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Christian Education
religious privileges. An apathy steals over the soul. The children are
contaminated by evil communications, and the tenderness of soul that
they once felt dies away and is forgotten.
Parents who denounce the Canaanites for offering their children to
Moloch, what are you doing? You are making a most costly offering
to your mammon god; and then, when your children grow up unloved
and unlovely in character, when they show decided impiety, and a
tendency to infidelity, you blame the faith you profess because it was
unable to save them. You are reaping that which you have sown,—the
result of your selfish love of the world and neglect of the means of
grace. You moved your families into places of temptation, and the
ark of God, your glory and defense, you did not consider essential;
and the Lord has not worked a miracle to deliver your children from
temptation.
You who profess to love God, take Jesus with you wherever you go;
and, like the patriarchs of old, erect an altar to the Lord wherever you
pitch your tent. A reformation in this respect is needed,—a reformation
that shall be deep and broad. Parents need to reform; ministers need to
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reform. They need God in their households. They need to build the
waste places of Zion; to set up her gates, and make strong her walls
for a defense of the people....
To many, education means a knowledge of books; but “the fear of
the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” [
Psalm 111:10
.] The true object
of education is to restore the image of God in the soul. The first and
most precious knowledge is the knowledge of Christ; and wise parents
will keep this fact ever before the minds of their children. Should a
limb be broken or fractured, parents will try every means that love or
wisdom can suggest to restore the affected member to comeliness and
soundness. This is right, it is their duty; but the Lord requires that still
greater tact, patience, and persevering effort be employed to remedy
blemishes of the soul. That father is unworthy of the name who is not
to his children a Christian teacher, ruler, and friend, binding them to
his heart by the strong ties of sanctified love,—a love which has its
foundation in duty faithfully performed.
Parents have a great and responsible work to do, and they may
well inquire. “Who is sufficient for these things?” [
2 Corinthians
2:16
.] But God has promised to give wisdom to those that ask in faith,
and he will do just as he said he would. He is pleased with the faith