Deuteronomy 21:18-21 -

A bad son a State peril.

This is a very remarkable provision. It is based on the well-known fact that there are some who need a strong deterrent to keep them from being a plague and peril to a State, and also on the all-important principle, that whoever is a pest and nuisance in the home, is the bane of the commonwealth to which he belongs. Moses had just laid down the duty of the parent to deal justly with his sons, whatever his personal partialities might be. He now lays down the extent and limits of parental authority over the son. He does not give the father the absolute power of life and death in reference to the child, as some ancient codes did, but, without abolishing that power altogether, he places such checks upon it that while, on the one hand, if a bad son became so outrageous that his life was putting others in peril through its poisonous influence, he would have before him the possibility of capital punishment; yet, on the other hand, this penalty could only be inflicted with the sanction of the elders of the city; the consent of both parents was required ere he could be brought before them; and they (the parents) were expected to be able to say that they had exhausted every known means of reclaiming him before they brought him to that tribunal. It is evident that the law is enacted with the intention of being so deterrent that it may never need to be put into execution. And thus indeed it seems to have proved. For there is no known instance in Jewish history of its having been carried out. £ Forming part, as it did, of an ancient civil code for the Hebrew nation only, it is not in force with us now, and we are not called upon to appreciate its real worth as a guard to the stability of the Hebrew nation. But here, as elsewhere, even in obsolete statutes, we discover permanent principles, which it behooves preachers to develop and enforce, if they would not "shun to declare the whole counsel of God." The truth here taught is this— A bad son is a State peril . Five lines of thought may with advantage be followed out here, with the view of impressing this truth upon the hearts of the people.

I. A STATE IS WHAT ITS HOMES MAKE IT . It cannot be otherwise. It is made up of its own cities, towns, villages, and hamlets. Each one of these is made up of its homes. If they axe all good, little legislation will be required; if they are all bad, no legislation will avail, even if it could be secured. And according as the good or bad element preponderates, will a State be secure and prosperous or otherwise.

II. AN INCORRIGIBLE SON IS THE BANE OF ANY HOME . It is not within our present province to illustrate or even take up the truth that it is extremely unlikely any son will become incorrigible, unless there is some grievous failure in duty on the part of the parents in not correcting him betimes, and in not keeping the reins in their own hands. It is, unhappily, too often true—"his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not." But, however it may come about, the truth is the same, that where a son hearkens not to the voice of his father, and despises to obey his mother, there will be in any home in which such is the case, a source of deep sorrow and indescribable misery; there will be an example fraught with evil influence to the other members of the family. "One sickly sheep infects the flock."

III. SUCH A HOME , SO POISONED , MAY BECOME A CENTER OF UNSPEAKABLE MISCHIEF . For the sons who act so mischievously in the house are, as a rule, those who wander far and wide in pursuit of forbidden pleasure, giving way to the lusts of the flesh, and to sins of the tongue, polluting others wherever they go. Thus a moral miasma, pestilential and even deadly, may be carried from street to street, and from town to town.

IV. THOSE THUS POLLUTED WILL TAKE THE POISON TO OTHER HOMES , One home will infect others. Each infected home will spread the contagion. And so the evil will spread far and wide, not only in an arithmetical, but in a geometrical progression, till even in the course of one or two generations, it will assume a proportion which baffle all powers of calculation to formulate it, and a virulence which may defy the most powerful legislation to arrest it.

V. HENCE THE VERY EXISTENCE OF SUCH A CENTER OF EVIL OUT OF WHICH SUCH COMPLICATED AND WIDESPREAD MISCHIEF MAY ARISE , IS A SOURCE OF GRAVE PERIL TO ANY COMMONWEALTH IN THE WORLD ! It may not be seen nor even suspected when in germ. But germs of evil are fraught with all the evil of which they are the germs.

1. Learn how far-seeing are the provisions of this Mosaic law! What seems severity to the individual is really mercy to the nation. Preventive measures, though severe, may be most genuinely philanthropic.

2. Learn how great is the importance of wisdom and firmness in maintaining parental authority.

3. Learn the need of early habits of obedience to parents. An obedient son is a joy and honor to his parents, a credit to the home, an element of safety in a State. But "God never smiles on a boy that breaks his mother's heart." So said Richard Knill. Finally: What we have said thus far is valid, even if this life were all. But if to this life we add on the next, and bethink us of the amazing issues projecting themselves from time into eternity, who can adequately set forth the importance of taking heed to those early steps on which depend the direction of this earthly life, when on it depends the weal or woe of the life which is to come?