1 Samuel 3:13 For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knows; because his sons made themselves vile… 1. The life and history of Eli is full of instruction, of painful warning and sad reflection. The prominent feature of his history is the ill-success of his children. Eli failed in his children, but more than this, he culpably failed. It was no matter of commiseration; it was one of blame and severe censure. 2. The leading circumstance which I will dwell upon in Eli's life is his conduct to his children and his treatment of them. It is a circumstance which must have struck many that the sons of eminently good persons often turn out ill; or that in many cases, they fall far short of the character and reputation of their parents. (1) One leading reason by which we may account for the frequent follies of the children of the good may lie in the initiative and assimilative powers of childhood, and the circumstance that these two powers are generally developed to the suppression of the other powers of the mind and imagination. If a person with any peculiarity of manner enters a schoolroom he will find from each remote corner children of three years old at once marking the peculiarity and taking it off exactly. Now this same imitative faculty, this powerful exercise of the assimilative principle accounts to a great degree for the matter before us. The forms of a religious life in the parents live before the child, and the child skilfully sketches from the well-known original. But religion will not endure so superficial a handling. The seeds in such cases as the above He scattered on the beaten highway of life; they do not sink in, or if they do, they simply fall into the dry and arid rut of the roadside, which produces a thin, vapid, and fruitless result. In the hour of temptation or trial, Satan takes away the seed which has no natural hold on the soil, or leaves it withering by the roadside of life. The remedy for this difficulty is almost self-suggested. It is incumbent on every religious parent to lead his child to do his own work, to examine self frequently, and to search into the reality of his motives. Considering the great temptation there must ever be to such an one to be satisfied with his copy, he should as a rule be checked rather than encouraged, since encouragement lies ever ready to hand. The religious parent should trust far more to the ascertaining his child's character, disposition, and leaning, than to producing rapid and brilliant results through the associative principle, and should constantly throw back his child on the use of stated means, than on the refreshing yet too evanescent influences of associative feeling. He should avoid making the structure of religion in his child rest on the hereditary and traditional principle, thereby letting him imagine that religion can be an heirloom, rather than the self. wrought, self-gained result of original energy, Religion is no matter of a past aristocracy, but a present energy. (2) Another cause of this disappointment will lie in the official position of the parent. Eli was a priest. His position and daily work set him apart as God's servant in a peculiar manner. A certain consistency in all which pertained to him was expected by the world. What men expect others to be, or estimate them as, they will either become or pretend or imagine they are. The opinion and expectation of others have a strange influence over us. The expectations of others, as our parents and relations, that we shall assume a certain form of character, while we retain our relationship and connection with them, will often make us imagine that we are acting rightly because we pursue the suggested courses, and make us feel consistent, because we assume a certain external uniformity. This is hollow. In such cases the youth has been so accustomed to dwell amid the external influences of religion, that he is as one who has been all his life gazing on a picture gallery, and is satisfied because he has scanned the features of the portrait that is identified with the individual character which it represents. Nothing is more fatal. (3) Another reason for this inconsistency will exist in the close connection which religion ever has with the natural feelings. It recognises and consecrates the yearning affections, the inclinations to respect those in immediate authority over us, the sensation of gratitude, and the strong consolation which there is in constant dependence; all of these are evoked hourly in the domestic circle, and religion making them her subject matter they are often too rapidly mistaken for religion itself, and for a time carry away its credit and good report. But they will not stand the test of time and adversity. There will be found no duty mere incumbent upon the parent than that of teaching the child to discern between association and principle, and to value at a high price individual exertion and independent energy. (4) But further, another reason by which we may account for this inconsistency in children of religious parents is, that religion is very often not made in homes sufficiently individual. The religion of caste, the religion of family prestige, the religion of ancestral predilection, is not the religion which will stand before the assaults we may be prepared to meet. The only principle that will stand the test of the last day is that which is based on deep inward convictions and experience in the individual attachment to God's will. Parents cannot too much throw their children in these respects on to their own resources. (5) Then, too, much will lie at the door of the natural indulgence of the parent in matters to do with the soul and God. The parent should avoid being the moral judge of the child; he should bring him to the test of some great objective law, which will know of no partialities or differences of administrations. He should urge his child to have reference to those who are accustomed to stand free of earthly relationships in their estimate of moral acts. We are all of us born with a nature that is better managed by laws purely external and objective to itself. The subjectivity of personal influences, reflexes as they too often are of self, are in many cases replete with hazard for those who fall under them. (6) Another reason that may sometimes account for this result with children of religious parents, is, that they not unfrequently are allowed to imagine that they may taste of the fruit of the perfected religious character before they have spent a single laborious effort towards its production. 3. But, singularly enough, another fault seems to have mixed itself up In the character of Eli — a yearning for and a love of family aggrandisement. There seems to have been a winking, if not more, at the mode in which his sons made a traffic of their religious position. Religion, especially family religion, has always a market value in the world. The recognition of this, and the practical use of it for a man's own ends will rank among a man's most perilous faults. It is a fearful thing to" deal with out position with regard to God as a medium of exchange and barter. (E. Monro.) Parallel Verses KJV: For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. |
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