body fund in Texas I canvassed one hundred and twenty-
seven counties and addressed not less than sixty thousand
young people. During the last forty years I have addressed
not less than two hundred thousand young Texans.
Their sparkling eyes and laughing faces have mirrored
so deep into my soul, and are so photographed upon my brain
and heart, that "I am a part of the youth of Texas."
No uninspired words thrill my heart so deeply as those
of the great Von Richter : "I love God and little children."
Their joys, their successes, fill me with rapture. Their sor-
Dr. Rufus C. Bukleson. 613
rows and failures fill my eyes with tears and my heart with
grief. The young are a part of my being.
Impelled with this burning love for young people, I
discuss this subject, "Family Government." For let it never
be forgotten that by family government I do not mean
family tyranny or family despotism. Family government is
as unlike family tyranny as the brightness of noon-day is to
the darkness of midnight, or as the joys and harmony of
heaven are unlike the blackness and horrors of hell.
True family government, like all true government, is
instituted for the sole benefit of the governed. And the sole
end of all true government is to protect the innocent, to re-
strain and prohibit all the passions and tendencies to evil,
and to excite all the hopes and kindle all the aspirations for
real joy and greatness. Or, as a great English statesman has
said : "The true end of government is to make the pathway
to virtue and morality easy, and the pathway of crime difiicult
and full of peril." Having defined family government, I
call earnest attention to — •
First, its vast importance. The Holy Bible, the great
fountain of all instruction on human happiness and destiny,
abounds with commands, teachings, warnings, and promises
on family government. Indeed, from Genesis to Revelation,
we have "line upon line, precept on precept, here a little and
there a little," and all teaching the vast importance of fam-
ily government.
In the very first book of the Holy Bible (Gen. 17 : 17-19)
we read this remarkable lesson : God, accompanied by the
avenging angels, was going down, to pour out fire and brim-
stone on Sodom and Gomorrah, where all family government
had been neglected. Passing by the tent of Abraham, God
said: "Shall I hide. from Abraham that which I do? For
I know him that he will command his children and house-
hold after him forever."
Here was a great state secret that perchance God had not
told to Gabriel or Michael, yet he told it to Abraham, because
he would "command his children after him forever." How
perfect that family government was we may learn when we
see Isaac, a vigorous young man, twenty-eight years old.
614 The Life and Writings of
allowing his aged and feeble father to bind him as a burnt
offering on the altar on Mount Moriah.
'Twas not his to ask the reason why,
'Twas his to obey his father and to die."
And the same family government is seen among the
family of Abraham around the globe to-day. In the last
thirty-seven years I have instructed over one hundred Jews
and Jewesses, and not one of them ever violated a law of the
university. Go to our state prison at Huntsville, and among
the one thousand eight hundred convicts you will find sons
of Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and Roman
Catholics, and even of some preachers, but you will find no de-
scendant of Abraham. Abraham has "commanded his chil-
dren after him forever," and they are educated from the
cradle to obey law in the family, school and state.
God teaches us another solemn lesson on family gov-
ernment at Mount Sinai. Two million descendants of Abra-
ham are assembled around Sinai's base to receive the law.
And amid thunderings, lightnings and earthquakes God
said: "Honour thy father and mother, that thy days may
be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."
God not only uttered this in a voice of thunder, but with
his own finger he wrote it as one of the Ten Commandments
in rock, to show it was to stand until the rocks melt in the
fervent heat of the Judgment Day. Paul, who had been
caught up to the third heaven, and heard and saw things not
lawful for man to utter, enjoins this command on Gentiles
as well as Jewish Christians, and declares it is the first com-
mandment with promise: (Eph. 6:1-3.) Solomon, the
wisest man of earth, an inspired teacher of God and a great
king, makes the family a special theme of instruction. J^early
one-third of all his proverbs refer directly or indirectly to
family government. As a wise king he knew well that fam-
ily government was the foundation of all government in
school, or church, or state.
