Just as the relationships of life are natural in themselves, so all the attitudes becoming them and the duties belonging to them should be naturally sustained.
I. There are two springs one pure, the other tainted out of which a strained and artificial deportment under such relations may arise. The one is a sense of duty, the other a habit of affectation. The obedience of sonship or daughtership which is yielded merelyfrom a sense of duty is an obedience that has lost its charm. The obedience which springs from affectation is a dangerous burlesque of a beautiful relationship. A loving daughter in a house is like a light shining in it like starlight to its night and sunbeam to its day. Given a genuine and true-hearted love, and an unselfish devotion, the service and the duty will not be deficient, nor will there be failure to sustain and adorn the filial bond.
II. There is one element and influence only which can make the service perfect. The baptism of a simple Christianity alone can elicit filial growth in all its beauty. The fibre which has twined round the cross of Christ will twine most closely round a parent's heart.
A. MURSELL, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxii., p. 195.
References: Genesis 24:27. J. Reid Howatt, The Churchette,p. 53; W. M. Taylor, The Christian at Work,Dec. 13th, 1879. Genesis 24:31. A. B. Grosart, Congregationalist,vol. ii., p. 265.Genesis 24:55. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xiii., No. 772.