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¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 8 THE SPOILED CHILD. [296

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 4 around his heart, that no influence or authority of ours could detach him from the snare. And often, I remember it with the bitterness of remorse, when I should have wooed him over with kindness, I have, in my wrath, reproached the character of his associates to his face. The consequence was just such as every wise student of human nature must have observed. His galled spirit clung closer and closer to them, as they were persecuted by me for his sake. There is a witchery in a young profligate’s companions, which parents have never duly conceived. It is the result of that depravity which pervades the human heart, and which makes us averse to all that is good, and swift to learn and to practice what is evil. One hour’s influence of profligate company on a young mind may not be effaced by days and months, and even years of parental labor and prayer.”

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 3 “And, my friends,” said the Pastor, “there was a defect in your efforts to win over his love for the house of God. I have always lent my countenance to the practice of our good old fathers, which is still kept up in our church, of bringing the children into the house of God on the holy day of rest. God, by the mouth of his servant Joel, commanded the children, and even the babes at the breast, as well as the elders and the people, to be assembled before him in the solemn convocation. And our Redeemer, in the days of his humiliation, charged parents and the disciples ‘not to for- bid little children when coming unto him,’ ‘for of such,’ said he, ‘is the kingdom of heaven.’ We must train them up, in infancy, by our prayers, privately, and in the house of God; and in riper years, by parental and pastoral instruction. And thus, by the grace of God, we can beget a respect, and a love for the courts and the ordinances of God in the young and tender mind.”

¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 “Yes, dear Pastor,” cried the father, “here, in the weakness of our hearts, did we commit another great error. The slightest excuses were often sustained; and ‘the dear child’ must be spared the journey, and the pain of going to church, and of sitting so long, and being confined so long in church! And there was another error, as serious on our part, by which the mischief was consummated. When we were urgent to overcome his aversion to the church, which we invariably found to be strengthened by every fresh indulgence