ere children can be
found in any considerable numbers. No one will attempt to deny the sad
consequences which must follow as the inevitable results of such a
course. The children at eight years of age who have not already begun to
form the habit of church attendance, and are not quite thoroughly
established in it at sixteen, will stand a very fair chance of spending
their entire life with little or no attachment for either the Church or
religious things. The non-church going youth of this decade will be the
Sabbath-breakers and irreligious people of the next.

Who are to blame for this state of affairs, and to whom are we to look
for the correction of this existing evil?

Manifestly, first of all, to the _parents_. That parental authority
which overcomes the indifference of the child and secures his devotion
to the irksome duties of secular life, should also be exercised to
establish and maintain a similar fidelity to religious duties and
spiritual concerns. If left to their own inclinations, children will
invariably go wrong in the affairs of both worlds. Attendance upon the
church should be expected and required, the same as attendance upon the
secular instruction of the schools; for the best interests of the child
are not more dependent upon the discipline of the mind than upon the
development of the heart. In the formation of the habit of church
attendance, it would be well to remind parents that example will be as
helpful as precept. They should not send, but take their children to
church. They should make room for them in the family pew, provide them
with a hymn-book and see that they have something for the collection.
Parents owe it to their children to teach them to be reverent in God's
house, to bow their heads in prayer, to be attentive to the sermon; and
while requiring these things of their children, they should also see
well to it that after service, at the table, in the home, or elsewhere
nothing disparaging of God's house, message or messenger should fall
from their lips upon the ears of their children.

As these little talks were originally used before the main sermon on
Sunday morning before a mixed audience of adults and a large number of
children, it has seemed best, in order to carry out the idea of
preaching, that the manner of speaking as though to an audience should
be retained in this book. It is better suited than any other method for
use also by the parent when reading these pages to the chil