Filial obedience.
Esther was an adopted child. Her debt to Mordecai was very great, for nurture, care, training, and affection. And she was not forgetful of her obligation; she gladly repaid the solicitude of her cousin by her gratitude, reverential regard, and filial obedience. The habit of obedience continued in after life. As far as was consistent with the higher relation of married life, she maintained her grateful and affectionate subjection to her kinsman. If this was right and just, how evidently is it a duty for children carefully to display and exercise the virtue of filial obedience.
I. THE HABIT OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE SHOULD BE FORMED EARLY. It is of very little use for a parent to begin to exercise authority, to require obedience, in after life. If the child has not from its infancy been accustomed to obey, it is highly improbable that the habit will be formed in youth.
"'Tis education forms the youthful mind;
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined."
There is reason to fear that in our days more children are ruined by indulgence than by harshness; multitudes by the foolish alternation of the two opposite and equally pernicious modes of treatment. If early formed, the habit of obedience will "grow with the child's growth, and strengthen with his strength."
II. THE DEMANDS UPON FILIAL DUTY SHOULD BE REASONABLE. There was occasion for the admonition, "Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath." Capricious and arbitrary requirements are destructive of all respect, and will only secure compliance whilst there is no power to withhold it. Little children cannot always understand the reason for parental injunctions and prohibitions. But it is wise, as children grow up, to show them the justice and expediency of household regulations, etc. Tyranny on the part of the parent is likely to awaken resentment or to foster deceit on the part of the child.
III. AFFECTION AND GRATITUDE WILL MAKE OBEDIENCE EASY AND DELIGHTFUL. There may be a stage in a child's education when compulsion is necessary and proper; but, generally speaking, the appeal must be that of love to love. A parent's will is a child's law where the parent is wise and the child is grateful and affectionate.
IV. THE REVERENCE AND OBEDIENCE OF CHILDREN SHOULD, WITHIN LIMITS, BE CONTINUED IN MATURER LIFE. A wife's obligations are primarily towards her husband. Still there is force in the English proverb, "A daughter's a daughter all her life." Still she will not forget her father's house, her mother's love. God's blessing ever rests upon this beautiful virtue of filial love and obedience. This was expressed in the commandment with promise, "Honour thy father," etc.