AN EXHORTATION.
Reading edition
Young man, if your parents are still living treat them kindly. Do all you can to make their declining years sweet and happy. Bear in mind that this is the only commandment that you may not always be able to obey. As long as you live, you will be able to serve God, to keep the sabbath, to obey all the other commandments, but the day comes to most men when father and mother die. What bitter feelings you will have when the opportunity has gone by, if you fail to show them the respect and love that is their due! How long is it since you wrote to your mother? Perhaps you have not written home for months, or it may be for years. How often I get letters from mothers urging me to try and influence their sons!
Which would you rather be—a Joseph or an Absalom? Joseph wasn’t satisfied until he had brought his old father down into Egypt. He was the greatest man in Egypt, next to Pharaoh; he was arrayed in the finest garments; he had Pharaoh’s ring on his hand, and a gold chain about his neck, and they cried before him, “Bow the knee.” Yet when he heard Jacob was coming, he hurried out to meet him. He wasn’t ashamed of the old man, with his shepherds clothes. What a contrast we see in Absalom. That young man broke his father’s heart by his rebellion, and the Jews are said to throw a stone at Absalom’s pillar to the present day, whenever they pass it, as a token of their horror of Absalom’s unnatural conduct.
Come, now, are you ready to be weighed? If you have been dishonoring your father and mother, step into the scales and see how quickly you will be found wanting. See how quickly you will strike the beam. I don’t know any man who is much lighter than one who treats his parents with contempt. Do you disobey them just as much as you dare? Do you try to deceive them? Do you call them old-fashioned, and sneer at their advice? How do you treat that venerable father and praying mother?
You may be a professing Christian, but I wouldn’t give much for your religion unless it gets into your life and teaches you how to live. I wouldn’t give a snap of my finger for a religion that doesn’t begin at home and regulate your conduct toward your parents.