d has kept in His own
hand, to read our Bibles faithfully, and when we quote a text, quote
the whole of it, and not just those bits of it which help us to
throw blame on other people. What St. Paul really says, is that 'in
the last days evil times will come;' just as they had come, he
shows, when he wrote; and what he means I will try and show you
presently. And, moreover, remember that Malachi says, that the
hearts of the parents in Judea needed turning to their children, as
well as the hearts of the children to their parents. Take care lest
it be not so in England now. Remember that St. Paul, in that same
solemn passage, gives other marks of 'last days,' which have to do
with parents as well as with children, and some which can only have
to do with parents--for they are the sins of grown-up and elderly
people, and not of young ones. He says, that in those days men
shall also be 'covetous, proud, without natural affection, breakers
of their word, blasphemers; having a form of godliness, but denying
the power thereof.' Will none of these hard words hit some grown
people in our day? Will not they fill some of us with dread, lest
the parents now-a-days should be as much in fault as the children of
whom they complain; lest the parents' sins should be but too often
the cause of the children's sins? Read through St. Paul's sad list
of sins, and see how every young man's sin in it has some old man's
sin corresponding to it. St. Paul does not part his list, and I
dare not, and cannot. St. Paul mixes the parents' and the
children's sins together in his words, and I fear that we do the
same in our actions.

Oh! beware, beware, you who complain of the behaviour of children
now-a-days, lest your children have as much cause to complain of
you. Are your children selfish, lovers of themselves?--See that you
have not set them the example by your own covetousness or laziness.
Are they boastful?--See that your pride has not taught them.
Incontinent and profligate?--See that your own fierceness has not
taught them. If they see you unable to master your own temper, they
will not care to try to master their appetites. Are they
disobedient and unthankful?--See, well, then that your want of
natural affection to them, your neglect, and harshness, and want of
feeling and tenderness, has not made the balance of unkindness
fearfully even between you. Are your children disobedient to you?--
See that you have not taught them to be