Matthew 10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother… Too often is this prediction fulfilled in the case of converts (especially those from Judaism) even at the present day — the most devoted son or daughter has too often to feel that their adopting Christianity has severed them from beloved parents. The Rev. Moses Margdionth, in a narrative drawn up in the year 1842, illustrates this by his own experience. Mr. Margdionth had been led, by a remarkable chain of circumstances, to embrace Christianity. He was a native of Poland, but did not receive baptism until his arrival in London, having left his country for the purpose of study, and more especially of acquiring religious knowledge. He felt it his duty as soon as possible to acquaint his parents with his change of faith, and his father at first wrote him an affectionate answer, entreating him to come home and recant his apostacy, but finding that nothing would induce him to renounce Christianity and return to his house, ceased to answer his letters, and for a long time seemed to ignore his existence. Still, however, Margdionth persevered in writing, and at length, to use his own words — "I received a most severe letter from my father, telling me that if I did not return immediately to his house, I should never be permitted to call myself his son: that he should hate me with perfect hatred, and that he should prohibit my writing to him any more. My dear mother wrote again with affectionate sadness, telling me that she had not ceased to weep for me, and had even injured her eyes with weeping." It is consolatory to find that Mr. Margdionth, who spared no effort or exertion to win hack the heart of his father, was rewarded at length by a complete reconciliation, though we have no ground to believe that his parents ever embraced Christianity. Yet sadder tales meet us in the annals of missions among the heathen. Harriet Winslow, the devoted American missionary in Ceylon, mentions the very sad case of a youth named Tupyen, who had become interested in Christianity by reading part of a Tamil Bible, lent him by another young man. He begged permission to attend the mission school at Tillipally, but when it came to his father's knowledge that he had there avowed himself a Christian, the poor fellow was, when he next returned home, shut up, and otherwise most severely treated. Once he made his escape to Tillipally, and there told the missionary, Mr. Peel, what had befallen him. He took a Testament, and pointing to this very passage (Matthew 10:31-39), said, with tears — "That very good." But again falling into the hands of his father, Tupyen was beaten, tabooed, threatened, insulted in every possible way, so that at length, alas, he signed a recantation of Christianity. Parallel Verses KJV: For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. |
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