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 OUR CHILDREN
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 BESSY WELLS. 7th Thousand. Cloth 15. 6d., 
 Boards is. 
 
 " A pathetic tale, powerfully written." — Record.
 
 OUR CHILDREN 
 
 By Mrs. HENRY WOOD 
 
 At'THOR OF "EAST LYNNE," " DESSY WELLS," ETC. 
 
 "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he 
 will not depart from it." — Proi'crbs, chap, xxii., ver. 6. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 DALDY, ISBISTER, & CO. 
 
 56, LUDGATE HILL 
 1876
 
 I'RINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO., 
 LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.
 
 1AJ$ 9<vu 
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 " Train up a child in the way he should go : and 
 when he is old, he will not depart from it." 
 
 The various lots of man in this world seem to 
 be dealt out very unequally. That of some 
 people appears to be cast in a sunny plain of 
 uninterrupted prosperity and enjoyment, where 
 there is nothing to do but go forward jauntily, 
 taking little care for the morrow. That of 
 others is undoubtedly thrown amid difficulties, 
 and troubles, and sorrows; hardly a step of it 
 can be taken but rocks jut out ahead, impeding 
 the course, and thorns press into the foot. 
 It is just possible that there may be less 
 
 B
 
 2 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 real difference in the two lots than is pre- 
 sented on their surface. If we could look 
 into the heart of the most favoured as God 
 looks into it, we might find there some 
 hidden corroding anxiety or care ; that 
 ugly monster known familiarly amidst us 
 as the " skeleton in the closet/' And, it 
 may be, that within the breast of the most 
 careworn and apparently unfortunate — in that 
 hidden life, hidden from the world — there 
 reigns some compensating element of soothing 
 peace. One thing is certain : that natures 
 are not all formed to feel in a like degree. 
 While the shock of some great trouble, 
 whether anticipated or falling unexpectedly, 
 as the case may happen, is passed over 
 lightly by one man — hardly seen when it 
 comes ; to another it is as a terrible agony, 
 shattering the spirit for the time, leaving its 
 marks until death. I
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 3 
 
 But — whatever the lot, sunny or stormy, 
 light or heavy, fair or dark, the race of life 
 must be run, and we must fulfil our common 
 duties in it. It has been getting rather a 
 fast race of late years. What with business 
 and pleasure, with out-of-door occupations and 
 in-door cares, with trie calls of society and the 
 obligations of home and family, life seems to 
 be one swift, bustling, heated course, in 
 which there is never a moment to spare, night 
 or day. It is said in that great Book — some 
 few of us have become too busy to read it — 
 that in the latter days we shall run to and fro, 
 and knowledge shall be increased. Most cer- 
 tainly it would seem as if that prophecy had 
 been written for the present time. We not 
 only run to and fro in the literal interpretation 
 of the words, and in a marvellous degree, 
 from land to land, from country to country, 
 over the seas and the waters, but we are running 
 
 B 2
 
 4 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 to and fro at home hourly and daily, giving 
 ourselves no repose. The world was never so 
 full of bustle as it is now ; the career of men 
 and women never so fast. " If I could, I 
 would do so-and-so, but there's no time even 
 to think of it/' is a common assertion, often 
 
 heard. -^ 
 
 Just so. Life has become to the most of 
 us one swift, headlong race — a continuous 
 fight in which there is so much to do that the 
 half of it has to be left undone. From Monday 
 morning until Saturday night we are all 
 pushing away in the fierce struggle to get 
 along, rushing from one excitement to another. 
 Some at work, some at play, all in a degree at 
 both ; no space is left for breathing-time. 
 Even Sunday does not now bring to man its ap- 
 pointed rest, for we must go abroad to this 
 place and that after the morning service ; and 
 visiting on that day has become fashionable.
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 5 
 
 Elderly people wonder why the summer or 
 autumn holiday has become so universal ; they 
 and their fathers did not take it. The reason 
 is, that the artificial speed at which we now 
 live, with the unnatural excitement this speed 
 creates, renders the interval of rest necessary 
 to recruit the spent brain and jaded frame. In 
 a word, the present system of existence is such, 
 that all our powers of mind and body are taxed 
 to keep it up, all our thoughts and energies 
 must be exclusively and continuously devoted 
 to it. And so the life runs on heedlessly, with 
 its bustle and strife, its work and pleasure, its 
 incessant whirl and its petty cares, affording 
 no spare time in which to think of making 
 much preparation for the other life that must 
 come after. For the most part we forget how 
 surely and fleetly we are hastening on to it. 
 
 We should, and do forget it ; should forget 
 it perhaps to the end. But there is One in
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 heaven who cares more for us than we care 
 for ourselves, and in mercy calls our attention 
 to it now and then. However prosperously 
 sunny the career may be, however full of 
 painful adversity, there comes in most lives a 
 time, or times, when we are pulled-up in 
 our headlong course, and are brought, as it 
 were, face to face with God. By some terrible 
 accident, by an attack of dangerous illness, by 
 the death of one very near and dear, by an 
 epidemic that is slaying its hundreds around 
 us, and that we are in mortal dread of catching, 
 by a sudden awakening to the fact that old age 
 is creeping on : in some one or other of these 
 ways, as it may be, the check comes, and 
 arouses us out of our supine apathy. I do not 
 mean that mere temporary check arising from 
 an ordinary cause — the hearing of an impressive 
 sermon, the reading of a serious book — induc- 
 ing uneasiness and passing reflection, here to-
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 7 
 
 day and gone again to-morrow; but one of 
 those solemn calls when we hear Death knock- 
 ing at the door, and see that he must inevit- 
 ably enter. A little sooner or a little later, 
 what matters it ? — there stands Death : and 
 we know not whether we may be able to keep 
 him out, even for a short period, or whether he 
 is not, even then, gliding in. 
 
 Oh, what an hour of tribulation that is ! 
 Nothing of anguish in the past can have been 
 like unto it. Death there ; eternity at hand ; 
 and we unprepared ! 
 
 Our days had been so full of business, you 
 see, and we were so over-burdened with the 
 work and pleasures of the world that we had 
 no time to make preparation for it. It might 
 not have been unprofitable work or sinful 
 pleasures, but laudable industry and whole- 
 some recreation. Only — it was all done lor 
 the good of this life, none of it for the next.
 
 8 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 Those who refused the call to the Great Sup- 
 per that Christ tells of us of, on the plea that 
 they were too busy to attend it, did not urge 
 excuses that are sinful in themselves. The 
 buying of ground and of oxen and the mar- 
 rying of a wife are all right and necessary 
 transactions of this life : and so were ours. 
 We had been earning money — necessary to 
 live ; we had been making full use of our time 
 — given us to use ; we had been regulating our 
 homes well, and planning for the social ad- 
 vancement of our children ; we had been 
 dining with our friends and been dined with in 
 return. What was there wrong in all this ? 
 Nothing ; surely nothing. No. But there we 
 lie with that awful terror of remorse upon us, 
 feeling and knowing that the mistake consisted 
 in our having lived only for this world, and not 
 at all for God. 
 
 My friends, such an hour, such a check,
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 9 
 
 may not yet have been experienced by you ; 
 but it most assuredly will be, unlikely though 
 you may at present deem it. Unless heaven 
 is prepared for beforehand, the strings of con- 
 science must be awakened on the death-bed. 
 
 All the mistakes and sins of the past life 
 rise up in array then. We had thought we 
 were doing so well in it ! We have not been 
 (in the wide sense of the term) open sinners 
 or secret sinners, but simply busy people 
 elbowing others in the world's race, and 
 using our best exertions to keep a fair and 
 reputable place in it. Ah, but what have we 
 left undone ? If the very holiest among us 
 pour forth that question in something very 
 like despair when about to render up their 
 account, what must we do who have not been 
 holy at all ? 
 
 There have been sins of omission and 
 commission. If not of that glaring nature
 
 10 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 that the world itself for propriety's sake con- 
 demns, have there not been lighter ones ? 
 Lighter, as we estimate them ; not much 
 lighter, perhaps, in the sight of heaven. The 
 unkind word spoken ; the unneighbourly act 
 done ; the utter lack of St. Paul's charity ; the 
 cheating, the lying, the pride, the scorn ; the 
 deliberate abandonment of those who had a 
 claim on us ; the hardness of heart ; frivolity ; 
 deceit ; self-indulgence ; covetousness ; the 
 habitual neglect of God — who is free from 
 these ? Opportunities wasted ; time misspent ; 
 precepts flung away. 
 
