He paused and Violet finished the quotation.
"'And the wife see that she reverence her husband.' Ah, it is easy for me to do that with such a husband as mine," she added. "Also, I remember that in Paul's epistle to Titus there is a passage, where the aged women are bidden to teach the younger ones to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children. And in the next verse to be obedient to their husbands. I think I have kept that command as far as I could without getting any orders from mine," she concluded, smiling up into his eyes.
"Yes, indeed, dearest," he said, returning the smile and drawing her closer to his side with a fond gesture, "where one's slightest wish is promptly and eagerly complied with a command would be altogether superfluous. And though I consider it wise and right—yes, an unquestionable duty to exact prompt, cheerful obedience from my children, I do not think I should ask it of my wife. The women of the apostle's day were not the educated, self-reliant ones of the present time; therefore our wives are hardly to be expected to conform themselves strictly to the rules he lays down for them. But if husband and wife love each other as they ought,—as you and I do, for instance,—any friction between them will be a thing of rare occurrence."
"And when, if ever, there is any," said Violet, "I think the wife should be the one to give way—unless she feels that to yield to the wishes of her husband would be a breach of the moral law; but in that case she must remember the answer of Peter to the high priest, 'We ought to obey God rather than men.'"
"Yes," he said; "and when a parent commands something which is plainly contrary to God's command,—lying or stealing for instance,—it is the child's duty to refuse to obey. There are parents, alas! who do train their children to vice and crime, and when that is the case they, the children, must remember and act upon the teaching of the apostle, 'We ought to obey God rather than men.'"
"How I pity children who are placed in such circumstances," sighed Violet. "Oh, I often think what a cause for gratitude I have in the fact that my parents were earnest Christians, and brought me and all their children up in the fear of God; also that my children have an earnest, devoted Christian for their father."
"And for their mother, my sweet wife," he added with emotion.
Neither spoke again for some moments. It was Violet who broke the silence.
"My dear," she said, "I wonder if you have noticed, as I have, that my cousin Donald greatly admires our Lu."
"Ah! has he told you so, my love?" queried the captain, a touch of regret and anxiety in his tone.