"But our children, perhaps, do
not give us most anxiety when they are infants, nor when we
have them at school, when we can put them to bed and give them
a good-night's kiss and feel that all is safe; the heavy care
comes afterwards-
afterwards when they have broken through our control, when they
are running alone, and on their own account, when they are far
away from our home, when they are out of the reach of our rebuke,
and do not now feel as once they did the power of our authority,
and hardly of our love.
It is then to many parents that the time of severe trial begins,
and, doubtless, many a grey head has been brought with sorrow
to the grave by having to cry, "I have nourished and brought
up children, and they have rebelled against me."
Many a father and many a mother die, murdered, not with knife
or poison, but by unkind words and cruel deeds of their own
children.
Many and many a grave may well be watered by the tears of sons
and daughters, because they prematurely filled those graves
by their ungrateful conduct".
****************
"With holy diligence,
we should seek to bring up
our children in the fear of the Lord,
so that, if they do wander,
it may not be through our fault,
for if we have to blame
our guilty neglect,
or our evil example,
for their going astray,
it will be indeed sad for us;
but if we are satisfied,
in the sight of God,
that we have done all that
we could to bring them to Jesus, then,
if they should dishonour our name, yet at least
there will not be this wormwood
mingled with the gall,
that we helped them
to tread the downward road."
