The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1884-04-24
Parental Training.

God IN his providence has established
very interesting and very important
relationship between parents and their
offspring. The child is largely dependent
upon its parents, and parents feel that
they are in many respects, largely re.
sponsible for the life and comfort of their
child. For several years of its existence
every child is dependent upon its mother,
or some one who will supply the place of
mother, for food and that peculiar
watchful care without which it cannot
live. There is no living being more
helpless than an infant, and there is no
love so tender as that of q mother Pbysi-
cally, mentally and morally the child
must be trained, or it must remain a
creature possessed of undeveloped eapa
bilites. Its instincts are few in number
and void of power With its tiny body
there is, mysteriously united, an immor-
tai soul but it requires training to bring
that soul into action. The proper per-
sons to discharge that important Office
are the parents of the child. This is one
of the appointments of God.
Parents are largely responsible for the
position which their offspring occupy in
society. Children in their features and
in the forms of their bodies resemble
their parents, and they inherit the men.
tai traits of their parents, but children
are like their parents, in that, in great
majority of cases, they are the rigid imi-
tators of their parents. The child learns
to talk by initiating the parents. No
matter what may be the language of the
parents, it will be the language of the
child.
Parents are required to teach their
children to be obedient to themselves.
This is the first lesson in the system of
training which God has appointed. The
neglect, on the part of the parents, to
discharge this duty, is always attended
with the most unfavorable results. Pa.
rents could adopt no more certain method
to bring their children to infamy and
shame than to neglect to demand of them
obedience. To give child its own way
is to point out to it the road that leads to
destruction and to encourage it to walk
therein. Parents who allow their chill
dren 10 do as they please will, in the
majority of cases, be brought to shame
by their children. The first step toward
the penitentiary or gallows, is disobedi-
ence to parents.
1t is to be feared that parents rarely
reflect upon the important duty which
God imposes upon them. Seldom do
they take into consideration the fact that
God REQUIRES them to train their children
for him. Mutitudes of parents promise
to bring up their children "in the nur-
ture and admonition of the Lord" and
never attempt to perform the VOW.
Parents train their children to work.
This is commendable. 1t is duty. No
parents should suffer their children
to grow up iu idleness. 1t would be
sin. Parents, at least many parents,
train their children to make money.
This, if properly understood, is right.
There is, however, one kind of training
that parents frequently neglect to give
their children. Parents neglect to train
their children for God. This is sad
neglect. Not unfrequently it is equiVa-
lent to training them for the devil.
The fundamental princi pies of the
Christian religion are learned around the
6reside. In fact they can be learned no
place else. The instructors in the school
Of Christ are the parents. In this par
licular, God has assigned duty to pa
rents which no tne else can perform. If
they neglect it, their children never learn
it. 1t IS not claimed that parents can
communicate grace to their offspring:
but it is claimed that God has promised
to bless the efforts of parents in training
their children for him. God uses means
in grace as we'll as in nature. Without
the use of these means no good results
can be expected.
God promises that if parents will train
up their children in the way they should
go, when they are old they will not depart
from that way. This promise God has ever
been faithful TO fulfil, and he will con-
tinue to be faithful to the end of time.
No parent will ever have just ground to
com plain that God has been unfaithful
in fulfilling this gracious promise. On
the contrary, as a rule, when professed
Christian parents neglect to train their
children for God they train them for the
great arch enemy of all good. Such chill
dren generally 60 to destruction. They
rush to ruin.-REv. ROBERT LATHAM,
in NorkviAe Enquirer.