toil as the slave in the galley, to amass a large fortune for their
children. To accomplish this object they become drudges all their life.
They rise early and retire late, deny themselves even the ordinary comforts
of life, expend all the time and strength of their manhood, make slaves of
their wives and children, and live retired from all society, in order to
lay up a fortune for their offspring. To this end they make all things
subordinate and subservient; and, indeed, they so greatly neglect their
children as to deprive them of even the capacity of enjoying intellectually
or morally the patrimony they thus secure for them. They bring them up in
gross ignorance of every thing save work: and money. They teach them
close-fisted parsimony, and prepare them to lead a life as servile and
infatuated as their own. Miserable delusion! "What shall it profit a man
if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

"O cursed lust of gold! when for thy sake
The fool throws up his interest in both worlds;
First starved in this, then damned in that to come!"

CHAPTER XXV.

THE PROMISES OF THE CHRISTIAN HOME.

"The promise is unto you, and to your children."

ACTS II., 39.

"Parent who plantedst in the joy of love,
Yet hast not gather'd fruit,--save rankling thorns,
Or Sodom's bitter apples,--hast thou read
Heaven's promise to the seeker? Thou may'st bring
Those o'er whose cradle thou didst watch with pride,
And lay them at thy Savior's feet, for lo!
His shadow falling on the wayward soul,
May give it holy health. And when thou kneel'st
Low at the pavement of sweet Mercy's gate,
Beseeching for thine erring ones, unfold
The passport of the King,--'Ask, and receive!
Knock,--and it shall be opened!"'

The promises of the Christian home may be divided into two kinds, viz.:
Those which God has given to the family; and those which Christian parents
have made to God.

God has not only laid His requisitions upon the Christian home, but given
his promises. Every command is accompanied with a promise. These promises
give color to all the hopes of home.

When the dark cloud of tribulation overhangs the parent's heart; when the
overwhelming storm of misfortune rages around his habitation, uprooting his
hopes and demolishing his interests; when the ruthless hand of death tears
from his embrace the wife of his bosom and the children of his love;--even
in hours of bereavement like these,