But, on the other hand, the obligation of the child is, to obey the parent in all things lawful and Christian.  Where this is not done the Christian home becomes a curse.  What an evil is a refractory child!  How often does the parental eye weep in bitterness over such a child!  How often have such children brought their parents down in sorrow to the grave!  Let them think of this.  Let parents think of this before it is too late.  Let them think of the fearful criminality which is attached to parental indulgence and filial disobedience.

We may neglect and abuse the home-government in two ways, either by over-indulgence, or by the iron rod of tyranny.  When we make it lax in its restraints and requisitions, it becomes merely nominal, and its laws are never enforced and obeyed.  Often parents voluntarily relinquish their right and duty to rule their household; and as a consequence, their children abandon the duty of obedience, and grow up in a lawless state; or if they do command, they never execute their commands, but leave all to the discretion of their children.  They violate their laws with impunity, until all influence over them is lost, and the child becomes master of the parent.  The self-will of the former takes the place of the authority of the latter, until at last the home-government becomes a complete farce and mockery.  Such parents are always making laws and giving commands; but never enforce them; they complain that they cannot get their children to obey them; and this cannot is but the utterance and exponent of their unfaithfulness and disgrace.

The opposite abuse of home-government is parental despotism,—­ruling with a rod of iron, making slaves of children, acting the unfeeling and heartless tyrant over them, assuming towards them attitudes of hard task-masters, and making them obey from motives of trembling, fear and dread.

There is no christianity in all this.  It engenders in them the spirit of a slave; it roots out all confidence and love; their obedience becomes involuntary and mechanical.  They shrink in silent dread from the presence of their parents, and long for the time when they can escape their galling yoke.  The parental rod destroys the filial love and confidence.  Hence the obedience of the latter is servile; and home loses its tender affections and sympathies, and becomes to them a workhouse, a confinement; its restrictions are a yoke; its interests are repulsive, and all its natural affinities give way to complete alienation.  The children of such homes, when grown up, are the most lawless and reckless, ready at once to pass over from extreme servitude to libertinism.

The government of the Christian home lies in a medium between these two extremes.  It is mild, yet decisive, firm; not lawless, yet not despotic; but combines in proper order and harmony, the true elements of parental authority and filial subordination.  Love and fear harmonize; the child fears because he loves; and is prompted to obedience by both.  “But give thy son his way, he will hate thee and scorn thee together.”