Hear and ponder a few of his grand lessons :
"Train a child up in the way he should go, and when
he is old he will not depart from it." "Foolishness is bound
in the heart of the child, but the rod of correction shall drive
Dr. Rufus C. Burleson. 615
it far from him." "My son, give me thine heart." "My son,
if thou be wise my heart shall rejoice." "A wise son maketh
a glad father. But a foolish son is the heaviness of his
mother." "He that spareth the rod hateth his son, but he
that loveth him chasteneth him betimes," or early. "The
eye that mocketh at his father and despiseth to obey his
mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick out and the young
ravens shall eat it." But nothing so powerfully teaches the
importance of family government as God's curses on families
that neglected family government, and the blessings on fam-
ilies who enforced family government. I beg fathers and
mothers especially, to read God's fearful punishment on good
old Father Eli, who exercised no government in his family.
Read the warning in I Samuel, chapters 1-4. There you
will see God repeatedly warned Eli of the wickedness of his
sons and the outrages they committed on the mothers and
daughters of Israel even in the very house of God, so that
they made the house of God and the worship of God vile.
But all that good old tear-ready Father Eli did was to call
his bad boys and say : "My sons, what is it I hear of you ?
ISTay, it is no good report I hear of you, my sons." But he
knew the evils they were doing and he restrained them not.
At last God sent a fearful warning by Samuel, a little child
that his whole family should be blotted out, leaving not a
being to remain on the earth in whose veins was the blood
of Eli. Who can read little Samuel unfolding to Eli the
curse of God on his family without tears. The venerable,
tender-hearted old father, bending under the weight of
ninety-eight winters, hears the terrible but just doom, bows
his aged head, and sobs aloud : "It is the Lord, let Him do
what seemeth Him good."
The fulfillment of this threatened judgment is full of
meaning to the five thousand Elis that live in Texas, and the
seventy-five thousand Elis that live in the United States. Ko
doubt Eli's bad sons, Hophni and Phinehas, laughed to scorn
God's message through the child Samuel. But when the ap-
pointed day of justice came Israel had gone out to meet the
Philistines in battle, and as a last dreadful expedient the Ark
of God was placed in the front of the battle ; but God was not
around the Ark. The robed priests, Hophni and Phinehas fell
616 The Life a^h AVkitixgs of
with such, wicked men, and thirty thousand fell bleeding
fighting, sword in hand; a fleet messenger flies to bear the
dreadful news. Father Eli had been sitting all day on a watch
tower, one hundred and thirty feet high, beside the gate,
eagerly looking toward the battlefield, trembling for his
wicked sons and the Ark of God, when the courier shouts
aloud that Israel is routed, thirty thousand Israelites are
weltering in their blood, Hophni and Phinehas are slain
and the Ark of God is captured. All the city is filled with
wailing, Eli is palsied and nerveless, and, weighing over two
hundred and thirty pounds, falls headlong from that lofty
watch tower. His neck and bones are broken, the blood
gushes from his mouth, his ears, and his nose.
As a fitting conclusion to this dreadful tragedy, when
the wife of Phinehas, Eli's son, heard of the death of her
husband and her father-in-law and thirty thousand Israelites,
she gave premature birth to a son; the son lived, but the
mother died, calling him Ichabod, "For the glory is departed
from Israel." So Ichabod will be written upon every family,
town and nation where family government is not maintained.
For all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profit-
able for reproof and correction. But the vast importance
of family government may not only be seen from dark Mount
Ebal of cursing, but from Mount Gerizim of blessing. Read
in the thirty-fifth chapter of Jeremiah God's blessing on the
Rechabites for maintaining family government. As a test
of their filial obedience God commanded Jeremiah to bring
the Eechabites into the house of God, and to set pots full of
wine before them and say, "Drink ye of this wine." But
they, rising up reverently before God's holy prophet, said:
"Our father, Jonadab, the son of Rechab, commanded us,
saying, Ye shall drink no wine, ye nor your sons forever."
Then God's holy prophet cried: "Blessed be ye sons of
Jonadab, the son of Rechab, because ye have obeyed the
voice of your father, Jonadab, therefore thus saith the Lord of
hosts the God of Israel, Jonadab, the son of Rechab, shall
not want a man to stand before me forever." And the great
historians, Niebuhr and Wolff, and other Oriental travelers,
tell us God still preserves the Reehahites as an everlasting
miracle to show his blessing on family government.
