Theophilus was now eighteen years of age, and, as yet, had never known what it was to disobey either his father’s or mother’s express commands. But now his love for his mother led him to question the justice of this seemingly arbitrary command, and he, fearful of trusting to his own judgment in this matter, sought advice from those who had once been Mr. Packard’s church members and deacons in Mt. Pleasant, and from all he got the same opinion strongly defended, that he had a right to disobey such a command. He therefore ventured to visit his mother in her lonely prison home in defiance of his father’s edict. I was called from my ward to meet my darling first-born son in the reception room, when I had been in my prison about two months. After embracing me and kissing me with all the fondness of a most loving child, and while shedding our mutual tears of ecstasy at being allowed once more to meet on earth, he remarked, “Mother, I don’t know as I have done right in coming to see you as I have, for father has forbid my coming, and you have always taught me never to disobey my father.”
“Disobeyed your father!” said I. “Yes, I have always taught you it was a sin to disobey him, and I do fear you have done wrong, if you have come to see me in defiance of your father’s command. You know we can never claim God’s blessing in doing wrong, and fear our interview will not be a blessing to either of us, if it has been secured at the price of disobedience to your father’s command.”
Here his tears began to flow anew, while he exclaimed, “I was afraid it would prove so! I was afraid you would not approve of my coming! But, mother, I could not bear to feel that you had become insane, and I could not believe it, and would not, until I had seen you myself; and now I see it is just as I expected, you are not insane, but are the same kind mother as ever. But I am sorry if I have done wrong by coming.”
I wept. He wept. I could not bear to blame my darling boy. And must I? was the great question to be settled. “My son,” said I, “let us ask God to settle this question for us,” and down we both kneeled by the sofa, and with my arm around my darling boy, I asked God if I should blame him for coming to see me in defiance of his father’s order. While asking for heavenly wisdom to guide us in the right way, the thought came to me, “go and ask Dr. McFarland.”
I accordingly went to the Doctor’s parlor, where I found him alone, reading his paper. I said to him, “Doctor, I have a question of conscience to settle, and I have sought your help in settling it, namely, has my son done wrong to visit me, when his father has forbid his coming, and has threatened to disinherit him if he did? He has the letter with him showing this to be the case.”
After thinking a moment, the Doctor simply replied, “Your son had a right to visit his mother!”
O, the joy I felt at this announcement! It seemed as if a mountain had been lifted from me, so relieved was I of my burden. With a light heart I sought my sobbing boy, and encircling my arms about his neck, exclaimed, “Cheer up! my dear child, you had a right to visit your mother! so says the Doctor.”
Why was this struggle with our consciences? Was it not that we had trained them to respect paternal authority? Can testimony, however abundant, change this truth into a falsehood?
That principle of self-defence, which depends wholly on certificates and testimonials, instead of the principle of right, truth and justice, is not able to survive the shock which the revelation of truth brings against it. A lie, however strongly fortified by testimonials and certificates, can never be transformed into a truth. Neither can the truth, however single, and isolated, and alone, be its condition, can never be transformed into a lie, nor crushed out of existence. No. The truth will stand alone, and unsupported. Its own weight, simply, gives it firmness to resist all shocks brought against it, to produce its overthrow. Like the house built upon a rock, it needs no props, no certificates, to sustain it. Storms of the bitterest persecution may beat piteously upon it, but they cannot overthrow it, for its foundation is the rock of eternal truth. But lies, are like the house built upon the sand. While it does stand, it needs props or certificates on all sides, to sustain it. And it cannot resist the storm even of a ventilating breeze upon it, for it must and will fall, with all its accumulated props, before one searching investigation; and the more props it has so much the more devastation is caused by its overthrow.
And here I wish to add, that it was not because Mr. Packard was a minister, that bigotry had power thus to triumph over his manliness, but because he was a man, liable to be led astray from the paths of rectitude as other human beings are. The ministerial office does not insure men against the commission of sins of the darkest hue, for the ministry is composed of men, who are subject to like frailties and passions as other men are; and ministers, like all other men, must stand just where their own actions will place them, not where their position ought always to find them. They ought to be men whose characters should be unimpeached. But they are not all so. Neither are all other men what they should be in their position. It is as much the duty of the minister to be true to himself—true to the instincts of his God-like nature, as it is other men. And any deviation from the path of rectitude which would not be tolerated in any other man, ought not to be tolerated in a minister. In short, ministers must stand on a common level with the rest of the human race in judgment. That is, they, like others, must stand just where their own conduct and actions place them. If their conduct entitles them to respect, we should respect them. But if their conduct makes them unworthy of our respect and confidence, it is a sin to bestow it upon them; for this very respect which we give them under such circumstances, only countenances their sins, and encourages them in iniquity, and thus puts their own souls in jeopardy, as well as reflects guilt on those who thus helped them work out their own destruction, when they ought to have helped them work out their own repentance for evil doing.