s given, no
holy example set, no Christian government and discipline instituted, no
religious interests promoted. But on the other hand, sin is overlooked,
winked at, and the world alone sought. These children behold their parents
toil day after day to provide for their natural life; they notice the
interest they take in their health and education, and the self-denial with
which they seek to secure for them a temporal competency. And from all this
they quickly and very justly infer that their parents love their bodies and
value this world, and by the force of filial imitation they soon learn to
do the same, and with their parents, neglect their souls and kneel at the
altars of Mammon rather than bow in prayer before God. And thus they go on
from one step in departure from God to another, until they die without hope
and without salvation.

Tell me now, will not God hold these parents responsible for the ruin of
their children? Will not the "blood of their destruction rest upon them?"
Will not the "voice of that blood" cry out from their family against them?
If, as a consequence of their negligence and of the unholy influence they
exerted upon them, they become desperadoes in crime and villainy, and at
last drench their hands in a brother's blood; and expiate their guilt upon
the gibbet, and from there go down to the grave of infamy and to the hell
of the murderer, will not their blood, "cry unto them," and will not the
woes and anathemas of Almighty God come in upon them like a flood?

Home-responsibility may be inferred from the relation of the family to God
as a stewardship. We have seen that parents are stewards of God in their
household, and that as such they are placed over their children, invested
with delegated authority. God entrusts them to the care of their parents.
Their nature is pliable, fit for any impression, exposed to sin and ruin,
entering upon a course of life which must terminate in eternal happiness or
misery, with bodies to develop, minds to educate, hearts to mould,
volitions to direct, habits to form, energies to rule, pursuits to follow,
interests to secure, temptations to resist, trials to endure, souls to
save! Oh, how the parental heart must swell with emotions too big for
utterance, when they contemplate these features of their important trust.
What a mission this, to superintend the character and shape the destiny of
such a being! Such is the plastic power you exert upon it, that upon your
g