"Precept and Example"

“Hear, O my son, and receive my saying…I have taught thee in the way of wisdom: I have led thee in right paths.” (Proverbs 4:10, 11)

It is a great matter for a parent, if he is able to say to his grown son, “I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have led thee in right paths.” Teaching and leading are closely allied, but not identical. It is possible, and common, to have the first in large measure, where the second is wanting. They are two elements which together make up a whole. With both, education in a family will go prosperously on: where one is wanting, it will be halting and ineffectual. Many a parent who acquits himself well in the department of teaching his children, fails miserably in the department of leading them in the right path. It is easier to tell another the right way, than to walk in it yourself. To lead your child in the right paths implies that you go in them before him. Here lies the reason why so many parents practically fail to give their children a good education. Only a godly many can bring up his child for God. It is not uncommon to find men who are themselves vicious, desiring to have their children educated in virtue. Infidels sometimes take measures to have Christianity taught to their children. Many will do evil; few dare to teach it to their own offspring. This is the unwilling homage which the evil are constrained to pay to goodness.

Great is the effect when parents consistently and steadfastly go before their children, giving them a daily example of their daily precepts; but to teach the family spiritual things, while the life of the teacher is carnal, is both painful and fruitless. A man cannot walk with one leg, although the limb be in robust health; more especially if the other limb, instead of being altogether wanting, is hanging on him, and trailing after him dead. In this case it is impossible to get quit of the impediment; it will not off. The only way of getting relief from its weight is to get it mad alive. An example of some kind, parents must exhibit in their families; if it be not such as to help, it will certainly hinder the education of the young. God, in the providential laws, permits no neutrality in the family: there, you must either be for or against him.

One of the broadest and best defined experiences that passed under my observation, and was imprinted on my memory in early youth, was that of a family whose father stood high above all his neighbors in religious profession and gifts, and yet returned from market drunk as often as he had the means. The sons of that family all turned out ill. Nothing is impossible with God; but it would have been indeed a miracle of mercy if these young men, who were accustomed from childhood to see in their own father a lofty spiritual profession wedded to the vilest vice, had themselves, as they grew up, lived soberly, and righteously, and godly in the world.

Studies in Proverbs: Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth by William Arnot (1808-1875)