Early Religious Training.
(Sunday School Anniversary Sermon.)
xxviii. 9, 10. Whom shall He teach knowledge? &c.
Whether we regard these verses as the language of the drunkards of Ephraim, deriding the Lord’s messengers for the plainness and urgency of their unwelcome instructions, or as the language of the prophet himself affirming interrogatively the spiritual ignorance and imbecility of the people, with their prophets and priests, they suggest the importance of earnestly instructing the young in the knowledge of our relations to God and eternity. We may turn to them more hopefully than to the old. Youth is the time for learning. In the first ten years of life are laid the foundations of the social and religious character which every man carries to the grave. Therefore we should not leave them to be laid haphazard, but should do our utmost to bring it to pass that they shall be such that on them can be built the structure of a holy life. To accomplish this we must instruct them in the revealed will of God. 1. The youth learns nothing good until he is taught. Though wise to do evil, to do good he has no knowledge. 2. The young mind is susceptible of deep and enduring impressions (H. E. I., 775, 776, 786). 3. Scriptural knowledge is not only of surpassing value, but is more easily imparted to the young than most of that human knowledge for which the opening powers are often severely taxed. If difficulties arise from immaturity and levity of mind, they are more than balanced by freedom from the prejudices of age, and the perplexing cares of life; by their docility and instinctive desire to penetrate the unknown; by the eagerness with which they seize upon the explanations of facts in nature and providence, or on similitudes and allegories; and by their unsuspecting confidence in the ability of their appointed teachers. Their natural aversion to God is but partially developed, and waits the coming of riper years to mature its strong resistance to the Divine claims. 4. The weightiest obligations rest on parents to give their children religious instruction (H. E. I., 803–806). When parents are unable to do so personally, through defect of ability, or the urgency of paramount duties, it is their privilege to do so through the kind offices of others. 5. A failure in the discharge of parental obligations to children imposes on others who fear God the duty of teaching the knowledge. They are immortal; for them Christ died. Of the fulness and glory of the results of a faithful performance of this duty no adequate conception can be formed by us on this side of heaven.—R. S. Storrs, D.D., American National Preacher, xix. 121–141.