1 Timothy 5:3 Honor widows that are widows indeed. Honor widows. Let them have a special place in reverent care and common prayer, as they have a lot which is so isolated and so hard - a battle so keen and terrible, and as they find that the slender means are so soon spent. The lonely hours are full of pictures of the past: as wives they were the first to be thought of and provided for - the best was for them, the first place at the table and in the heart was theirs; so honor them, for they are sensitive to slight and indifference. Let the Church counteract the neglect of the world. I. THE SPIRIT OF CHILDREN. If they have children, or, as sometimes happens, nephews - or sister's children - who lost their mother in life's dawn of morning, let them show piety at home - the piety of gratitude, the piety of help, the piety of reverence, the piety of requital. How large a word "piety" is! An ungrateful child, who never thinks on a parent's past self-denial in its education, a parent's watchfulness in times of weakness and sickness, a parent's interest in its pleasures and counsels as to its companionships, and a parent's long interest in all that relates to mind and heart, is an impious child. Quick, clever, it may be flattered by new friends, and favored by fortune with pleasant looks, and yet be selfish, indifferent, and forgetful. II. THE REQUITAL TO BE GIVEN. Remember, young friends, that you have to requite your parents, not with the patronage of commercial payment when you succeed, but with the requital of the tender inquiry, the watchful love, the jealous service, the gracious respect. - W.M.S. Parallel Verses KJV: Honour widows that are widows indeed. |
    |