Page:TheYoungMansGuide.djvu/157

 aged parents,  "The  light  of  our  eyes,  the staff  of  our  old  age,  the  comfort  of  our  life, the  hope  of  our  posterity."

Show your  filial  love,  especially  by  supporting your  parents  with  the  most  tender  devotedness  and  the  utmost  generosity  in  sickness and old  age.

5. Give  proof  of  your  filial  affection  also  by praying  daily  and  fervently  for  your  parents.

Truly the  prayer  of  a  good  son  for  his  father and mother  is  certain  to  pierce  the  clouds and gain  a  hearing,  exercising,  as  it  does,  a holy  compulsion  in  regard  to  God.

6. Once  more  I  admonish  you,  obey  your parents; remember  how  Jesus  Himself  was subject to  Mary  and  Joseph  until  He  was thirty years  of  age. He obeyed  them  1  How shameful it  is  to  hear  lads  who  are  fifteen, seventeen, or  twenty  years  of  age  say:  "I  am no  longer  a  child,  it  is  time  to  cast  off  leading strings!" Alas! alas! "I am  no  longer a  child"  —  such  a  one  is  too  entirely  right! He is  no  longer  a  child  of  God,  a  child  according to  the  sacred  Heart  of  Jesus,  but  a child  of  pride. My dear  young  man,  even should you  have  attained  the  age  of  twenty or thirty  years,  preserve  and  give  proof  of  a real  childlike  affection  for  your  father  and mother.

And if  perchance  your  parents  sleep  in "God's  Acre,"  the  best  way  to  remember and to  honor  them  will  be  to  lead  an  upright and honorable  life. If ever  in  a  distant