 In rude health, when the grave seems so 
 far off that it need not concern us at all, 
 these sins seem to us as very venial ones ; 
 not, in fact, to be called sins : in that solemn 
 hour I am trying to bring before you, when 
 the grave has drawn near and is making 
 ready, they start out in crimson colours, and
 
 OUR CHILDREN. II 
 
 we behold them in their true nature. With 
 the hands raised in despair, the heart crying 
 aloud in its anguish, we then ask of God that 
 a little more span of life may be given to us 
 as it was to Hezekiah of old, so that we may 
 redeem the past. " A year, Lord ! — a month ! 
 — a week ! Only a day, that we may repent 
 of our sins ! " 
 
 Too late. We have had the time, and not 
 used it — not used it for that which can alone 
 serve us in this our last solemn need. It was 
 good to work for riches : we needed them : 
 but riches have taken to themselves wings in 
 this our closing hour, and flown away. It 
 was well to strive for place and power ; some 
 must fill it : to rise to a height amidst men ; 
 to attain to fame : but these desirable things 
 cannot go away with us ; we have to leave 
 them behind. If we might but live our life 
 over again ! we cry out amid the cold dews
 
 12 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 of agony, so that we might atone for the 
 carelessness of the past ! that we might strive 
 a little, while working for this world, to work 
 also for God ! Too late. 
 
 Believe me, this is no ideal picture — no 
 creation of a vivid imagination. How many 
 of those gone from us for ever, going from us 
 daily, could testify to its truth ! But they 
 could never properly testify to the dreadful 
 anguish of the despairing soul at that awful 
 " Too late," for it would be impossible to 
 depict it. Tongue cannot utter it, or pen 
 form words for it. If represented in all its 
 truth and remorse and reality — which it never 
 can be — heart and courage would alike start 
 back with the prayer, " Lord, help me to 
 avoid this ! " 
 
 It is not so much what we have done 
 amiss, as what we have left undone, that will 
 trouble us, looking back. For the heaviest
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 13 
 
 sin that can lie on the conscience, Jesus 
 Christ holds out his free pardon. He can wash 
 us white. He will wash all who supplicate 
 him. But, that heavy array of things left un- 
 done — oh ! it is that that torments the spirit 
 and affrights the soul ! We see now at the 
 end, when time is over, how much lay in our 
 duty to do — and we did it not. In our 
 thoughtlessness we saw it not. We had not 
 meant to be unkind, or careless, or neglectful, 
 or to have given indifference where we should 
 have given love, or to have run the race of 
 life looking only at our own comforts and 
 conveniences and interests, and not at all to 
 the end. We seemed to be sailing smoothly 
 and safely (or hardly and painfully, according 
 to our lot) down the current of life, just as 
 others were sailing; and we thought ourselves 
 sufficiently religious, and never dreamt oi 
 such a day of retribution as this. Too late :
 
 14 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 the race is run ; regrets avails not. Life is 
 over, with all its good and evil. 
 
 But, amid our past omissions — to call them 
 by a light name — there is one that presses 
 upon the spirit at this solemn time above 
 every other, and it is this that I wish exclu- 
 sively to enlarge upon : neglected duty in 
 regard to our children. Our own sins, those 
 that touch ourselves solely, lie with us ; what 
 we have committed we shall have to answer 
 for. There is a verse, perhaps the most 
 solemn in all the Book of Revelation, that 
 shows us this. 
 
 " And I saw the dead, small and great, 
 stand before God ; and the books were 
 opened : and another book was opened, which 
 is the book of life : and the dead were judged 
 out of those things which were written in the 
 books, acccording to their works." 
 
 Yes, our works, whether they have been
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 15 
 
 good or evil, go forth with us to judgment ; 
 and by them we shall be justified, or by them 
 condemned. They cannot affect another. 
 Each soul must to itself stand or fall. But 
 it is a different thing in regard to those 
 children we leave behind us ; and it may 
 be that they, at the last Dread Day, shall 
 be lost or saved according as we have trained 
 them. 
 
 In the very happiest death-bed there must 
 always lie something of remorse and regret ; 
 for who has lived as well as he might have 
 lived ? A truly happy death-bed is a thing to 
 be written of ; to be talked about ; to cause 
 hearts to glow with thankfulness : and how 
 rare it is, as compared with its opposite, you 
 well know. It is a scene of peace, of holy 
 calm ; almost as if Heaven had come down to 
 earth for a little space and sanctified the 
 chamber. For he, whose soul is on the wing,
 
 l6 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 found his Saviour long before, and has striven 
 to live in his precepts ; and he knows that the 
 God, whom he has done his poor best to 
 serve, has blotted out all his sins for that 
 Saviour's sake. But, even the dying thoughts 
 of such a one as this are overshadowed by 
 anxious doubts and fears for the children he 
 is leaving ; and he says to himself, " I might 
 have done more for them ; have taught them 
 to know their God better ; have trained them 
 more effectually for Heaven and walked with 
 them more untiringly on the road to it." 
 And if these reproachful regrets visit the 
 good man, who has in truth had his children's 
 best interests at heart throughout life, and 
 laboured for their vital happiness — if he sees 
 his own shortcomings in this last closing 
 hour when time is fading and opportunities 
 are gone — what must be, think you, the regret 
 of those who have not so laboured ?
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 17 
 
 " Train tip a child in the way he should go : and 
 when he is old, he will not depart from it." 
 
 It is a recognition of this most imperative 
 duty that I want to impress upon you : the 
 vital necessity, the obligations laid upon you, 
 of training your children in their early years ; 
 of bringing them up " in the nurture and 
 admonition of the Lord." I am at a loss 
 how to accomplish it, for words adequate are 
 wanting : thoughts crowd the brain, but 
 language to express them fails. What I have 
 said above about our obligations to ourselves, 
 our own self-negligences and shortcomings, 
 was but meant as an introduction : this is 
 the one vital point on which I wish to speak. 
 
 It is a matter which concerns us all. Espe- 
 cially those who are young mothers : from 
 that royal lady who will some time share 
 
 c
 
 l8 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 the throne of these realms, to the poor wife 
 who hides herself amid the unwholesome 
 back lanes of this great metropolis, or within 
 the walls of a mud hut on a country plain, 
 and begs for the bread that keeps life in her 
 little ones. It alike concerns them, and all 
 the vast numbers who lie in the social gulf 
 between the two extremes. 
 
 It is the most solemn duty assigned us in 
 this world : no other responsibility can rest 
 upon us with equal weight. It is the most 
 fatal neglect, if we do neglect it, that can be 
 conceived, for that neglect may result in the 
 loss of our child's soul. And then how will 
 our own sin be redeemed ? If I can say a 
 little, by divine help, to induce you to take 
 thought for this solemn consideration, I shall 
 be happier in it than in anything I ever wrote. 
 
 For a long while the thought has pressed 
 itself upon me that something ought to be done,
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 19 
 
 and might be done, to awaken mothers to 
 their duty in this respect. As a rule (taking 
 the world in its mass), children are not trained 
 at all for God. I .fearlessly assert it. Or, at 
 least, the training they get is not worth the 
 name. I am sure that the instances where a 
 child is earnestly and untiringly trained thus 
 all through his earlier years — his infancy, his 
 childhood, his boyhood, his youth — are so 
 rare as to be but as.» one in ten thousand 
 to those who are not. Mothers love their little 
 ones. They are instinctively anxious to do 
 the best for their welfare in time and in 
 eternity, and no doubt think (many of them 
 at least) they are doing it. Some are : per- 
 haps in a better way than any hint of mine 
 could teach : and for them this little book is 
 not written. It is meant for the others ; the 
 great majority who are not ; and who perhaps 
 have never once reflected that they ought to 
 
 c 2
 
 20 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 do more than they are doing. As the poet, 
 Hood, says : 
 
 ** And yet it never was in my soul 
 To play so ill a part . 
 But evil is wrought by want of thought, 
 As well as want of heart." 
 
 Bear with me while I say somewhat of that 
 which I would say. It is in your interest, my 
 readers, not in my own. 
 
 This is a Christian land, and we profess to 
 bring up our children accordingly. How are 
 they trained ? That is, how taught to live in 
 this world, so as to attain to life in the next ? 
 Very differently. The category may be 
 divided into three general heads : those 
 mothers who truly and really teach their 
 children ; those who apparently teach them ; 
 and those who do not teach them at all. Of 
 course the middle class largely predominates.
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 21 
 
 Of the first there is but a small minority — 
 God alone can tell how small ; of the last 
 there is a much larger proportion. For 
 though, what with ragged schools, and Bible- 
 women, and city missionaries, and open-air 
 preaching, a kind of slight ordinary knowledge 
 of what is good and what is evil may be 
 picked up by the parents of those miserable 
 little arabs, as we have learnt to call them, 
 whose best home is the streets, a vast many 
 of those parents still lie in the depth of utter 
 heathen ignorance. The first few are not ad- 
 dressed ; the last it is here useless to address ; 
 therefore we take alone the middle and larger 
 class. And this class, you understand, is called 
 "middle" only in reference to the present 
 question, not as to social standing ; for it 
 comprises within it both high and low, rich and 
 poor. 
 
 How, as a rule — I would ask you indi-
 
 22 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 vidually — are you training your children ? — 
 — you, their mother and natural teacher ? 
 In a very proper and Christian manner, you 
 will probably answer : if you are not too 
 indignant, at being asked the question, to 
 answer at all. " They are taught to say their 
 prayers, and to learn their catechism, and 
 (perhaps) repeat some pretty hymns ; and they 
 go to church (or chapel) when they are old 
 enough ; and (still perhaps) they hear some 
 Bible reading at home on Sundays. That 
 is all very good and right and essential so far 
 as it goes, not to be neglected on any account. 
 But it is (or ought to be) only just the first 
 commencement. The chances are that you 
 let it end there. 
 
