Father and Son! what more beautiful words are there in the world?  What more beautiful sight is there in the world than a son who really loves his father, really trusts his father, really does his duty to his father, really looks up to and obeys his father’s will in all things? who is ready to sacrifice his own credit, his own pleasure, his own success in life, for the sake of his father’s comfort and honour?  How much more fair and noble must be the love and trust which is between God the Father and God the Son!

I wish that some of those who now write so many excellent books for young people, would write one made up entirely of stories of good sons who have obeyed, and worked for, and suffered for their parents.  Sure I am that such a book, wisely and well written, would teach young people much of the meaning of the blessed name of God, much of their duty to God.  And yet, after all, my friends, is not such a book written already?  Have we not the four Gospels, which tell us of Jesus Christ, the perfect Son, who came to do the will of a perfect Father?  Read that; read your Bibles.  Read the history of the Lord Jesus Christ, keeping in mind always that it is the history of the Son of God, and of His obedience to His Father.  And when in St. John’s most wonderful Gospel you meet with deep texts, like the one which I have chosen, read them too as carefully, if possible more carefully, than the rest; for they are meant for all parents and for all children upon earth.  Read how The Father loves The Son, and gives all things into His hand, and commits all judgment to The Son, and gives Him power to have life in Himself, even as The Father has life in Himself, and shows Him all things that Himself doeth, that all men may honour The Son even as they honour The Father.  Read how The Son came only to show forth His Father’s glory; to be the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person:  to establish His Father’s kingdom; to declare the goodness of His Father’s Name, which is The Father.  How He does nothing of Himself, but only what He sees His Father do; how He seeks not His own will, but the will of the Father who sent Him; how He sacrificed all, yea even His most precious body and soul upon the cross, to finish the work which His Father gave Him to do.  How, being in the form of God, and thinking it no robbery to be equal with God, He could boldly say, ’As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father.  I and my Father are one:’  and still, in the fulness of His filial love and obedience, declared that He had no will, no wish, no work, no glory, but His Father’s; and in the hour of His agony cried out, ’Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me:  nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.’