The family, the church, and the State are the moral agencies appointed by Jehovah to renovate society, to preserve the rights of its members, and to prevent those evils which lead to its destruction. Whatever, therefore, hinders any of these divine ordinances from answering its great end, is greatly to be lamented by all who have the glory of God and the good of their fellow-men at heart. The teachers in this modern invention are many times ignorant and self-conceited young men and women, who, owing to the imitative nature of their pupils, easily imbue their minds with their own pride and contempt of worthies who were the honored instruments of delivering the world from the gross darkness of popish ignorance and superstition. This contempt for our venerable fathers is necessarily transferred to natural parents. Children, not being instructed by their parents soon begin to think themselves superior to them in knowledge, and from that principle in human nature, which will not, unless prompted by a sense of duty, obey those inferior in knowledge, they naturally rebel against parental authority.
Many parents teach their children falsehood and rebellion at the same time.
They do, times without number, threaten their little ones with correction, if they do certain acts, which they know will not be inflicted. They cannot, therefore, have any confidence in the veracity of their parents, who are schooling them in that vice which is one of the most striking lineaments in the devil s image. That he might seek a godly seed. She should refuse her privileges to all persistent rebels against the authority of father and mother, and inflict censure on all within her gates who are guilty of insubordination in the family. The State is equally derelict in not exercising its power for the good of the subjects, in compelling children to honor and obey their parents.