The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1896-01-16
ECCLESIASTICAL COLUMN.
Rev. S. NJ. Ehgle, pastor Presbyterian
Church. Editor.
Home Tra,nine.

OH dCCouiI1 VI FtCcuG pIoeldCIS@
services the week of prayer has not
been formally observed this year in
Oakland by the churches, but there
is one of the topics that had been
assigned for the week that is of sach
portance that it may be we'll to
call attention to it pu blicly, viz:
The family or home training. The
exceeding Importance of home
training and Of rearing children
upon rules and principles drawn
from @odss words, has its founda-
tion in the fact that all govern
ment, spiritual and temporal, is
based upon the family. AS are the
families that constitute it. so is the
church and its future; as are the
families that constitute it, so is the
state and its future. The stream
will rise no higher than its fountain
head. If IN the home the training
of sons and daughters is so neglect
ed that instead Of principles, true,
beautiful and good, all sorts of nox-
ious and hurtful ones are permitted
quietly to establish themselves, the
consequence in after years is shame
to the home, harm to the church,
and trouble in the community of
which they become citizens. What
a tremendous responsibility, there
fore, rests upon the parents Of child
rem. What a momentous Slgnifica-
ton attaches to the name of Father
or Mother. The fact is that the
destiny of children, for time and
for eternity, is placed instrument
ally in the keeping of the parents,
Read that again. This is true be-
cause the tenor of whole life is de-
termlned, as to Its general outline,
by the caracter of its early training.
Some good authorities affirm that
the general direction of life is de-
termined by the time the child has
reached its seventh year. Obserya
ton would seem in many cases to
confirm such an opinion. The
home becomes under such consid-
erations inexpressibly sacred and
the neglect of proper parental train
ing therein, more than criminal.
Some parents lightly and indolent-
ly affect to shift this Heaven-im-
posed responsibility, saying that
! they will make no effort to choose
for the child the principles that are
to determine the course Of its life,
but rather permit the child to make
It's own choice when it comes to
years of discretion. Satan is most
surely the author Of this delusion,
inasmuch as the child thus left to
shift for itself until it comes to
years OF maturity will by that time
inevitably have imbibed already
principles that will haYe stamped
upon its character the general out
line of It's life. The child has in
such cases been cruelty and GRIM
inally left without help at the most
critical period of Its life. If eyer
there is need of molding hand it
is at this most plastic time of life,
from birth to not later than ten
years of age. Principles Of Heav-
enly beauty and eternal worth then
imprinted by the parents upon the
characters committed to their care
will remain through life. Like in
scriptions made upon soft clay that
is afterward to be hardened to rock,
these imprDts remain to be read in
after years, as those from Babylon
and Nineveh. But just waste the
first ten gears, and the parent
awakes to the fact that now the i'm
pressions must be made in granite.
Cut and drill the characters upon
the hardened stone if you can, for
Heaven is still holding you respon-
slbie! 1t is much easier to retain
the locomotive upon the track than
to replace it when ouce derailed.
! So with the genus homo. "Train
up a child in the way he should go
and when he is old he will not de-
part from it," says God, our only
reliable guide. Modern society may