 A child is too often taught to lisp his 
 prayers like a parrot, understanding them 
 not : attaching no special reverence to them, 
 never having been prepared to pray : the chief
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 23 
 
 aim being to get him to know them by heart. 
 This effected, mamma and nurse say what an 
 apt little child it is ; and the little child goes 
 on gabbling the said prayers night and morn- 
 ing, according no meaning to them in his 
 mind. As to the Church catechism, or any 
 other catechism, it is generally taught him 
 when he is by far too young, and is as so 
 many hard phrases to him and harder sense. 
 When he is taken to church, perhaps as 
 early as at three or four years old — for 
 mamma is so proud of her darling that he 
 cannot be seen enough — what is it that is 
 chiefly thought of by the mother ? Why, 
 the child's handsome dress and his pretty 
 hair, and the difficulty of keeping him still 
 to the end of the service. And she, in 
 teaching him his prayers and in carrying him 
 to church, mostly thinks she has done her full 
 duty by him.
 
 24 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 Do not yon, O anxious mother, so teach, 
 so carry your child ! Before even he says his 
 first little word of prayer, prepare him for 
 it. Take him upon your knee in your closet 
 and explain to him in easy words, adapted to 
 his young mind, and with whispered, reverent 
 manner, why and to whom he must pray. Talk 
 to him of the good God who made him, his 
 Father above, the great Creator of all things, 
 Who fills the heavens and the earth ; Who 
 in his Omniscient Presence is ever at hand, 
 watching over him, seeing what he does, 
 whether he is good or naughty, hearing all he 
 says : Who sends his angels to be about his 
 path and about his bed to take loving care 
 of him lest he should fall into harm. When 
 the child has by gradual lessons realized this, 
 as far as he is capable, aud his little won- 
 dering eyes are lifted in awe to the sky above, 
 as if he would fain see into the beautiful place
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 25 
 
 beyond it, then cause him to kneel down, 
 and do you kneel by his side and put his 
 little lifted hands together, and do you put 
 yours together, all in silent reverence, and 
 so let him lisp his first words of prayer : 
 " Pray God bless me, and make me good ! " 
 
 Tell him of Jesus Christ the Saviour, who 
 came down to die for the world, because it 
 had sinned so deeply that God could not 
 pardon it, and no one, without that Sacrifice, 
 could have gone to live in Heaven : he who 
 so loves little children that he said, " Suffer 
 them to come unto me," and who took them 
 in his arms and blessed them. As the child 
 lies down in his bed at night, teach him to 
 say these lines : — 
 
 " To-night I lie me down to sleep, 
 I pray the Lord my soul to keep ; 
 If I should die before I wake, 
 I pray the Lord my soul to take."
 
 26 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 And in the morning, when he awakes, this 
 other verse : — 
 
 " I wake to this, another day ; 
 I pray the Lord to guide my way ; 
 If I should die before I sleep, 
 I pray the Lord my soul to keep." 
 
 Let him get into the habit of this, so that 
 the repeating of the verses goes, as it were, 
 with his lying down and with his awaking. 
 There have been good and great men, with 
 names known to the world, who have said 
 the lines always, from their infancy up to 
 their old age. Let your child learn to do so. 
 And then, when the hour comes that he is 
 saying them for the last time, and falling into 
 his final sleep, he shall wake up to a glorious 
 immortality. Some pious French mothers 
 teach their children a verse very similar ; and 
 as they stand over the cot to listen to the
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 2J 
 
 little lisping voice, they never fail to say, 
 " My child, he who says this the morning 
 and the evening, shall never lose the glorious 
 life in Paradise." 
 
 From the first elementary instruction that 
 you daily give your child, go on further by 
 gradual degrees as his capacity expands. 
 Never neglect it. Count that day lost in 
 which you have not been able to give it. 
 
 And when the proper time arrives to take 
 him to church — of which time you will be the 
 best judge, for children differ widely from one 
 another, but it must not be too early — pre- 
 pare him for that, in like manner, as you pre- 
 pared him for his first prayers. Impress upon 
 him fully why he goes there. Not to stare 
 about, and fidget, and whisper ; but to realise 
 that God is there, and to try to praise and 
 worship Him. Do not attempt to take him 
 until he comprehends this, and is ready
 
 28 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 and able to be at least reverent in manner. 
 Never let a slighting word pass your lips be- 
 fore him in reference to sacred things. A 
 child cannot understand as we do, but he 
 may learn in his little mind to hold all con- 
 nected with true religion in the deepest 
 reverence. Once let him see religion slighted, 
 religious subjects mocked, or religious exer- 
 cises carped at, and it may make an impres- 
 sion on his pliable young mind that may 
 never be wholly effaced in after life. 
 
 This, I say, is only the beginning. And a 
 mother, so beginning, will not be likely to 
 make it the ending. The great mistake made 
 by those others I have spoken of is, that the 
 superficial early instruction, which they give, 
 is both the beginning and the ending. Armed 
 with that superficial armour — the saying the 
 prayers (more or less reverently, as the case 
 may be), the learning the catechism, the
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 20, 
 
 attending church on the Sunday morning — a 
 child, boy or girl, is supposed to be fully 
 set-up in religion for life, and may go out 
 safely to his battle with the world. A 
 mother would not willingly do harm to her 
 child and send him on his way unprotected, 
 naked almost as when he was born ; but she 
 does it in thoughtlessness. Her own attention 
 has not been called to see the necessity for 
 more precaution, and so she does not give it. 
 
 There must arise moments in the life of 
 the most careless and busy man when he 
 feels the need of some refuge to fly to that 
 he cannot find here, some protecting arm to 
 shelter him. Disappointment, despair, trouble, 
 sin ; one or the other may so overwhelm his 
 mind that he suddenly feels it might be well if 
 he could find God. But he does not know the 
 way to Him. Unless he has been shown 
 somewhat of its landmarks previously, it is, to
 
 30 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 him, an utterly unknown road that he must 
 enter upon ; and his courage may perhaps fail, 
 and so he turns back from it. But, if he have 
 been taken along that road in his childhood, 
 the path is readily found now, and he will 
 not miss it. 
 
 The training must begin with the child's 
 very earliest years, and continue always. 
 Always unto manhood. Ay, and even after 
 that. As long as he is in his parents' home, 
 whether he be there continuously or only at 
 intervals, during holiday periods, or what not, 
 the boy (or girl) is under you, his mother, and 
 you must not neglect him. How many 
 mothers there are, most assiduous for their 
 children's comfort ; as comprised in warm cloth- 
 ing? in good food, in recreation, and in health 
 — in all things essential to their welfare in 
 this world — but who give no anxious thought 
 to their welfare in the next ! I For this life
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 31 
 
 they are nourished, educated ; no cost, no 
 trouble is deemed too great to fit their bodies 
 and minds for it, to enhance their success in 
 it : but what care or trouble is bestowed upon 
 their education for the world that has to come 
 after this ? In too many cases — I had nearly 
 said in most cases — absolutely none. None, 
 beyond what I have mentioned. 
 
 Take a very common case. You may look 
 around you and see many such cases for your- 
 selves ; true, sad, pictures. Mrs. X. has a 
 flock of little children ; she has abundant means, 
 at least her husband has, and she keeps two 
 or three nurses. But she is so anxious about 
 these children that she makes herself a slave 
 to them. Three parts of her time she spends 
 in the nursery; three parts of the house's 
 regularity and comfort are destroyed by the 
 exactions of these children. Their dinners are 
 studied ; their dresses are costly ; they are
 
 32 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 exhibited as show-children to visitors, indulged, 
 pampered, petted. No cost is spared to make 
 them little ladies and gentlemen ; no cost will 
 be spared to train them for the world. But 
 that other and higher training — where is it ? 
 Well, you shall judge. 
 
 They say their prayers like little parrots to 
 mamma or servant, as may be convenient, gab- 
 bling the words over in a morning in eagerness 
 to escape to breakfast and the pleasures of the 
 new day, droning through them at night in 
 sleepiness. The elder ones are taken to church 
 on Sunday morning, the girls dressed out like 
 puppets at a dolls' show, the boys in the most 
 fashionable of little boys' costumes. If they 
 possess any particular idea connected with 
 church, it is as being a place for exhibiting 
 flounces and feathers, silk- velvet knickerbockers 
 and silver shoe-buckles. There is never a holy 
 word read to them at home, or a pious exhor-
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 33 
 
 tation given ; the religion inculcated, such as 
 it is, begins and ends with the prayers and 
 the church. How will these children, think 
 you, be armed to fight against the temptations 
 of life ? Will they find the way to heaven in 
 later years, when they are not put into its 
 way in these their earlier ones ? It is a solemn 
 question. 
 
 The point of this is, that Mrs. X. believes 
 herself to be a most exemplary mother, quite 
 a pattern to some of her neighbours. For she 
 does not gad abroad in the world and leave 
 her children nearly entirely to servants, as 
 they do ; she is about them always. But, 
 with all her bustle and activity, Mrs. X. misses 
 the one thing needful. If she would but 
 devote only a little tithe of her daily time, 
 but a few minutes, to putting her children in 
 the right road, it would be well — well — for her 
 and for them. She wears herself out with 
 
 D
 
 34 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 cares and frivolities for their welfare in another 
 way ; she forgets this. 
 
