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what we are to believe concerning God
but also what duty God requires of us:
"Thou shall love the Lord thy God with
all thine heart, and with all thy soul
and with all thy might." This, as you
will remember, is the passage cited by
our Lord as the first and groat coonmandnicnt
of the I jaw. And it is a commandment
which is "peculiar to revealed
religion. (That is only to say, in other
words, that it presupposes redemption.)
We could not imagine such a precept in
the religion of Greece or of Rome, and,
of course, we do not find it there. The
gods of Greece and Rome were largely
vice, ami it was impossible for auy one
Jo love them in any conceivable sense
of tJie word. Could you have asked one
of the ancient Romans, "Do you love Jupiter"?
he would have answered, "I fear
Jupiter, but 1 can not love an unprincipled
omnipotence of selfishness and lust."
And so of all the deities of their pantheon.
"Neither the place they hold in
the universe, nor their characters and
relations to each other, nor their attitude
to men, inspire any such emotion.
It is altogether different with the God of
Israel. Of him .Moses says, Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God.
It is often said that love can not be
commanded, but that has onlv a limited
truth. Granted certain relations between
persons, and love is demanded by the
very nature of the case; if it is awanting,
its absence is the gravest of moral faults,
and brings Innumerable othe-r^ in its
train; till it comes, literally, nothing
can be right.
Thus closely related then are Theology
and Religion: Gcd revealed to us as one
and supreme, holy and loving?'that is
Theology; our love resjkmdiug to God's?
the total self-surrender of man's being
to his Maker?that Is Religion.
A Pedagogy.
But a third point remains. By what
means can these two indispensable things,
Theology and Religion, be preserved from
generation to generation? "How can we
secure the preservation among men of
this true knowledge of God and this
genuine devotion to his service? It is
his answer to this question which f say
puts the cap-stone on tbe proof of Moses'
greatness; for he teaches that the only
effective method of conserving and perpetuating
true knowledge of God and
loving obedience to his will is the training
of the children in religion, that the
responsibility for this training rests
chiefly on the parent, and that the home
is the mainstay of religion. Hear him:
"These words which I command thee this
day shall be in thine heart; and thou
shalt teach them diligently unto thy children,
and shalt talk of them when thou
Fittest in thine house, and when chou
walkest by the way, and when thou liest
down, and when thou rise6t up. And thdu
shalt bind them for a sign upon thine
hand, and they shall be as frontlets
between thine eyes. And thou shalt
write them upon the posts of thy house,
and on thy gates."
The whole matter and form of {his
injunction assume that religion is the
paramount concern of human life. Observe:
"These words shall be in thine
heart"?not merely memorized but understood
and loved?only he can effectually
teach God's communis io others who
himself obeys them from the heart?"Children
like teachers who talk out of their
hearts." "And thou shalt teach them dill
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE SOUT
gently"?the Hebrew says sharped them
?unto Ihy children?make the truth
pointed?cause it to penetrate into their
minds. "And thou shalt talk of them" at
home ami by the way, in the evening
and in the morning, "With all the familiar
ease of conversation"; no anxiety need
ever be felt as to the future of children
who come from homes where the word
of God is talked of naturally, easily,
affectionately. "And thou shalt bind them
for a sign upon thy hand, and they shall
be for frontlets between thine eves." The
Jews, as all know, liave interpreted this
injunction literally and have based upon
it the custom of wearing phylacteries at
prayers. A piece of parchment containing
this passage (Deut. 6: 4-9) and three
other passages in which the same command
is given (Ex. xiii. 1-10, 11-16, and
Deut. 11: 13-21), is sewed up in a small
cubical leather box, with thongs attached,
by means of which this box is bound upon
the arm or the forehead. But the language
is figurative, and the real meaning
of the command is that, as the hands
are the instruments of action and tne
eyes' the organs of direction and tho
forehead the chamber of thought and purpose,
God's law should direct all our work
and hallow all our thoughts?every part,
of the life should be ruled by it?it should
uc oo tuusiaiiii; jjrecseilt l() view as II
bound upon the person. "And thou shalt
write them upon the posts of thy house
au?i ujK)n thy gates." This also the Jews
have interpreted literally?hence the
Mezuzah, that is the square piece of
parchment inscribed with Deut. 6: 4-9
and 9: 13-21, which, rolled up and enclosed
in a small cylinder of wood or
metal, is nailed to the right hand post
of every door in a Jewish house. On
the outside of the parchment the word
Shaddai (Almighty) is written, and a
l>ortion of the cylinder i3 cut out so that
this word may be plainly seen. The
pious Jew when passing in or out touches
the divine naane, kisses his finger, and
says in Hebrew Psalm 121: 8, "Tho
Lord ?tfiall preserve thy going out and
thy coming in from this time forth and
even foreverniore." But here too the
language is figurative and the real
meanine la that fioH'o law i? fn mlo (ho
whole house?that it is (to be kept in
vlerw in all goings forth to toil and in
all returnings for rest
God's Ideal of Home Training in Religion.
