NOTE ON VERSE 20.--There is an aspect of sameness in these beginnings. But they _are_ beginnings. One of the characteristics of Scripture is a division, like Childe Harold into cantos, or separate sonnets. They are most conspicuous in the prophet Isaiah; and, like grapes upon a bunch, each wrapped in its individual rind, but all clustered on a common stem. If we ventured a conjecture, it would be that this suited the Israelitish worship. The synagogue would take one of these cantos and use it for the day. They were of irregular length, but that would allow variety. They have some repetitions, but so have missals and breviaries, that allow of choice on different occasions. There was an aim to provide most of the points for recitation on each occasion. What for one reading would seem very same, for many readings would seem wonderfully diversified.--_Miller._ _MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 1-4. THE RECIPROCAL DUTIES OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN. +I. Parental Duty.+ "He taught me." Solomon, and all children, have many claims upon their parents to receive from them instruction in the revelation of God. 1. _Parents are responsible for the existence of their children._ They are the instrumental cause of their child's being in the world, and his being in that state of probation upon which hang such "infinite possibilities." 2. _The child is so absolutely ignorant of the life into which he comes._ Unavoidable ignorance has always a claim upon knowledge, and the claim is assuredly increased in proportion as those who know and those who do not know are related to each other by a divinely constituted bond. "I am a stranger in the earth" is the claim which every child puts in as a reason why he should be instructed and taught in a way which he should go. "Hide not God's commandments from me" is the appeal which the child's ignorance makes to those who have had some experience in the world. 3. _Children claim instruction because of their future relationship to others._ The neglect of a child's education is a sin against more than himself. He will come, in his turn, to influence others. Upon his character will depend, in a great degree, the characters and eternal destinies of many in generations yet to come. 4. _Children have a claim upon their parents because they belong to God._ If a proprietor of land hands over to the cultivator a piece of virgin soil, he does not relinquish his own claim thereby--he demands that his property shall be restored to him increased in value by being brought under cultivation. The child is given to its parent by God in its undeveloped moral condition, but God retains His own inheritance in the gift. He looks for nurture, for cultivation; He demands from the parent such a fulfilment of parental duties as will ensure to Him that His gift shall grow of more and more worth in the moral universe. A day of reckoning on this matter will assuredly come. Solomon recognises the claim which children have upon their