 From some cause or other, it mostly is for- 
 gotten. Some mothers are lost in the whirl 
 of society : they have no space, save for dress- 
 ing, gaiety, visitors, and visiting ; others have 
 too much to do for their children, in regard 
 to their temporal wants, either of choice (as 
 above) or of necessity ; others are idle and 
 indifferent ; others are absorbed in the one 
 fierce struggle to earn the daily bread. No 
 matter what the preventing cause may be, a 
 very large proportion of our children, the little 
 bees, now, as I write this, living and buzzing 
 in the busy hive around us, receive none of 
 that particular, special training that will stand 
 them in good need in after life. I firmly 
 believe that if the training were made the rule, 
 instead of the exception, society would present 
 a widely different aspect from what it presents
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 35 
 
 now. The spread of artificiality, of social sins, 
 of frivolity, of pretentious show — the lust of 
 the eye and the pride of life — and above all 
 the spread of infidelity, is, each one, on the 
 increase amid us, and will continue to be. We 
 can expect nothing better when our children 
 are not trained against it. 
 
 " Train up a child in the way he should go." 
 I would that this injunction were engraven 
 on the heart of every one of you who may be 
 a mother ! Has it ever occurred to you to 
 remember what a charge of responsibility is 
 laid upon you by God when he gives you a 
 child ? The child is yours ; yours to tend, to 
 mould, to educate ; and, rely upon it, he will 
 be very much what you make him. According 
 to the seed you implant in his little pliable 
 
 heart, so will the fruit be. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 The laws of nature teach us this. Sow good 
 grain in the earth, and good grain will spring 
 from it ; flowers will come up flowers if we plant 
 them, yielding in return their beauty and their 
 perfume. But — if we plant noxious and poison- 
 ous plants, they can but come up such : if we 
 plant nothing, but let the ground run to waste, 
 there will be a desert of bare earth, or a crop of 
 ugly weeds. Jesus Christ himself asks us 
 whether we can grow grapes from thorns, or 
 figs from thistles. 
 
 In every other respect, a child is specially 
 trained. He is taught to ride, to dance, to read, 
 to write. He would never learn to read and 
 write of himself. A child can thump upon 
 the keys of a piano with his fingers, but he 
 cannot play on it and bring out its harmony 
 unless he learns how to play. Look at 
 the process of his education — how that goes 
 on, step by step, from teacher to teacher.
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 37 
 
 How much patient instruction, and through 
 how many years and degrees is that instruc- 
 tion necessary, before he is deemed fit to go 
 out and take his part in life ! Try and think 
 of any calling — any business, trade, profes- 
 sion — which does not require special training- 
 up to, and much practice, before it can be 
 exercised. I know of none. A prentice- 
 artisan takes seven years to learn his craft ; 
 a doctor must go through his books and his 
 lectures and his hospitals, stage by stage ; a 
 statesman must begin at the foot of the poli- 
 tical ladder, to acquire the experience neces- 
 sary to work his way to the top. Nothing 
 can be acquired without going through some 
 special training for it ; without work, prac- 
 tice, labour. Say to a young man who has 
 never learnt Greek, " Read me that chapter 
 from the Greek Testament." He cannot do 
 it. But another, standing by, a good Greek
 
 $& OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 scholar, will read it off-hand. Put a landsman 
 to navigate a ship to the opposite side of the 
 world : where would he and the ship soon be ? 
 But a practised sailor will take her out and 
 home in safety. 
 
 Even so. There is only one thing that we 
 do not train our children for — and that is 
 Heaven. Most carefully and anxiously do 
 we educate them for this world, and it is 
 quite right that we should ; but not at all for 
 the next. We cultivate, as it is our bounden 
 duty to do, the intellect and the physical 
 powers, and the mental capacities ; but we let 
 alone the soul. That is left (save perhaps 
 for some little elementary instruction) to run 
 along of itself, to take its own chance. And 
 yet — Heaven is to be our final home, and to 
 learn how to get to it the one thing needful. 
 You know Who said it. 
 
 Not for a moment, as you perceive, would
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 39 
 
 I imply that that other education is not 
 essential. It is essential, and in the highest 
 degree. We are placed in the world to work ; 
 our talents were bestowed upon us to culti- 
 vate and use to the uttermost. The mischief 
 lies in our forgetting that another world has 
 to be also prepared for. And it is so easy 
 to forget, seemingly as almost without sin, 
 amid the noise and strife and social obliga- 
 tions of life. But that other world, remember, 
 will be our eternal home ; this one is but the 
 short journey to it. 
 
 How can your son, whether as child, or 
 youth, or man, learn the way to Heaven 
 unless he be taught ? If he is not shown in 
 childhood that it is a desirable place, he may 
 never acquire any anxious wish to go thither, 
 may never of himself discover the road to it. 
 Cultivation is necessary in all things. Look at 
 the watchful care, late and early, bestowed by a
 
 40 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 gardener on some flower that his skill has made 
 rare. It might have been, untended, a very 
 common-place flower ; a hedge blossom grow- 
 ing by the road side ; but the constant, un- 
 tiring culture has made it beautiful. Compare 
 the little insignificant strawberry, trailing in 
 woods, with the magnificent specimens sold 
 at half-a-guinea a plate. In what lies the 
 difference ? — in care, in training, in cultivation. 
 And ought the soul of a child to be the one 
 only thing in this world that is not cultivated — 
 watchfully, anxiously, untiringly? Oh, my 
 friends, what shall it profit him if he gain the 
 whole world and lose his soul ? 
 
 Pause, and reflect a little. All our energies 
 are directed to fit the child for this world, 
 that he may hold a fair place in it. A short 
 world. At the best, but threescore years 
 and ten. As a grain of sand to the sea-shore, 
 a drop of water to the wide ocean, a moment
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 41 
 
 to the ages past, is man's duration here com- 
 pared with eternity. It is this truth that 
 should arouse you. Eternity! we cannot 
 realise it ; the mind loses itself in the attempt. 
 In happiness or in misery for ever, and for 
 ever, and for ever ! And such happiness ! 
 such misery ! Of neither the one nor the other 
 can we form any adequate idea here. If the 
 life hereafter were but to endure the length 
 of this life, why then the solemn considera- 
 tions attaching to it, though all too vast, 
 would not be what they are ; but it is, you 
 know, to be never-ending. Oh, reader, dear 
 reader, do not let this little appeal fall on you 
 in vain ! 
 
 As soon as your child can comprehend, 
 begin. Have a place apart. A little quiet room 
 that, maybe, is not used for much else : failing 
 such a room, use your own chamber. At the 
 same hour, as nearly as can be, take the child
 
 42 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 daily ; say, after breakfast in the morning ; and 
 (as often as you can) after tea at night. Put 
 him upon your knee ; and in a low, loving, 
 gentle voice, tell him of God, of his Saviour, 
 of heavenly things. Show him, in simple lan- 
 guage adapted to him, what he must do to 
 please God, to gain Heaven. Impress upon 
 him, I say, the great facts that God is ever near 
 him, watching him ; that Jesus waits to wel- 
 come him ; that angels are about his path and 
 about his bed, shielding him from harm. Show 
 him that this world is not our home, but only 
 one in which we are placed, as in a state of 
 probation, to fit us for the real home to 
 come. Teach him not to fear death, only to 
 try and be ever ready for it. Practically incul- 
 cate on him his duties to his fellow-creatures 
 that elbow him in the world : kindness, for- 
 bearance, gentleness, love, preferring their 
 convenience to his own ; humanity to dumb
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 43 
 
 things ; fearless truth, honour, uprightness ; 
 patience, unselfishness. Read to him pretty 
 Bible stories ; let them pave the way for 
 the Bible itself, and for other books telling 
 of God. 
 
 The sitting need not be long — ten minutes, 
 or so — but let it be persevered in from day to 
 day, week to week, month to month, year to 
 year. You can have no idea how intensely 
 the teachable and impressionable little child 
 will learn to love these short moments and to 
 look for them ; you can have still less idea of 
 the blessing they may prove to him in his 
 future life, the safeguard they may be. As 
 your other children come on, take them also 
 to join him : their eager faces, upturned to 
 yours, will form a picture as they sit around 
 your knee. There is no other teaching can 
 supplant this : you may read the Bible amidst 
 your household, you may hold family prayer ;
 
 44 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 but that cannot make up for the neglect of 
 this. This is what will lay the good founda- 
 tion for the time to come. 
 
