As the cry of hunger from your
children, and their shivering cold in winter, prompt you to provide for
their natural wants, so let their moral wants impel you to fidelity to
their souls. All will be vain without this. The stern demands of a father's
authority, and the formal teachings of a mother's lip, will fall like the
frost of a winter's morning, upon their tender hearts,--only to sear and to
harden and to freeze up the heart against God. For
"He will not let love's work impart
Full solace, lest it steal the heart."
But when pure and holy sympathy goes out, in its softening influence after
the young;--
"Then, feeling is diffused in every part,
Thrills in each nerve, and lives in all the heart."
Such sympathy has a saving influence upon both the parent and the child.
It softens and refines the former, while it forms and allures the latter.
The child fondly leans upon the parents, looks up to them for support and
enjoyment, and is led by them in whatever path they choose. By its
influence the feeling of natural and spiritual helplessness becomes
developed in the child; the sense of dependence on a superior is awakened;
and with these, all those feelings of confidence and veneration, which lay
the foundation of religious affections, are unfolded. The parent's
influence, both as to kind and degree, depends, therefore, upon the
character of home-sympathy.
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