I have ventured to give this unusual
mass of exegetical details in order to
chow not only how every word of this
Mosaic scheme of pedagogy emphasizes
the transcendent Importance of religion,
but also how every detail of this divinely
appointed system of home training accentuates
the responsibility of parents. The
word of God is to be in the heart, it is to
be taught diligently to the children, it is
to be harpooned into their minds, it is to
be the subject of talk as a part of our life,
we are to speak of it as naturally as we
breathe or eat; it is to dominate the whole
man?head, eyes, hands, to regulate the
whole life?-thoughts, purposes, actions, it
is to rule the whole house?to hallow the
home in all its phases of activity or rest,
all its goings out an<l comings in. That
is God's ideal of home training in religion.
If it is ever to be realized it must be realized
through the faithfulness of parents.
Hereditary and Environment.
The character of a child is chiefly the
products of two forces, heredity aud environment,
and to both of these forces par
H. May 26, 1909.
rents are more vitally related than any
other human beings. Over the flr3t they
have compaaratively little control?the
child himself has none whatever. AsDr.
Stalker says, "There is in human
lite a mysterious element of necessity.
Every one is born, into a particular
family which has a history
and a character of its own, formed
before he arrives. He has no choice in
tne matter; yet this affects all his subsequent
life He may be born where it is
an honor to be born or on the contrary
where it is a disgrace. He may bo heir
to inspiring memories and refined habits
or he may have to take up an heredtary
burden cf physical or moral disease. A
man has no choice of his mother or father.
his brothers or sisters, his uncles or
his cousins, yet on these ties which he has
no power to unlock may depend threefourths
of his happiness." Willi what a
solemn sense of responsibility then should
a man and a woman enter into that relation
from which a new life is to spring!
How fervently they should pray that they
may inject no physical or moral poison
into the stream of their child's descent,
but on the contrary add something to his
splendid inheritance of health and virtue!
And how earnestly they should strive to
foster the good and renress the evil which
belong by birth to the child in whose
veins their own blood flows! God declares
in Malachi that his purpose lit instituting
family relationship wa3 "that
he might seek a Godly seed"?the object
of the marriage relation is to bring children
into the world and to give them a
godly rearing. How infinitely removed
from the divine idea are the fippant conception
of marriage and the baneful evasion
of pa rental responsibility which
have become so common in our own day!
Little wonder that our Lord made this
institution the one exception to his
rule of announcing only general principles
concerning human relationships?
little wonder that he legislated specifically
and directly in regard to marriage
only. Little wonder that the Bible
makes the family rather than tn?ilv!<liint
the unit of the church. There is a heritage
of piety: "I thank God, whom I serve
from my forefathers wiith pure conscience"
says Paul. Grace does not run
in the blood, indeed, yet a godly ancestry
lays the lines of thought and feeling and
tendency along whiah Christian character
is built up. And God has promised
thart, if parents are faithful and will in
their training take due account or Wnut
each child is by heredity, that training
will keep them in the right path (Prov.
22 :"6.) Train up a child according to his
way?with due regard to his connatal tem
perament and talents?and when he is old
he will not depart from it.
The Atmosphere of the Home.
While parents have little control over
heredity they have immense control over
environment, the other main force in the
making of our children; ahd when it is
asked how parents can meet the tremendous
responsibility resting upon them?
how they can effectually teach the character-making
and soul-saving Word of God
to their children, as Moses here enjoins,
the answer is, first, by the creation of a
right environment, a religious atmosphere
< rs fk/s V r _ -t ....
mo iiimic. xvioaern conditions have
marie this far more difficult 'to do than It
used to be. When apartment houses are
taking the place of homes, wheh the feverish
rush of business prevents anything