 It will be some trouble to you, costing a little 
 time and a good deal of patient perseverance ; 
 but you will be working on for a rich reward. 
 Watch the children when they are with you 
 at other times : subject them to discipline ; 
 stop the quarrelsome word, the rising temper, 
 but always stop it gently, and reason with the 
 child for a minute, showing him how wrong 
 and foolish it is. A child's temper may be 
 brought under discipline as well as its mind. 
 Never let them hear a truly unkind word from 
 you, or tones raised in passion. Let the nurse 
 have the trouble of the children ; not you : 
 the washing and dressing, the romping, the 
 noise, the "tiresome little fractiousness. The 
 best of children will be naughty, and their 
 noise grates on the nerves, inducing irritability
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 45 
 
 and temper in ourselves ; but let the noise and 
 the romping and the naughtiness take place 
 in the nursery away from you. Direct your- 
 self principally to their training ; the training 
 I am trying to tell you of. 
 
 When a child is born to those of rank, how 
 proud does the mother feel in anticipation if 
 he be destined (in all human expectation) to 
 fill some high and mighty place in the land ; 
 say, a post about the court or person of his 
 sovereign ! How much rather should she wish 
 it to be about Him who is King of kings and 
 Lord of lords ! But this wish, I fear, is hardly 
 ever glanced at : and yet that child in his 
 eternal life, if he be to enter upon it, must 
 occupy some post greater or lesser around 
 the heavenly Throne. 
 
 Pray do not mistake me. Do not fancy I 
 would wish a child to be brought up to be a 
 hermit or a monk, or a strait-laced man. The
 
 46 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 children may be reared as other children are : 
 to dance, and dress, and hold their little 
 social meetings, and read their fairy tales, and 
 altogether be made fit for any position or rank 
 they may have to fill. I am not suggesting 
 to you to keep your children from the world ; 
 only to endeavour to arm them so that they 
 may not entirely succumb to its evils. Into 
 the world they must go, and enter on its 
 multifarious occupations, and you must do 
 your best to fit them for their business in it. 
 The more comprehensively a child is educated, 
 the better will he be enabled to fulfil these 
 obligations. But, in addition to that educa- 
 tion for the world, there must be something 
 else educated — the soul. There is no way of 
 effecting this, that I know of, save by the 
 mother's earnest, constant teaching. Once 
 make this good impression on a child in his 
 earliest years, when the spirit is in its freshest
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 47 
 
 dawn,, and the virgin soil of the mind is free 
 for what may be planted therein, and it will 
 never be effaced, never lost. 
 
 A perfect faith, too deeply seated ever to 
 be shaken ; a profound feeling of religion in 
 the soul ; a sense of his own individual re- 
 sponsibility as to whether he shall choose the 
 good or the ill ; a lively sense of the life that is 
 awaiting him after this life, and that he must, 
 if he is to attain to its perfect bliss, work on 
 for — all this will be possessed by a young man 
 if he have been brought up in the right way. 
 As the charge runs in the Book of Deuter- 
 onomy, so will the early charge he has been 
 imbued with be to him : " See, I have set 
 before thee this day life and good, and death 
 and evil : therefore choose life, that thou and 
 thy seed may live." 
 
 It is the best, the only safeguard a young- 
 man can start with in life, and will bring him
 
 48 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 scatheless through many a temptation. " God 
 sees me ; my mother taught me and prays for 
 me ; for very shame, in very gratitude, I can- 
 not do this." And so, the armour will keep 
 him safe. I do not say that all will be so 
 kept. Nay, a very many will fall into snares 
 in spite of it ; for the world teems with fasci- 
 nations, with engrossing pursuits, good and 
 evil, and youth is hot and heedless. But, 
 rely upon it, though that early teaching may 
 lie dormant, it is not eradicated : from the 
 depths of his memory will arise, ever and 
 anon, the stings of conscience to prick him 
 in the midst of his sin, warning him to return 
 to the better path, and perhaps in time pre- 
 vailing. And so, though he may wander 
 astray for a time, never fear but he will come 
 back again and carry his sins and his repent- 
 ance on High, and be received into the 
 Redeemer's fold. When the prodigal son
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 49 
 
 grew sick of his riotous living in a foreign 
 country, and would fain return to his father 
 with tears and remorse, that father had com- 
 passion on him, and ran to meet him when 
 he was yet a great way off, and fell on his 
 neck and kissed him, and called to his ser- 
 vants to bring forth the best robe to put upon 
 him, and a ring on his hand, and shoes on his 
 feet, and to kill the fatted calf that they might 
 eat and be merry : " For this my son was 
 dead, and is alive again ; he was lost, and is 
 found." 
 
 Unhappy instances may occur where this 
 early training and teaching avails not, where 
 even during its process the child throws it off 
 again, and repays you with hardness and 
 incipient scorn : his nature is so evil and 
 vicious that no good seems to be able to 
 penetrate it. Happily these cases are ex- 
 tremely rare ; but a unit in the many. Should 
 
 E
 
 50 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 such a one be found in your home, bringing you 
 no return for your perseverance and prayer, you 
 will at least have the consolation of knowing that 
 your conscience is free — that not on you will lie 
 the blame should the child's soul be lost — that 
 you have done your duty by him, and are guilt- 
 less of his blood in the sight of God. And you 
 cannot imagine, unless you experience it, the 
 peace that this knowledge would give you. 
 
 Sometimes, the bitter trouble arising from 
 an ill-doing child comes home to us during 
 our lifetime. Two instances of this, chancing 
 in nearly the opposite ends of society, have 
 recently occurred. Lady R. had a son whom 
 she idolised — a fine young fellow in the 
 pride and flower of his early manhood, 
 but graceless. While plunged up to the ears 
 in a vortex of folly and sin, he met with a 
 sudden death. His mother's anguish is heart- 
 rending ; her despair pitiable. " Oh ! where
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 51 
 
 is he now ? " she cries, wringing her hands in 
 her bitter self-reproach. " Lost ! Lost ! It is 
 my fault, Lord ! Let the sin lie upon me. 
 I might have trained him better, and I did 
 not." 
 
 Going past a street corner the other day, I 
 missed the apple-woman from it. Another 
 sat in her place. " Where is she ? " I asked. 
 " Oh, ma'am, she's deaf" " Dead ! What 
 from?" "A sort o' bronchitis." "But she 
 could not have been ill long ? " " No time 
 at all, ma'am, so to say. But she has lately 
 had a deal of in'ard trouble : her daughter 
 went wrong, and was lost." 
 
 Is it too much to assume that this poor 
 woman's " inward trouble " consisted largely 
 of self-reproach ? — that she blamed herself for 
 not having tried to give her daughter that 
 armour which would have kept her from the 
 snares of the world, and that the remorse 
 
 e 2
 
 52 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 told upon and helped to kill her ? These 
 two incidents are not fables invented for the 
 sake of illustration ; they have just taken 
 place. 
 
 Oh, mothers ! Ladies of high degree, 
 women of humble station, for your own 
 peace' sake, train your child ! There must 
 arise an hour when the recollection of this 
 most vital duty will come home to you, bring- 
 ing to your heart comfort or despair, according 
 to the manner in which you shall have sought 
 to fulfil it. "A child left to himself bringeth 
 his mother to shame," says that great and 
 wise king to whom God gave more than 
 earthly wisdom. Look out into the world ; 
 mark and note, and you will see that it is 
 only too true. Your untrained, untaught 
 son — trained, that is, only for himself and the 
 world, not for God — may not bring you to 
 outward shame in the sight of men, but he
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 53 
 
 will bring you to shame and remorse of 
 heart. 
 
 Say not to yourself (as it may be that some 
 of you, my readers, will say), " Surely the 
 necessity for this arduous and continuous 
 training cannot lie on me ! my children have 
 good parts — they are sensible, moral, thought- 
 ful, tractable ; not likely to go astray when 
 they shall come to years of discretion. " Be- 
 lieve me, there is at least as much necessity 
 to train a good child as a bad one. The 
 child of good parts may turn out to be a good 
 man ; moral, intellectual, upright ; and yet, 
 with all that, he may not live for God, The 
 great sinner, who has crimson sins to repent 
 of, may find Him first. For, when he awakens 
 to his state and sees himself as he is, he can 
 only fall at Heaven's feet in shame, and gasp 
 out his despairing cry for mercy. But the 
 man who has been good all his life, as we
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 count goodness, may not see his need of the 
 same mercy until it is too late, or on the verge 
 of being too late. He has been moral and 
 immaculate, he has ; has never found out 
 that all men, including himself, are sinners, 
 and so has not been brought to seek the 
 only one means of salvation — his Redeemer. 
 When the portals of the grave are opening for 
 him, then he probably does see it, sees his 
 need and his error, and his nakedness, and 
 wakes up to an extremity of despair that the 
 other knows not of. " Lord, I have lived 
 without Thee, I have sinned in the midst 
 of light ; I have neglected my Saviour : can 
 it be that Thou wilt receive me at this the 
 closing hour ? ; ' And he wishes — oh, with 
 what bitter yearning ! — just as that other one 
 wishes, that he could live his life over again, 
 so that he might serve God as well as man.
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 55 
 
 " Train up a child in the way he should 
 go : and when he is old, he will not depart 
 from it." 
 
 Nothing can be fraught with more earnest 
 truth than the promise contained in this in- 
 junction. You may deem that I repeat it too 
 frequently. I do not think so. 
 
