It is often disgusting, too, to see how some Christian parents, who live in humble life, seek to ape, in their children, the empty sounding titles of the world. They only show their vanity and weakness, and often bring ridicule upon their children; for—
"To lend the low-born noble names, is to shed upon them ridicule and evil;
Yea, many weeds run rank in pride, if men have dubbed them cedars,
And to herald common mediocrity with the noisy notes of fame,
Tendeth to its deeper scorn, as if it were to call the mole a mammoth."
When we thus give our children names associated with battle-fields, empty titles, brilliant honors, and lucrative offices,—positions in life which they can never expect to reach, and which, if they did, would not do honor to the child of a Christian family, we do them great injury; we fasten in them feelings the most disastrous, and draw out propensities unbecoming the child devoted to the Lord, breeding in his soul a peevish repining at his station. Alas! that Christian homes should ever become so servile in their devotions to the rotten sentiments and flimsy interests of misguided and perverted fashion! Her smile in your home is that of a harlot; her touch is the withering blight of corruption; her dominion is the desolation of family hopes and the extermination of those sacred prerogatives with which the Lord has invested the Christian fireside. The ball will take the place of prayer; novels will take the place of the bible; favorites will take the place of husbands and wives; and the children will regard their parents only as their masters.
Christian parents should, therefore, give suitable names to their children, that is, such names as will correspond with their state, character and relations to God,—names which do not suggest the idea of war, rapine, humbug, romance, and sensuality, but which are associated with the Christian life and calling, and which serve as a true index to the spirit and character of the parental fireside. Reason, as well as faith, will dictate such a choice; for
"There is wisdom in calling a thing fitly; names should note particulars
Through a character obvious to all men, and worthy of their instant acceptation."
Our name is the first and the last possession at our disposal. It determines from the days of childhood our inclinations. It employs our attention through life, and even transports us beyond the grave. Hence we should give appropriate names to our children,—such as will interest them, and neither be a reproach, on the one hand, nor reach to unattainable and unworthy heights, on the other; for the mind of your child will take a bias, from its name, to good or to evil.