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Show PARENTS' RESPONSIBLE DUTY. I often wonder why it is that there is so much said on the subject of children's duty to their parents, par-ents, and in comparison so little in regard to parents' par-ents' duty toward their children. I do not, for a moment, mean to say that too much can be said on the former subject, only that more should be said on the latter, for the duty of parents to their children chil-dren is as strong, as binding, as the duty of"' the latter to the former; indeed, it seems -to me that the parents' duty is even stronger, for they are re-' sponsible for those given by God to their care and guidance through them the little lives are thrust into this world of sin and sorrow and thus do they, necessarily, incur a terrible responsibility. There are comparatively very few parents who fully realize the awful responsibility resting upon them, or think seriously of the account they must render to God in this respect. It is a terrible thought that so many souls will be lost because parents have failed in the duty they owed their children, and that these children will owe their eternal ruin to the authors of their being. And yet it is too true. It is in the home, by the parents that the seed is sown in the heart of the child that will bring forth good or bad fruit in after life. To use the well known expression, as the twig is bent so will the tree grow. In the first place the most important thing is that "a child should have a good home example. Xq matter how good the teaching, it will avail nothing unless enforced by good example. Children are imitative and will copy the faults and vices of those around them before ihey know the difference between be-tween right and wrong. And when this knowledge comes to them these same faults and vices have, perhaps, become a settled habit, the indulgence of them a pleasure. Take the little toddling child whose father is in the habit of indulging in the vice of swearing in its presence, and who picks up the oaths and repeats re-peats them in lisping tones. In a great many cases this will be considered very cute and smart by the parents (though I cannot see how any one can listen to innocent, childish lips so profaned without a shudder), and the child will be laughed at and encouraged. "Of course the child does not know the harm of it," say the admiring parents; "when the child is older we will teach it that it is wrong." And so they do; but does this teaching always avails The child understands that it is doing wrong, but it has become a habit, it likes to indulge in it. Fear of punishment may cause it to conceal it from its parents and thus become guilty of deceit de-ceit and disobedience. And who is to blame but the parents ? Thus again example is the first and most important im-portant thing. Let parents teach their children the meaning of virtue and goodness by their own eon-duet, eon-duet, and it will be easy to train and guide in the right path. There can be no better foundation in a child's heart than reverence and respect for its parents. They will keep it from many sins in after lif- be a safeguard against many an evil. So the fir.-t duty of parents toward their children is to give them a good example, and also to see that those with whom they arc thrown in contact do the same. Many children are contaminated by the influence in-fluence of servants and playmates. It is the parents' par-ents' duty to inquire closely into the morals of their children's companions. Childhood innocence is one of the sweetest things on earth, but deplorable to say it is fast becoming be-coming a thing of the past, and this is the fault of parents, especially among the fashionable. In the days of our grandparents children went to bed after tea, after the family evening prayers; now they are decked out to attend juvenile "teas," "parties" and other fashionable dissipations. Thev are children no more, but small men nnrl Ik-omen almost from the time they are 4 years old. At G years they know more of the world than their grandparents did at 20, and by the time they are 12 they are quite blase. Many persons think it very entertaining to watch children at a dance or at a party, or some other such gathering. I enjoy seeing innocent little lit-tle children playing some childish game, to see the sweet faces "flushed and happy, to hear their merry laughter, but there is something unnatural and distasteful dis-tasteful in the other. Children with the bloom and sweetness of childhood child-hood rubbed off, miniature men and women, the young minds and hearts filled with vanity and things of which they should not even know the names. Knowledge of evil comes soon enough even to the child that is carefully guarded and wisely trained, and yet parents, because "it is the fashion," fash-ion," really force upon their children a precocious knowledge which robs them of sweet innocence and childhood. Are not such parents culpably failing in their duty to their children Arc they not robbing them of that sweet childhood which Jesus Christ so loved i "Suffer little children to come unto me," he said. What will he say to those who have prevented these little ones from coming to him? The world may have the poor taste to admire precocious childhood, but surely God frowns upon it and the angels weep over it. It is sweet, innocent inno-cent childhood that God loves, that was forever sanctified by the hand of Jesus Christ and against the contamination of which he uttered so terrible a denunciation. Therefore parents should preserve as the most precious thing on earth, the innocence of thfir little lit-tle children; teach them, both by example and precept, pre-cept, virtue and goodness and leave the rest to God. V. i - |