 When he is old, take you notice. I believe those 
 words are pregnant with a meaning not usually 
 attached to them. The impression gathered from 
 them generally is, that the child so trained will 
 never depart from the right way. This is wrong : 
 at least, it is not borne out usually in life — as a 
 vast experience proves. I read them differently. 
 Although he may wander, or fall astray from 
 it in his midday life, he will not fail to return 
 to it when he is old. To me it seems that 
 this may be the true and wider acceptation.
 
 56 OUR CHILDREN, 
 
 Precepts imparted in childhood, trained with 
 the child, become part and parcel of his 
 nature. You cannot root them out. They 
 are his for life. They grow with his growth, 
 and strengthen with his strength. Though 
 he may— I here again say it — yield for a 
 while to the sins society recks of, in the 
 hot blood of his spring-time, when life's 
 morning is fair and young, and evil wears its 
 most specious aspect to delude the inex- 
 perienced and unwary, he will come back to the 
 right when he is old. Believe me, for I tell you 
 truth. Take your child's heart to Heaven in his 
 early years, and to Heaven he will turn in his 
 later ones. Do you think that God will let him 
 be lost ? No. He has heard the prayers of 
 that child, and seen that his heart was set 
 aright. He has heard your prayers for him : and, 
 though the snares of the world may have drawn 
 him astray for a time, his Heavenly Father will
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 57 
 
 assuredly bring his heart home again ere the 
 last final scene shall come. 
 
 That is a beautiful saying; one I like to 
 believe in ; though I do not remember just 
 now who first recorded it — That the child of 
 a praying mother will never be lost. Most of 
 us, I suppose, pray for our children : but the 
 prayers must be of the most solemn, supplica- 
 ting earnestness, and be persevered in to the end. 
 
 Yes. Those early lessons will come back 
 again in the time of need, for they were im- 
 planted within him in characters of adamant. 
 What a child learns in infancy he learns for life. 
 
 When man is old, and his faculties begin to 
 fail, it is not the present, daily, occurrences he 
 remembers and dwells upon. Perhaps he will 
 hardly recal what has happened the day 
 before. But, question him on the memories 
 of his childhood, and you will find his recol- 
 lections vivid and bright as ever. They can-
 
 58 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 not leave him ; he holds to them with clinging 
 fondness ; believes in them, cherishes them, 
 takes them down with him to the grave. No 
 power in earth — I had almost written, in 
 Heaven — can disenchant us in regard to our 
 childhood's home. We believe in the grand 
 hills around ; in the green green fields ; in the 
 wild flowers growing amid the tall grass ; in 
 the shrubs and trees ; in the old rooms, be they 
 ever so homely. We learnt to love and believe 
 in them with our earliest years, as being the 
 dearest and best objects the world contained, 
 and they became part and parcel of ourselves, 
 not to be effaced in after-life. Dormant they 
 may lie for the most part, but they are there 
 within us. And thus it is with our childhood's 
 lessons, the precepts we learnt at our mother's 
 knee. What she impresses upon the teachable 
 young heart, is impressed for ever. 
 
 It lies with you, and with you only, to
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 59 
 
 train your child — to train him for good or for 
 ill. Had the young men of the present 
 generation been taught to know God in their 
 early years; had faith, and hope, and trust 
 been then implanted within them ; we should 
 hear less of the sin of infidelity that is stalk- 
 ing abroad. In their superciliousness, in what 
 they are pleased to call their advanced know- 
 ledge, their positivism, their rationalism — I 
 know not how many other isms, but they all 
 tend to one point, atheism — these young men 
 ridicule the very name of religion. The Bible 
 is questioned, carped at, called a string of 
 fables. Speak to them a word of solemn 
 warning, and they shrug their shoulders in 
 return, uncertain which to despise most, that 
 kindly-meant word, or him who gives it. 
 What will their end be ? Do they ever ask 
 themselves what ? Will they remember in 
 time that there is a God to judge them — a
 
 60 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 Redeemer to save them ? Or will they go 
 down to the grave as they have lived : self- 
 sufficient ; unbelievers ? 
 
 "In the last day" says St. Paul, "perilous 
 times shall come. For men shall be lovers of 
 their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blas- 
 phemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy : 
 lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God." 
 
 Would it not seem, looking around us, that 
 these last day have come ? And your child 
 must live in them, and be exposed to all their 
 danger. But, if you encompass him about 
 with his casing of heavenly armour, you need 
 not fear for him. 
 
 One word of caution I would give here. It 
 relates to the Bible. Beware how you bring 
 up your child to regard it. Implant within 
 him a holy reverence for it in all respects, 
 imbue him with the most implicit belief in it. 
 Let him see you hold it in reverence, even to
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 6l 
 
 your touch, handling it solemnly as something 
 pertaining to God. Let the Bible have a place 
 to itself in your home ; put no other books 
 under it, or above it, or close around it ; teach 
 the little child to revere even its outward 
 form as a thing that may not be taken up 
 heedlessly and lightly. Impress upon his 
 mind the fact that in its doctrines he will 
 learn the way to Life ; see that belief in them 
 shall take such root in his heart as to become 
 entwined with its growing fibres. In short, 
 let his faith in the Bible be such that no 
 adverse dogma shall have power to shake 
 it. 
 
 This caution is not unnecessary. For un- 
 less our faith in the Bible be a sure faith, 
 strong and firm, and has grown with our 
 growth and strengthened with our strength, 
 so that no assailing enemy can uproot it, I see 
 not how we should escape the taint that is
 
 62 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 abroad, of which I have just spoken. Even 
 the clergy are not all free from this taint — the 
 taint of infidelity. One of them, a young man, 
 stood up in a pulpit the other day, and told 
 the congregation before him that they need 
 not believe altogether in the Bible and New 
 Testament, for that two books at least, one in 
 each of them, were not inspired. Ah, my 
 friends, let us hope that in their assumption 
 of displayed erudition, in their egregious self- 
 sufficiency, he and such as he little suspect 
 the harm they do, or that one such sermon 
 of doubt as this may destroy a soul. 
 
 Unless the ears that listen to this dan- 
 gerous doctrine be proof against it, how shall 
 the poison fail to work ? " If this portion of 
 the Bible and that of the New Testament did 
 not come down to us by writers inspired by 
 God, where is my guarantee that the other 
 portions are worthy of belief ? " reasons some
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 63 
 
 one of the unfortunate hearers. And from that 
 hour there lies on this hearer's mind an un- 
 comfortable feeling of uncertainty in regard to 
 the Bible ; it is not to him the never-to-be- 
 doubted guide that it used to be — God's own 
 book. But, take you care that your child is 
 so trained, so assured, that this most fatal 
 teaching, should he be exposed to it in later 
 life, may fall harmless upon him. 
 
 Once let a man begin to doubt the Bible, 
 and he does not stop there. The next thing 
 he will tell us is that he has no faith left in 
 anything — in Heaven, or in a hereafter. Be- 
 lieve me, the faith you implant in your child 
 must be founded as on a rock of adamant, 
 if you would help him safely onwards to 
 eternal life. 
 
 It is the most solemnly enjoined duty im- 
 posed upon the generations of man — the im- 
 planting faith in their children. No other
 
 04 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 obligation laid upon them is so grave as this. 
 Nothing like unto the consciousness of having 
 fulfilled it to the best of our imperfect abilities 
 will cheer our death-bed when we come to die. 
 If I knew any manner in which to urge it 
 upon you more strenuously, all you whose 
 little ones are yet young and impressionable, 
 I would use it. 
 
 Think not it is I, or such as I, who would 
 impress upon you a sense of its vital necessity. 
 It is God Himself. It is the Bible. Through- 
 out its pages are scattered in all parts this 
 most imperative charge. None greater, none 
 so earnest, was imposed upon the Israelites 
 of old when Moses was leading them through 
 the wilderness. 
 
 "And these words which I command thee this 
 day shall be in their heart. And thou shalt teach 
 them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk 
 of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 65 
 
 thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, 
 and when thou risest up." 
 
 Over and over again is the charge repeated. 
 " Only take heed to thyself and keep thy soul 
 diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine 
 eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart 
 all the days of thy life ; but teach them thy sons 
 and thy sons' sons." 
 
 " Gather me the people together," said the Lord 
 God, " and I will make them hear my words, that 
 they may learn to fear me all the days that they 
 shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their 
 children . ._. . .Oh that there were such an heart 
 in my peoftle that they would fear me, and keep all 
 my commandments always, that it might be well 
 with them and with their children for ever ! " 
 
 It was one of the last charges of Moses to 
 the people, that last day, when he was going 
 up to the mount to die. " Set your hearts unto 
 all the words which I testify among you this day,
 
 66 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 which ye shall command your children to observe to 
 do, all the words of this law. For it is not a vain 
 thing for you, because it is your life : and through 
 this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land, 
 whither ye go over Jordan to possess it." 
 
 That good land beyond Jordan was, you 
 know, a type of Heaven. If the Israelites had 
 obeyed the laws themselves, and yet neglected 
 to teach them to their children, would they 
 have been suffered to inherit that good land ? 
 If we neglect our children, so that they fall 
 away and never find the way to that promised 
 land, upon whom will lie the sin ? On them, 
 who were not taught ; or on us, who did not 
 teach ? My readers, it is a momentous ques- 
 tion : a question that we cannot answer. 
 
