Proverbs 1:8, 9 My son, hear the instruction of your father, and forsake not the law of your mother:… The teacher speaks under the assumed form of a father, like St. Paul (1 Corinthians 4:15; Philemon 1:10), to give the more affectionate zest to his appeal. And the word "mother" is brought in by poetical parallelism, enhancing the parental image, We may include the parent and the teacher in one conception. The duty owed to both is analogous. And the teacher may be at the same time the parent. I. DUTY TO PARENTS AND EARLY TEACHERS COMES NEXT TO DUTY TO GOD. It occupies that place in the Decalogue. Pythagoras and Plato, and the wise of antiquity, generally taught that parents came next to the gods, and were to be honoured even as the gods. The family is the keystone of society. Parents are the earliest representatives to children of the principle of authority, of "other will," and, in this sense, of God. II. THE TRUE PARENT IS THE BEST EARLY TEACHER, 1. He has the fresh mind to deal with, the opportunity of the first word, the early and deepest impression. 2. He is the most sincere of teachers, or has the least temptation to be insincere. His one object is the child's good. 3. He is the most loving. 4. The father and the mother should combine in this work - the father to train the young mind to principle, the mother to inspire pure sentiment. The masculine influence deals with the general, with law and relation in life, with the logic or mathematics of conduct; the feminine, with the particular, with the details of behaviour, with the concrete expression of right thought and feeling. Neither can be dispensed with. III. REVERENCE FOR PARENTS AND TEACHERS IMPARTS GRACE AND BEAUTY TO THE BEARING. The adoption of their example and instruction is compared, in Oriental illustration, to the wearing of a "pleasant chaplet" on the head (and the necklace of pearls), as at feasts and entertainments - a wreath of roses or other flowers. The former was a general custom of antiquity, both for men and women. We have no exact parallel to it, and must recur to the thought of good or graceful dress in general. What significance, as we all know, is there in dress to make or mar the personal appearance! But the spiritual, not the material "habit" is the best dress, and will set off the most ungainly form. It is natural to wish to appear graceful, and one of the first manifestations of the artistic instinct in humanity is in this attention to dress. Let the instinct, then, have a moral or religious turn, and true beauty be found above all in the moral idea, in the attire of the soul, "the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which in the sight of God is of great price." The complimentary deferences to one another in polite society, the slight submissions in word and deed, the trifling self-abnegations which give a transient perfume and refinement to social hours, - all these do but mimic or represent something of more permanent value, the principle of obedience, the will governed by law, the character formed by the true, which is also the good and the beautiful. - J. Parallel Verses KJV: My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:WEB: My son, listen to your father's instruction, and don't forsake your mother's teaching: |
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