By Oriental custom the terms "father" and "mother" are by no means limited to one's natural parents, but are applicable to superiors in years, or in wisdom, or in civil or religious station. This truth was impressed on my mind by an incident in my journey across the desert of Sinai. My companions in travel were two young men, neither of them a relative of mine,--as my dragoman very well knew. When, however, in mid-desert, we met an old Arab shaykh, through whose territory we were to pass, my dragoman introduced me as the father of these young men. "No, they are not my _sons_," I said to the dragoman; but his answer was: "That's all right. Somebody must be father here." And when I found that, according to the Arab idea, every party of travelers must have a leader, and that the leader of a party was called its "father," I saw that it would look better for me to be called the father of the young men, than for one of them to be called my father. Traces of this idea are found in the Bible use of the term "father." In Genesis, Jabal is said to be "the father of such as dwell in tents, and have cattle;"[273] the man who started the long line of nomad shepherds. Jubal is called "the father of all such as handle the harp and pipe;"[274] the pioneer instrumental musician of our race. Joseph in Egypt speaks of himself as "a father to Pharaoh,"[275] in view of the confidence reposed in him by the ruler of the empire. "Be unto me a father and a priest,"[276] says Micah to the young Levite, in the days of the Judges; because a religious guide is, in the East, counted as in a peculiar sense a representative of God. [273] Gen. 4 : 20. [274] Gen. 4 : 21. [275] Gen. 45 : 8. [276] Judg. 17 : 10. It is not merely that the terms "father" and "mother" _may_ include others besides human parents, but it is that no Oriental would think of limiting those terms to that relationship. Hence this fifth requirement of the covenant of God's people with their God, just as it stands, is in substance: Honor those who are over you in the Lord, as the representatives of the Lord; for the powers that be are ordained of God,[277] and he who fails to honor them lacks in due honor to him who has deputed them to speak and to act for himself. And herein is affirmed a principle which is as important to us to-day as it was to the Israelites in the days of Moses. Indeed, it may be questioned whether any precept of the ten covenant requirements has a more specific bearing on the peculiar needs of the American people, than this injunction to reverence those who are in authority because they are God's representatives in their sphere. Anarchy can have no tolerance in the mind of a child of God; but reverence for rightful authority has its home there. [277] Rom. 13 : 1.