 After the Israelites had passed over Jordan, 
 and the twelve stones that they had brought 
 were pitched in Gilgal, Joshua gave them one 
 charge.
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 67 
 
 " When your children shall ask their fathers 
 in time to come, saying, What mean these stones ? 
 then ye shall let your children know, saying, 
 Israel came over this Jordan on dry land. For 
 the Lord your God dried up the waters of Jordan 
 from before you until ye were passed over, as the 
 Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried 
 up from before us until we were gone over. That 
 all the people of the earth might know the hand of 
 the Lord that it is mighty : that ye might fear the 
 L&rd your God for ever." 
 
 Always the children, you see. They are 
 to be taught, and shown, and trained for the 
 Lord. 
 
 It is spoken of by David in the Psalms — 
 that " sweet singer of Israel." He calls upon 
 the people to hear and know the laws of God, 
 and to teach them, as the Lord commanded, 
 to their children, to the intent that when they 
 grow up they might teach their children the 
 same. f 2
 
 68 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 " That the generations to come might know them, 
 even the children which should be bom ; who 
 should arise and declare them to their children : 
 that they might set their hope in God, and not for- 
 get the works of God, but keep his command- 
 ments" 
 
 That they might set their hope in God ! 
 
 And, in some verses later on in this same 
 Psalm, which is the seventy-eighth, it states 
 that the Lord's anger was kindled against them, 
 because " they believed not in God and trusted not 
 in his salvation." 
 
 The Book of Proverbs teems with the im- 
 portance of correcting and instructing a child. 
 Look at it for yourselves. Search out the 
 instances ; they are too numerous to be tran- 
 scribed here. But the one injunction that I 
 have quoted, as you may think all too fre- 
 quently, embodies the drift of most of them. 
 
 Turn to Isaiah. Note how the teaching in
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 69 
 
 the very earliest infancy is enjoined there, and 
 in what manner it is to be performed. 
 
 " Whom shall he teach knowledge ? and whom 
 shall he make understand doctrine ? Them that 
 are weaned from the milk and drawn from the 
 breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept 
 upon precept ; line upon line, line upon line ; 
 here a little and there a little." 
 
 Indeed it must. If we are to do effectual 
 good to our children, precept must be upon 
 precept and line upon line, given untiringly 
 and unceasingly. The efforts must be very 
 gentle, very ; here a little and there a little ; 
 gentle and almost imperceptible, only they 
 must never flag. It seems an arduous task 
 to undertake, no doubt, to you who have 
 never entered on it, and perhaps have never 
 had your serious reflection drawn to the 
 obligation of it. But when once you have 
 entered on and are fairly embarked in the
 
 JO OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 work, you will experience a pleasure you little 
 dream of now. It will of itself bring to you 
 an exceeding great reward. 
 
 " Is it necessary ? " I hear some of you 
 asking this question in doubt. Necessary ? 
 Well, it is the eternal welfare of your own 
 child that is at stake ; the child whom you 
 love better than life. Accordingly as this know- 
 ledge of heavenly things and of a wish to 
 attain to the Life hereafter is implanted in his 
 infant heart, or not implanted, so may he be 
 lost or saved. 
 
 Remember Christ's own description of his 
 final coming: of that dread day when the 
 Son of Man shall come in the clouds of 
 Heaven with power and great glory, and He 
 shall send his angels with a great sound of a 
 trumpet to gather his elect from the four winds, 
 from one end of Heaven to the other. 
 
 " / tell you in that night there shall be two men
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 71 
 
 in one bed; the one shall be taken and the other 
 shall be left. Two women shall be grinding to- 
 gether ; the one shall be taken and the other 
 shall be left. Two men shall be in the field; the 
 one shall be taken and the other shall be left." 
 
 That is— oh, words of awful meaning ! — the 
 one shall enter into Life, and the other shall 
 lose it. 
 
 Now, what constitutes, or will constitute, 
 the difference in these two ; the chosen and 
 the non-chosen? Apparently there is no 
 difference outwardly. The one is not repre- 
 sented as idle, sinful, ill-doing; the other as 
 diligent and of good report. Rather are we 
 led to believe that both are doing their duty 
 industrously as regards the obligations of this 
 world ; the two women equally grinding at the 
 mill, the two men equally working in the field. 
 But, the one class will have Heaven in the heart ; 
 be looking for it, hoping for it, striving for it ;
 
 72 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 the other will never have thought about it. 
 What a warning it is ! 
 
 Of all the incidents recorded in the gospel 
 narrative, perhaps none are more pregnant 
 with meaning (and with more meanings than 
 one) than is that of the two thieves crucified 
 with Jesus. It shows us how pardon may be 
 had even at the eleventh hour ; it shows how 
 ready and willing the Redeemer is to hear the 
 cry of the sinner. He stands but to save. 
 In the depths of his own agony, he would 
 have stretched forth his hand, had it not 
 been nailed to the cross, in forgiving love ; his 
 words and his heart alike went forth to the 
 supplicating cry. 
 
 " And one of the malefactors which were 
 hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be the 
 Christ, save thyself and us. But the other 
 answering rebuked him, saying, Dost thou not 
 fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemna-
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 73 
 
 Hon ? A nd we indeed justly ; for we receive the 
 due reward of our deeds ; but this man hath done 
 nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, 
 remember me when thou contest into thy kingdom. 
 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, 
 To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." 
 
 Here is an exact exemplification of the 
 previous words, " The one shall be taken and the 
 other shall be left." At this, the close of the two 
 thieves' life, one was saved and the other was 
 lost. And why should this have been ? Are 
 we at a loss to know ? Both were alike guilty, 
 and had no doubt lived the same kind of 
 evil life : but the one turned to God in the 
 last hour ; the other did not. 
 
 Would it be too much to assume that 
 the first had had an anxious mother, who 
 had guided his thoughts heavenward in his 
 earliest years, and that the second had not ? 
 It is more than likely. The infant lessons,
 
 74 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 forgotten all through his evil career, came back 
 to him in that, the closing hour, and stood 
 him in good need : led him to his Saviour, 
 and preserved his soul. The other may never 
 have had a word of Heaven and its glories 
 whispered to him ; may never have been 
 shown so much as the first faltering step of the 
 way thither, or been taught a single prayer. 
 Be you very sure of one thing — I cannot 
 reiterate it too often — that where these lessons 
 have been taught, however much they have 
 lain dormant or been lost sight of in middle 
 life, they will come back to flood the heart in 
 the last solemn, great extremity. 
 
 Mothers ! it lies with you to train your 
 children. In that chapter of Timothy from 
 which a few lines have already been transcribed 
 farther back, St. Paul, after enlarging upon 
 the perilous times of the last days, and the 
 dangerous doctrines and practices that shall
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 75 
 
 then fill the world, hardly seems to consider it 
 necessary to warn Timothy ; appearing rather 
 to consider him proof against such. He 
 says : 
 
 " Continue thou in the things which thou hast 
 learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom 
 thou hast learned them; and that from a child 
 thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are 
 able to make thee wise unto salvation through 
 faith which is in Christ Jesus" 
 
 And Timothy, we know, had been brought 
 up in this faith, in these things, by his 
 mother. 
 
 Elsewhere — it is in Corinthians — St. Paul 
 compares our life here to a race; a race 
 which all must run ; the prize for which is an 
 incorruptible crown, and telling us so to run 
 that we may obtain it. 
 
 A race it undoubtedly is. A race in which 
 we have to fight and struggle. Great im-
 
 76 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 pediments beset our way at every step ; sin, 
 pride, carelessness, throwing us back perpetu- 
 ally ; sometimes throwing us out altogether, 
 so that we never find the prize or earn the 
 crown. 
 
 But of all the hindrances of the present 
 day, none is so formidable as the spirit 
 of infidelity. That it is gaining ground amid 
 our young men, no one can deny. They are 
 too self-sufficient nowadays for religion : they 
 think themselves as clever as their Maker, 
 and they despise the teaching of His prophets. 
 Many of the books now issued are tainted with 
 this infidelity. Even those of fiction. The 
 other evening, glancing over the pages of one 
 of these that is being extensively read, I 
 came to the words, " If there be another 
 world." These books will fall into the hands 
 of your children sooner or later. It rests with 
 you to decide whether the taint shall have power
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 77 
 
 to affect them, or whether it shall fall in- 
 nocuous. 
 
 Is it but a species of the worst kind of affec- 
 tation, that induces this proclaimed disbelief ? 
 — or is it true atheism ? I often wonder which. 
 In most cases I believe it to be only the former. 
 Guard, guard your children from every outlet 
 of its approaches. 
 
