And this I will say, that if you bring up
any child to care nothing for the praise of its parents, its elders, its
pastors, and masters, you may make a fanatic of it, or a shameless cynic:
but you will neither make it a man, an Englishman, or a Christian.
"But 'our Lord's words stand, about not seeking the honour which comes from
men, but the honour which comes from God only!' True, they do stand, and
our Lord's fact stands also, the fact that He has created every child to
be educated by an honour which comes from his parents and elders. Both are
true. Here, as in most spiritual things, you have an antinomia, an apparent
contradiction, which nothing but the Gospel solves. And it does solve it;
and your one-sided view of the text resolves itself into just the same
fallacy as the old ascetic one. 'We must love God alone, therefore we must
love no created thing.' To which St. John answers pertinently 'He who
loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath
not seen?' If you love your brethren, you love Christ in them. If you love
their praise, you love the praise of Christ in them.
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