sense of their ability to obey, and under compulsion are provoked to wrath. (2) By unreasonable blame. It is true of children that they need a great amount of encourage• ment. And where it is deserved it ought to be freely bestowed. To bestow it where it is not deserved is to encourage unreality. Faults (at least the more serious, where they are numerous) arc to be dealt with. But extreme care must be taken never to impute blame undeservedly or tentatively to children. There should be no hint of blame unless there is sure ground to go upon. For if children are stung with a sense of injustice, then, provoked to wrath, they are apt to think that they may as well do the things with which they are credited. (3) By passionateness. Children can under- stand a burst of indignation for some serious offence, and are the better for it. But they are also quick to understand when their parents lose command of themselves and punish beyond what the offence deserves. This is carefully to be avoided, for passion- ateness provokes passionateness; the passionate father makes a passionate son. 2. Positively. "But nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord.'' Such nurture is to be understood as a tender plant needs. If it is to be brought to any per- fection, then it needs to be suited as to soil, as to exposure, as to temperature, as to nourishment, 118 to protection from insects, as to its particular habits. So parents have tender plants given them in their children to rear up, sometimes exceptionally tender, but tender in any circumstances. They have to keep them from the storms and blasts that would wither them. They have their physical development carefully to watch over. Their intellectual development, too, needs great care, that they may not grow up stunted. And especially has care to be bestowed on the nurture of their spiritual powers. (1) This nurture is to have a distinctively Christian character. The appliances mentioned are described as being "of the Lord.'' That is, they are such appliances as those acting for Christ should use. They are to be used toward Christian ends. They are to be used toward the children being trained up as Christians. Parents are to train up their children as those committed to their care by Christ. They are to train them up for Christ. '!'hey are to indoctrinate them with Christian truth. They are to seek to attach them, not merely to themselves, but through themselves to Christ. They are to seek that their whole being may be subject to and centre rounu Christ. (2) ThB Christian appliances. (a) Chastening. It is difficult (apparently impossible) to get words in the English language to represent the two words that are in the Greek original. They are in a general way to be distinguished as discipline by power and discipline by reason. This distinction is effected in the words which are used in the Revised trans- lation(" chastening and admonition"), but by an undue limitation of the meaning. The first word is more than discipline by punishment; the punishment is accidental, or what is only occasionally to be resorted to in discipline. It is rather all that drilling which a parent gives his children in virtue of the executive (magisterial) power which is placed in him. He bas certain rules by which he goes in training his children, and he ha.s got the power to enrorce them. The first lesson he has to teach them is that he is their master. And so they are, at first, purely in his strong grasp. In vn.in is nil their resistance. As soon as they can lisp words they must use them in prayer. 'l'hey aro 1iassive in his hand, and he can make them utter what he pleases. Ho make::1 them observe simplicity, restraint, good manners in eating, that they may not learn to make too much of the pleasures of the table. He makes them say "grace berorc meat," that they may learn betimes from whom all table-comforts come. He makes them ntte11,l to their lessons, that they may know that they have got to work and not to bo idlers. He makes them· be select as to their companionships, that they may not get out into evil associations. He !\ppoints certain hours for the house, that they may learn or,i,,r and punctuality. He does not ask them if they will go to church, but he makes tlie.i1 go to church with him. That is the kind of drilling that is meant here, and when it is necessary it must be backed up by chastening, or judicious punishment for good. (b) .Admonition. This is also a word of too narrow a meaning. The Greek word mcan::1 generally an appeal to reason. Thie commences at a later stage, viz. when intellect begins to open. It is not necessary that a parent should always explain to a. child tho reasons of his procedure. But it is important that, as a rule, childrcu should havo explained to them the evil of the course they are asked to avoid, and the ndva.ntages of the course they are asked to follow. And if they evince a tendency to any evil course, it is right that they should be remonstrated with or reproved. The importrmce of an appeo.l THE EPISTLE 'l'O TIIE EPHESIANS. [cH, \'l, 1-24.
to reas0n is that_ it bas in view the emancipation of the children from parentnl· authority. The tune bas to come when they ha~e to go from under their parent., antl be thr0<rn upon their own responsibilities and resources. And it is all-important 'that whm the;r go out to the wor_ld and meet i~ tem~tati~ns, they should be fortified with ~o'.,d habits and re~~ons which they have m their mmds for a course of sobriety, or rnonstry, and of goolmess. Parent.'!, then, should feel their responsibility with regard to _the pr~per up-bringing of their c~ildrer:. 'l'his responsibility is great in view of the cnl that 1s so rn1.tural to them, ind Ill view 0f the evil example with which they are surrounded. They should see to it that they arc first of all Christians themselves lead- ing a Christian life before their children. They are especially to see that th:y are Christians in the met,lwd,s which they use with their children.-R. F.