a being! Such is the plastic power you exert upon it, that upon your guidance will hinge its weal or its woe; and yours, therefore, will be the lasting benefit or the lasting shame. What you are now doing for your children is incorporated with their very being, and will be as imperishable as their undying souls. As the stewards of God, your provision for them will be "either a savor of life unto life or a savor of death unto death."

We have seen that God has given to you the ability and means of making them subservient to his glory; and hence from you he will require them as entrusted talents. If you have been unfaithful to them, your punishment will be in proportion to the wretchedness entailed upon your children. If, instead of the bread from heaven, you feed their souls with the husks of life, and lead them on by the opiates of bastard joys; if, "when they ask of you bread, you give them a stone, or for a fish, you give them a serpent," will it not be "more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for you?"

Thus, therefore, you see, christian parents, how your responsibility is measured by the magnitude of those interests committed to your care, by the kind of influence you exert over them, and by the enormity of that guilt and wo which are consequent upon your unfaithfulness. Let this be an incentive to parental integrity. The day is rapidly approaching when you must give an account of your stewardship. Oh, what, if in that day you behold your children "fit for the

eternal burning," and remember that that fitness is but the impress of a parent's hand!

Though it is painful to lose a child here; bitter tears are shed; pungent agonies are felt; there are heart-burnings kindled over the grave of buried love. But oh, how much more agonizing it is to bend over the dying bed of an impenitent, ruined child! And especially if, in that terrible moment, he turns his eyes, wild with despair and ominous of curses, upon the parents, and ascribes his ruin to their neglect! Let me ask you, would not this part of that sad drama add to your cup of bitterness, give a fearful emphasis to all your sighs, and burnings to your flooding tears? God would also speak to you, and say as he did to Cain, "the voice of thy" children's "blood crieth unto me!" "And now thou art cursed from the earth which hath opened her mouth to receive thy" children's "blood from thy hand."

But the scene would not close at the death-bed of your child; the second act would open at the bar of God. The maledictions of that ruined one would there be poured out with increased fury upon you. Parents of my home on earth! I am lost-lost forever! Soon I shall go where "the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Had you, in the home of my childhood, but instructed me, and been as faithful to my soul as you were to my body, I might stand here with a palm of victory in my hand, a crown of glory on my head, the joy of the redeemed in

my heart, and with hosannas of praise upon my lips, rise upward to the untold felicities of God's eternal throne! But you did not! You fed my body, but you starved my soul, and left it to perish forever! Cursed be the day in which you begat me; and the paps that gave me suck! Cursed be the years that I lived under your roof, -cursed be you! Oh, parents, such rebuke would leave an undying worm in your souls; and would cry unto you from the very depths of hell.

This is no over-wrought picture. It is but the scripture prospectus of that terrible scene which shall be enacted "in the terrible and notable day of the Lord," when every Christian home shall be called to give an "account of her stewardship," and be dealt with "according to the deeds done in the body."

And let me say too, that a similar and corresponding responsibility rests upon those children who enjoy the benefits of a faithful Christian home. They must answer to God for every blessing there enjoyed. If they turn a deaf ear and a cold heart to all the entreaties of their parents, and resist those saving influences which are brought to bear upon them, and as a consequence, become outcasts from society and from heaven, then let me warn them that, every prayer they heard at the family altar, every lesson given, every admonition delivered, and every holy example set them, by their pious parents, will be ingredients in that bitter cup which it will take

eternity for them to exhaust! Oh, children of the Christian home! think of this, and remember the responsibility of enjoying the precious benefits of a pious, faithful parent. They will be your weal or your woe,-your lasting glory or your lasting shame!

And, ye parents, be faithful to those little ones that are growing up "like olive plants around your table," so that in the day of judgment, you may say with joy, in the full assurance of reward, "Here are we, Lord, and the children whom thou hast given us!" And your reward shall be, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant! Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord!

*4

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FAMILY BIBLE.

"WHAT household thoughts around thee, as their shrine, Cling reverently!-Of anxious looks beguiled, My mother's eyes upon thy page divine,

Each day were bent; her accents, gravely mild, Breathed out thy love; whilst I, a dreamy child, Wandered on breeze-like fancies oft away,

Yet would the solemn Word,
At times, with kindlings of young wonder heard
Fall on my wakened spirit, there to be

A seed not lost; for which in darker years,
O, book of heaven! I pour with grateful tears,
Heart-blessings on the holy dead, and thee!"

THE family bible! What sweet and hallowed memories cling like tendrils around that book of books! How familiar its sacred pages! How often in the sunny days of childhood, we were fed from its manna by the maternal hand! It was our guide to the opening path of life, and a lamp to the feeble, faltering steps of youth. Who can forget the family bible? It was the