A PARENT.

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Original.

THE MOTHERS OF THE BIBLE.

THE MOTHERS OF ISRAEL AT HOREB.

We beg those readers of this Magazine who have had the patience to follow us thus far in our study, now to open their Bibles with an earnest invocation of the aid of that Spirit who indited the sacred pages, and so far from being satisfied with the meager thoughts which we are able to furnish, we entreat that they will bend diligently to the work of ascertaining the real interest which we and all the mothers of earth have in the scenes which transpired at the foot of Horeb’s holy mount.  To the instructions there uttered, the mighty ones of every age,—­the founders of empires, statesmen, law-givers, philanthropists, patriots, and wise men, have sought for their noblest conceptions, and their most beneficent regulations, and it would be impossible to estimate the influence of those instructions upon all the after history of the world.  But if the Almighty there revealed himself as the God of kingdoms, the all-wise and infinitely good Ruler of men in a national capacity, not less did He make himself known as the God of the family, and his will there made known regulating the mutual relations of parents and children, has been at once the foundation and bulwark of all that has been excellent or trustworthy in family government from that day to this.

It is impossible, in the brief space allotted to us, that we should begin to give any adequate view of the subject which here opens before us, or follow out fully a single one of the many trains of thought to which it gives rise.

At Horeb, Jehovah, amid fire and smoke, and in that voice which so filled with terror all that heard, first inculcated the duty of filial piety on all the future generations of men.  Filial piety! how much it implies.  It stands at the head of the duties enjoined from man to man.  It comes next in order to those which man owes to his Maker.  It inculcates on the part of children toward their parents feelings akin to those which he has required toward Himself, and far surpassing any which he demands toward any other human being.  It speaks of reverence, of a love superior to ordinary affection, of unqualified submission and obedience.  “Honor thy father and thy mother” is the solemn command, and the comments which infinite wisdom has made on it, scattered up and down on the pages of inspiration, throw light on its length and breadth, and on the heinous nature of the sin which is committed in its infringement.  “Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father, and keep my Sabbaths; I am the Lord.”  In the Jewish law, a man who smote his neighbor must be smitten in return; but “he that smiteth father or mother shall be surely put to death.”  “He that curseth,” or as it more exactly reads, “he that disparages or speaks lightly of his parents, or uses contemptuous language to them, shall surely be put to death.”  “If