abilities he has given us. If he gives us a field to cultivate,
seed to sow, plants to train up, then we are responsible for the harvest,
just in proportion to our agency in its production. If there is not a
harvest of the right kind, because we neglected to cultivate the soil, to
sow the proper seed, and to train up the plants, then He will hold, us
accountable, and "we shall not come out thence till we have paid the
uttermost farthing."

This is an evident gospel principle. Who will doubt its application to the
Christian home? The family is such a field; the seed of good or evil the
parents can sow therein; their children are young and tender plants,
entrusted to their care; their mission from God is to "bring them up in his
nurture" and to "train them in his ways." And where God gives the command,
he also gives the power to obey.

If, then, by their neglect, these tender plants are blighted, grow up in
the crooked ways of folly and iniquity, and the leprosy of sin spread its
dreadful infection over all the posterity of home; if, as a consequence of
their unfaithfulness, the family becomes a moral desolation, and the
anathemas of unnumbered souls in perdition, rise up in the day of judgment
against them; or if, on the other hand, as the fruit of their faithful
stewardship, blessings and testimonials of gratitude are now pouring forth
from the sainted loved ones in glory, is it not plain that a responsibility
rests upon the Christian home, commensurate with, those abilities which God
has given her, and with those interests he has entrusted to her care?

Let us look at the objective force of this. The family is responsible for
the kind of influence she exerts upon her members Look at this in its
practical light. There is a family. God has given children to the parents.
How fondly they cling to them, and look up to them for support and
direction. They inherit from their parents a predisposition to evil or to
good; they imitate them as their example, in all things, take their word as
the law of life, and follow in their footsteps as the sure path to
happiness. These parents are members of the church, and, as such, have
dedicated their children to the Lord at the altar of baptism, and there in
the presence of God and a witnessing assembly, they vowed to bring them up
in the nurture of their divine Master, and to minister in spiritual things
to their souls.

Yet in this home, no prayer is offered up, no bible instruction