the relieving of thy father shall not be forgotten, and over against thy sins it shall be set to thy credit. In the day of thine affliction it shall be remembered to thine advantage, to put away thine iniquities as the heat melteth hoar-frost_ (E. 3^{6-9, 12-15}). Further, the severity of the Wise regarding children might seem less repellent if we appreciated more keenly the circumstances of their age. Probably their stern discipline has to be set against a background of disastrous slackness. How were children brought up in the Græco-Syrian cities? Were they sent forth untutored to join the mad dances of unbridled inclination? Was there in but too many Jewish, as well as Hellenic, homes appalling blindness to the need of control and moral training? Great allowance must be made for the Wise, if they were under the necessity of pointing a contrast. And who can deny the essential wisdom of their attitude? Who dare say that kindness does not lie in an excess of discipline rather than in an excess of indulgence? _Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it_ (Pr. 22^{6}). As to the value which the Wise attached to the virtue of filial duty, if further evidence than the quotation just given from Ben Sirach is needed, it lies to hand in proverbs that condemn the deeds of unnatural children, who used violence to their parents (Pr. 19^{26}), or mocked and robbed them (Pr. 30^{17}; 28^{24}). Listen to the indignation in this utterance: _Whoso curseth his father and mother, his lamp shall be put out in blackest darkness_ (Pr. 20^{20}).