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.
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