Dk. Rufus C. Burleson. 617
These Kecliabites still dwell in tents and drink no wine,
and abound with the fattest herds, the fairest women and
most honest men in the valleys of the Euphrates and the
deserts of Arabia.
It is a fact full of instruction on the importance of fam-
ily government that the very last verse of the last chapter
of the last, book in the Old, Testament contains a fearful
warning on family government. "For he shall turn the
hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the
children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth
with a curse."
And the first book of the New Testament opens \vith
the same declaration. The mission of John the Baptist, and
the Gospel Dispensation which he was to introduce, was to
turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts
of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the
earth.
By turning the hearts of the fathers to the children the
text means the chief duty of every father is to bring his
children to God.
But brevity compels us to notice but one more Scripture
lesson on the importance of family government.
God commands by Paul (I Tim. 3:4, 5-12), that no
man shall ever be a pastor or a deacon unless he "ruleth well
his own house, having his children in subjection with all
gravity."
Our all-wise and merciful Heavenly Father, knowing
how much all men are improved by example, forbids any
man, however orthodox, pious or eloquent, to be a preacher
or deacon who does not maintain strict family government.
The very failure of preachers and deacons to maintain
family government has caused many to believe that family
government is useless and injurious. The logic of Satan
runs thus: "Preachers and deacons have worse children
than anybody else, therefore family government is not only
useless but injurious." This logic, like all the logic of the
great deceiver, is based on falsehood and deception. It
affirms as a fact that which has been demonstrated by two
of the greatest universities in America to be a falsehood and
a slander. These two great universities tested the truth of
618 The Life and AVritings of
this boasted falsehood of the father of lies, and it was found,
on a careful inspection of the university alumni, a large per
cent of the sons of preachers and deacons and elders and
class leaders rose to greater eminence than any other class
of students.
But in every case where family, government has been
enforced the pious parents have fully realized the truth of
the glorious promise : "Train up a child in the way he should
go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."
We may learn the vast importance of family govern-
ment, not only from the Holy Bible, but from the teachings
of all the greatest philosophers, the greatest statesmen of all
nations, ages and climes. The Greeks, the Romans, the rulers
of the world, and our grander old English and Puritan fathers
all taught and practiced rigid family government. The Ro-
mans even required fathers, in case they were unable to
govern their sons, to take them alone and put them to death,
and not send them forth as wild beasts to plunder society
and the country. "Wliether in the academy, the college,
the church or the state, every experienced teacher can tell in
one day whether the new student has been governed at
home; every pastor knows that young converts who have
had no family government make, as a general thing, worth-
less church members. In a great public meeting held in Gal-
veston by Dr. Barnas Sears and myself as agents of the Pea-
body Fund, the head of the city police testified that the most
depraved, worthless criminals he had to deal with were the
boys ten and twelve years old who were turned loose without
any family government, to roam the streets and dens of crime
by day and night as street arabs. I have for fifty years been
a close and constant reader of the history of all nations of the
earth. And if I were cast by a storm upon some unknown
island, among a people of whose name and language I was
utterly ignorant, in one day I could tell whether that nation
was on the ascending or descending scale of prosperity and
civilization, and that one single test should be family govern-
ment. If I saw family government and happy homes, I
should know that people were on the ascending scale of great-
ness. But if I saw no family government, no happy homes,
no reverence for parents and teachers and rules, I should know
Dr. Eufus C. Bueleson. 619
that people were on the downward grade to anarchy, lawless-
ness and destruction. All this may be clearly seen not only
in Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire/' but
in Greece and Egypt and Babylon, and especially in France
and Spain in our own times.
I am no alarmist, but no intelligent man can shut his
eyes to the appalling fact that anarchy, nihilism, communism,
and all the powers of evil are struggling with demoniacal
power and fury to overturn all government, and all society,
and to introduce an age of wolves and all manner of wild beasts
and still more savage men. The only breastwork against this
fearful onslaught of the forces of evil is not in bayonets or
even in free schools, but in family government. Let the foun-
dation stone be laid firmly with prayer in every family, and
then we can say to all the dashing waves of anarchy, lawless-
ness and crime,
"Thus far shalt thou come and no further,
Here shalt thy proud waves be stayed."
