"
They can better reach and train the heart. Religion is heart-wisdom. "My
son, give me thy heart!" We may use the head as an avenue to the heart, yet
nothing is done in the religion of our children until the heart be carried.
It is only in that inner shrine that there can be deposited the wisdom that
is from above, and only then will they be made wise unto salvation. And who
is better able to storm and carry that inner citadel, and lead its subdued
inmates to the Cross, than the pious, tender-hearted, soliciting mother!
Some parents object to the religious training of their children,
"because," say they, "there is danger of having their minds biased by some
particular creed; they should be left, therefore, to themselves till they
are capable of making a choice, and then let them choose their creed." This
is all a miserable subterfuge, and in direct opposition to the explicit
command of God and the whole tenor of the gospel plan of salvation. It goes
upon the assumption that religion is but an opinion--a subscription to a
certain creed, learning certain doctrines--a mere thing for the head. Tell
me, is it worse to bias their minds to a particular creed, than to let them
grow up biased to the world, to the Devil and all his works? Is it all of
home, religious culture to bias them to a particular creed? Besides, is it
not the right, yea, the duty of parents to bias their children in favor of
the religious creed of the parental home? It shows, therefore, that those
parents who, for this reason, object to religious training, have but little
love for, and confidence in, their own creed, or they would not shrink from
biasing their children to it.
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