way he should go, when he ie grown that matured child would not only be loyal to his earthly parents, but also to his Heavenly Father.
 Parental PartiaIity.
 All parents, in the first place. should show their children that they have no parental favorites. They should prove that all the children as individuals have an equal share of fathers and a moth er's love They should convince their boys and girls alike that no one child oc-
 
 heart cells than every other child, for when a child begins to feel that a father or mother does not care for him as much as the rest of the children that child im- mediately begins to despise, that .paren- tai ,partiaiity Love feeds on love- And yet there are thousands upon thousands of homes in America in which you would not have to visit more than two or three days before you could, while there, tell h trh tfo lAA That child will perhaps be better dressed, as old Jacob aroused the jealousy of his o...er children by buying for his favorite boy, Joseph. coat of many colors. That child will have better room in the house than the other children. He will have more spending money; he will be allowed to do what the other children are not allowed to do On the other hand, the child which Is not the parental fa- vorite will often be showed into the back ground or sent away to the country, as Jesse sent his youngest son, David, off to tend the sheep. It Is easy enough for parents to say that they have no favor ites but the words of the lip do not al- ways correspond with the facts of the life. At nearly every funeral of a little child which I have attended in my pas toral work have heard statement like this made by the side of the white Cd5hSt. II lS tOO Ddd the ltLl6 One was taken She was her fathers or mothers favorite. Now before God today de- clare that no parent has a right to have a favorite child-no favorite unless that child Is a born idiot or an invalid or one who should be cared for and guarded the more carefully because of his or her helpiessness. The fraternal hatred exist ing between Esau and Jacob can be di- rectly attributed to Isaac's favoritism for his eldest son and Rebekah's favoritism for her younger boy. And many and many a home is broken up today be- cause fathers and mothers will persist in showing preference for one child at the expense of the affection they ought to show for their other children. Parental favoritsm has caused many a boy or girl to be skeptical of fathers or a mothers love-the same kind of skepticism which, in India, little girl had who few years ego made signif- cant comparison to an American mis- sionary Tn India daughter is supposed to be of such a low order or creation | that some Mohammedan priests assert l that women have no souls and no here | after And so one day when this little | girl was trying to describe Gods love | for her sex she said. why, 1t is the smallest love in the world. if 1t Is a love" How small is that?" asked the | lady missionary. "Oh, very, very small | But how small?' Why" answered the
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