Fathers and mothers, in God's name I emplore you to gird
yourselves for this mighty work of saving your children, our
country, and our civilization, and for the ushering in of the
millennium.
The last argument on the importance of family govern-
ment is the happiness of the child. The most unhappy being
that moves upon this earth, or looks upon the sun, is an un-
governed child. An ungoverned child is a bundle of bad pas-
sions, is a seething volcano of untamed and ungovernable pas-
sions, hating everybody and hateful to everybody, shunned
and dreaded by all.
Parental affection calls in trumpet tones on every parent
to govern his child. Hence Solomon so wisely declares : "He
that spareth the rod hateth his son." (Prov. 13 :24.) Good
tender-hearted Eli was really a child hater, and if he had de-
signedly planned the ruin of his sons he could not have adopted
a surer plan than neglecting family government. 'No doubt
King David's misguided tenderness for his handsome son Ab-
salom caused him to neglect family government and to spare
the rod. The result was that Absalom with all his peerless
beauty of person was a demon incarnate, and in his wild un-
620 The Life and AVkitings of
tamed passion sought to murder that aged, loving father and
rushed headlong to his own destruction. And when he was
hanging by his head in a treetop, and dangling in the air
pierced udth the darts of Joab, the loving old father, remem-
bering his o^\Ti crime of neglecting family government, wailed
so bitterly, "O my son Absalom ! my son, my son Absalom !
would God I had died for thee !"
Alas, how many Absaloms are gro-^ving up over all this
continent ! How many misguided Elis and Davids will raise
this bitter wail : "Oh, my son, my darling son ! would Grod I
had died for thee !"
But would you see your sons and your daughters a joy to
themselves, a joy to your heart, and pillars of Church and
State, train them up in the nurture of the Lord. I shall be
sixty-five years old next August, and I have never known son
or daughter allowed to disobey father and mother that did not
become a curse to themselves, their parents, and society, as
Absalom, Hophni, and Phinehas did.
If we have faithfully presented to you and you have fully
grasped these momentous arguments, you are profoundly pen-
etrated with the overwhelming importance of family govern-
ment, and are prepared to pray: "O God, our Heavenly
Father, teach us how to govern our children and train them up
in the way they should go, that they may eventually become
useful members of society.'
Second, the grand question is, How shall I govern my
family "l After an earnest study of forty-seven years, I lay
down seven golden rules for family government :
My -first golden rule is, Begin, continue, and end in
prayer. The first moment I ever lay eyes on my child so
helpless in its mother's bosom, I kneel doT\Ti, and laying my
hand on the little seeming visitant from heaven, I pray, "O
God, this life which we have dared invoke is parallel with
thine. O God, help us to guide this helpless babe through
life in honor and purity, and restore it to thy bosom in Para-
dise at last." I care not what mighty cares and troubles press
my heart, I always just at midnight, my regular bedtime,
kneel down by the little trundle bed and lav my hand on the
heart of the little sleeper and pray, "O my Father, God, watch
over by day and night my precious child, keep the heart pure,
Dr. Rufus C. Burleson. 621
fill it with love and every noble desire for holiness, usefulness,
and honor on earth and glory in heaven."
When my daughter at sixteen left her mother's room to
occupy a separate room with a chosen young lady, I always
went at midnight, just before retiring, knelt down and laid
my hand on the door and prayed, "O my Heavenly Father,
send guardian angels to watch over and protect my precious
child." Our blessed Saviour knew how essential prayer was
for little children; hence he set us the example, took them
up in his arms, pressed them to his heart, and prayed for them.
Oh, father and mother, may you hear every day that Saviour's
voice saying, "Bring your children to me," and may you so
carry them in daily prayer !
My second golden rule is, Begin early. A great philos-
opher and poet has said :
"A dew drop on the baby plant
Hath warped the giant oak forever;
A pebble in the streamlet cast
Hath turned the course of many an ancient river."