 The very fact that this life cannot satisfy 
 the desires and aspirations of the spirit, 
 earthly or heavenly, must in itself be a 
 convincing proof that there is a different 
 life to come ; one higher and better. Does 
 anything ever satisfy us ? Does realisation 
 answer expectation ; whether in fame, in love, 
 in ambition, in wealth, in domestic ties ? No, 
 never. Something comes to mar them all. 
 That which looked so fair and bright in 
 anticipation, turns out — even if the hope be 
 gained, and that is very rare — to be leavened
 
 78 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 with something that corrodes it. At the very 
 best, though bliss of any kind be here realised, 
 it flits speedily away. Time flies like a 
 shadow. Man's allotted years are but three- 
 score and ten ; and few of us can say at that 
 age, looking back on the past, " My dearest 
 hopes and dreams, in this thing or in that, 
 were fulfilled unto me and became living 
 realities." Can this poor, imperfect life be the 
 ending of all ? Can the immortal soul, that 
 nevers dies, have been created only for this ? 
 If so, what would become of those aspirations 
 after a better, and holier, and loftier state than 
 can be found below ? — glimpses of which in the 
 spirit are snatched by us all, though they are 
 too fleeting to be retained or (almost) to be 
 remembered. Were they sent to us for 
 nought, think you ? No. The soul will find 
 its true and perfect life, when this unsatisfying 
 existence shall be over.
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 79 
 
 Can I say more than I have already said ? 
 Is it, or is it not, essential to train our 
 children, so that they may not fail to gain 
 the life after this life ? Christ calls it the 
 one thing needful ; the treasure hid in a field ; 
 the pearl of great price. For which pearl, 
 when found, the finder in his joy sells all that 
 he has, and buys it. How inestimable must 
 be this treasure ! What can compare with 
 the joy of the finder? To know that he 
 possesseth it, and is saved, and will live for 
 ever ! — that he belongs to the Lord, to the 
 great I AM ; an inheritor of the New 
 Jerusalem that shall come down out of 
 Heaven ! 
 
 Oh, mothers ! help your dear ones to find 
 it ! You can only do it when they are young. 
 Delay it, and they may miss the way. You 
 may make what you will of the impressionable 
 mind of a child ; it is yours to mould as you
 
 80 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 choose ; fill it not with good things, and it 
 will fill itself with bad ones. Has a fore- 
 shadowing ever come dimly over you of that 
 last great day when we shall be all gathered 
 before the Lord, to inherit Heaven or to be 
 shut out from it ? Will you be able to stand 
 with your children and say, " Lord, of those 
 that thou hast given me, I have not lost one ? " 
 Or will you cower there in piteous agony, 
 seeing that they are lost ? Try and realize 
 what such an hour as that would be : your 
 dearly-beloved children shut out for ever. 
 The very thought of it even now, makes your 
 heart ache with a desperate anguish. 
 
 And yet, I know that you cannot now 
 picture it with that vivid sense of responsi- 
 bility that you may in later life, when death 
 shall be approaching, and your eyes shall have 
 opened to see the past as it was, with all its 
 mistakes and omissions, its time wasted, its
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 8l 
 
 opportunities unused. Whatever that past 
 may have been, it is gone ; gone for ever. 
 You cannot alter it now; you cannot re-live 
 your life. Nothing remains of it but its 
 results, and the consciousness of whether you 
 did well by your children, or did not do it. 
 Ah, what will all the glory and honour, and 
 wealth and fame, and houses and lands of this 
 world be to you then ? You may have taught 
 your children how to insure success in these ; 
 but if you have not taught them how to 
 strive for that other Land, on you will lie the 
 sting of remorse. For in that hour riches 
 and grandeur and the comforts of this life 
 will take to themselves wings and fly away, 
 and you perceive exactly what they were 
 worth. Life, looking back upon it, has been 
 so short ! It seems now to have passed so quickly 
 as not to have mattered whether you were 
 well or ill in it, happy or miserable. The 
 
 G
 
 82 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 one true life in which it will matter, for you 
 must dwell in it for ever, is being entered 
 upon. 
 
 Oh, take your little child now that he is 
 young, and do what you can towards the 
 saving of his soul. No duty laid upon you 
 is so imperative as this ; no neglect is so irre- 
 deemable if you pass it by. You may bend 
 the young twig as you will, but you cannot 
 bend the grown tree : you may lead the baby- 
 child to be what you please, but you cannot 
 lead the man. Never let the ten minutes of 
 daily instruction and admonition be omitted. 
 Shut yourself up with your child in private, 
 and say what you wish to say : he is yours 
 to teach in infancy, in childhood, in boyhood, 
 in youth. Observe it always when practicable. 
 Read to him, and then talk to him. 
 
 But, whilst enlarging on pleasant things to 
 him — on the Heavenly Fathers mercy, on the
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 83 
 
 Saviour's love, on the Holy Spirit that must 
 guide him, on the ministering angels that must 
 protect him, such as those which Jacob saw in 
 his dream — opposite phases must not remain 
 untouched upon. He must learn that the Great 
 God, if offended, is not a God of mercy, but a 
 God of anger. He must hear of that wicked one, 
 Satan ; the arch-enemy who goes about seeking 
 whom he may devour, and who has doubtless his 
 army of evil angels, ever seeking to tempt man 
 to sin. Approach the subject very cautiously so 
 long as the child is young, and lead him to dwell, 
 rather, on the other and brighter side. But as- 
 sure him of this much : that he can always defeat 
 those evil tempters by the simple act of ask- 
 ing aid of God. God is stronger than Satan, 
 and against Him the wicked one has no power. 
 Impress upon his mind, so far as you can, 
 the idea of Heaven ; cause it to hold a place 
 there. Make him long to see it ; to inhabit it.
 
 84 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 Tell him of all its revealed beauties, its satis- 
 fying peace, its wondrous glories. Of the 
 angels in white, with their golden harps; of 
 the sweet flowers that never fade ; of the 
 music to delight the ear; of the precious stones 
 of many colours ; and of the healing trees which 
 grow on either side the pure river of crystal. 
 Show him what this world is worth at its 
 best, and what he will find in the one which 
 is to come. The music here is pleasant, but 
 if a wrong string be touched it mars the 
 harmony ; the flowers are beautiful, but they 
 are but gathered to wither ; their perfume is 
 sweet to the senses, but shortly it is gone ; 
 the sky is blue and bright, but even as we 
 look, dark clouds overshadow it; the spark- 
 ling sea is grand, but it swallows up ships. 
 But in that good land pleasure will have its 
 .full fruition. Eye hath not seen nor ear 
 heard, neither hath it entered into the heart
 
 OUR CHILDREN. &5 
 
 of man to conceive what God hath prepared 
 for them who shall abide in it. 
 
 Impress all this upon him, morning by 
 morning, day after day, week following week ; 
 until he can (however imperfectly) realize to 
 himself somewhat of Heaven. Realize that 
 there, in that shining Eden of promise, will 
 be his permanent home ; not in this poor 
 world with its many pains, and drawbacks, 
 and weariness. There will be no night there ; 
 no sickness, or gloom, or sorrow ; only love, 
 and rest, and joy. Remind him of those who 
 are already there, and of whom he has liked 
 to hear and read. Abraham, the faithful 
 servant of God ; Moses, who lifted up the 
 typical serpent in the wilderness, that they 
 who were bitten and in danger of death might 
 look upon it, and live ; Hezekiah, who prayed 
 unto the Lord in his sickness that his life 
 might be prolonged, and it was so ; David,
 
 36 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 who was beloved by God ; Job, so patient 
 under affliction ; Isaiah, who prophesied of 
 the Mighty Counsellor, the Prince of Peace ; 
 Daniel, who escaped the lions' den ; down to 
 Christ's own disciples, and to Stephen the 
 Martyr, who fell asleep in Jesus, calling for 
 forgiveness on his destroyers ; and to St. Paul, 
 who fought unweariedly the good fight of 
 faith, and for whom was laid up the crown of 
 righteousness. All these he will meet here- 
 after, amid the many others. Recal to him 
 the personal friends he has known and loved 
 in his as yet short life, who have departed 
 within his own recollection. Grandpapa or 
 grandmamma ; or, maybe, a little brother or 
 sister : 
 
 " There is no flock, however watched and tended, 
 But one dead lamb is there : 
 There is no fireside, howe'er defended, 
 But has one vacant chair.''
 
 OUR CHILDREN. 87 
 
 Show him that they have but gone on before ; 
 that he will go to them in his turn, and dwell 
 with them for ever and ever. In short, bring 
 him up to be acquainted with Heaven, to 
 look to it as his certain home., and to long for 
 it. 
 
 Do this always. Do not weary in it. It 
 will make your own journey in life pleasant, 
 whatever may be that life's vicissitudes ; it 
 will soothe its cares : for while you are striving 
 untiringly to bring your children to God, 
 God will not forget you. For your own sake 
 and your children's sake, I pray you, neglect 
 it not. 
 
 And whenever you, yourself, may be called 
 away, be it sooner or later, you will have the 
 unspeakable comfort of knowing that you may 
 with confidence leave your children in Heaven's 
 hands. For you have given unto their hearts 
 a safeguard ; you have taught them to love
 
 88 OUR CHILDREN. 
 
 and fear God, to rely upon their Saviour ; and 
 you know that " He who has begun a good 
 work in them shall assuredly make it com- 
 plete." 
 
 Farewell. With the words that I began, 
 so would I end. 
 
 " Train up a child in the way he should go : 
 and when he is old, he will not depart from it." 
 
 THE END. 
 
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