But the dewdrop must fall on "the baby plant," and not
on the giant oak, the pebble must fall into the streamlet, and
not into the mighty Amazon or Mississippi. A great states-
man said : "Let me make the songs for the children, and I
care not who makes the laws for the State." "Give me the
training of the children and I will control the State." The
wily Jesuits understand this profoundly. Their archbishop
says: "A full school makes a full confessional. Crowd the
schools regardless of money. This is our only hope of ruling
America." Ninety-nine one-hundredths of all the converts
to Romanism in America are made by beginning with the
young in Roman Catholic schools. The saddest story of the
Revolutionary war is the bloody defeat of the French and
American forces by the British at Savannah. The combined
forces of the French and Americans could have captured the
British army without firing a gun, but the foolish French gen-
eral sent a polite note to the British officer to surrender. The
British in a polite note asked twenty-four hours to think over
it, the French general, steeped in wine and folly, consented.
But the crafty Briton instead of putting his hands in his pock-
ets and thinking about it went to fortifying. General Marion
623 The Life and Wkitings of
went to the sillj Frenchman and remonstrated and cried,
"Oh, my God, such folly to allow the enemy to fortify and
then fight him." At the end of the twenty-four hours the
silly Frenchman sent a polite note asking the surrender of the
fort. The crafty Briton, secure in his fortifications, said:
"Come and taJie it." Then began the scene of bloody car-
nage; column after column of heroic men was hurled against
the impenetrable British fortifications, only to be hurled back
decimated and bleeding. Then the brave Jasper fell bleeding
and dying. After fearful slaughter the French and American
forces retreated.
Oh, father, oh, mother, are you so deceived by Satan
that you are making that same mistake? Are you allowing
the world, the flesh, and the devil to fortify in the heart and
soul of your child? A strong man armed keepeth his palace
and his goods in safety, and when the devil, and fashion,
and pride, and lust are all fortified, then the devil, like the
crafty Briton, can defiantly say : "Come and take it." And
all your tears, all the melting strains of Calvary, and all the
thunderings of Sinai cannot move that heart fortified by sin
and Satan.
But begin early, and all will be well. When Professor
Morse asked a pious young lady to select the first message that
should go over the newly-invented telegraph wires, she se-
lected, "What hath God wrought !" So let the very first mes-
sage that goes over the mental telegraph wire, that reaches
not merely across the Atlantic, but the ocean of eternity, be
"What hath God Avrought, what hath Jesus done for my soul !"
The dewdrop on the baby plant will warp the giant oak,
a little pebble will turn the little streamlet to glory and to
God.
But I pray you in God's name to hear carefully our
third golden rule : Be tender, he tender as the Son of God our
Saviour is tender to us. "The bruised reed ^^dll he not break,
and the smoking flax ^vill he not quench."
My heart was deeply touched with a remark of a little
boy that was told me recently. His angel mother had just
died, and the pastor, meeting casually on the streets the father
and the boy, overlooked speaking to the child as he had always
done before. When the father and the child were alone, the
Dk. Eufus C. Bukleson. 623
little boy burst into tears and said: "Oh, father, will our
pastor never love me any more because I have no mother ?"
The father assured him that it was a mere accident, that
the pastor would be very sorry when he learned how his feel-
ings were hurt. "Oh, no," replied the child, "he never can
be sorry enough unless he could again be a little boy and
know how to be slighted hurts a little boy who has no mother."
Fathers and mothers, if you only could know how it hurts a
little child to be slighted or treated harshly, you would pray :
"O God, help me to be tender to the little ones !" I make it
a rule of my life to be always tender and affectionate with my
children. I play with them, I walk with them, and ride with
them, I enter tenderly into all their joys and their sorrows. If
my child has a doll or a bird, a pig or a pony in which it is in-
terested, I too become deeply interested. The blessed result
is my children always reciprocate my tender love and sym-
pathy at all times for my work. But does some man throw
himself back on his self-importance, and say, "I have no time
to idle away with children ?" Then you are guilty of a great
crime in being a father. Oh, how much better it is for the
head to ache than the heart to bleed over a rained son ! As
a dewdrop can warp the great oak forever, so one little word
hath warped and blighted many a great oak for time and
eternity. Oh, then write on your heart the third golden rule,
Be tender.
The fourth golden rule is, Be firm. And how fearfully