The Oskaloosa herald., 1911-11-09
Home Training Help
to Sunday School Work
Lecture Delivered Before the Mahaska County Con.
venton at Leighton, by Rev. w. ]. Duker,
5"" of Ebenezer Reform Church.

|
by dimly constituted bond. 81 am
a stranger in the EARTH" is the claim
which every child puts in as a reason
why he should be instructed and
taught in the way he should go.
Hide not Gods commandments from
me-" is the appeal which the child's
ignorance wakes to those who have
had some experience in the world.
| Childhood is the time of first i'm
pressions when the mind is very re-
ceptive and the faculties ever on the
alert to receive Impressions and les
sons which shall last through a life
time.
/ How sadly parents fail to realize
that the youthful mind is eagerly
longing to be guided and instructed
in the ways of life. Ignorant itself
of all things around it. it is entirely
dependent upon those in whose care
it is left and innocent and guileless
1t confides entirely in it's guardians
and has right to expect the best
training.
Children have claim upon their
parents, of their future relationship
to others. The neglect of child's
education is a sin against more than
himself. He will come in his turn to
influence others. Upon his charac.
ter will depend in a great degree the
characters and eternal destinies of
many in the generations yet to come.
Many parents seem to think that the
child is their own and that they must
get out of him all they can for their
own selfish purposes and neglect to
prepare him for wider sphere of
usefulness of the world and the
church.
The child will come to stand in the
closest relationship to others in years
to come. How necessary, therefore,
that the parent should train the child
with an eye to his own blessedness
and usefulness. God teaches us in
his word the sacredness of the fam.
lily circle. There can be no real
natural life unless the family life be
pure and sacred.
live in herds. God has given man the
family instinct and the Bible and re-
ligion ever tends to strengthen, puri-
fly and enable it. The higher a man
rises in the scale of being the deeper
his interest in his love sanctifies and
elevates. The human god taught the
people throughout all ages to respect
the families Many parents seem
to be anxious only to feed, clothe,
help their children for this life, ire
spective of his higher relations to
the eternal and spiritual welfare of
himself and others.
Parents should strive to make
their homes abodes of peace and
biessedness, centers of attraction
and holy influence, so that your chill
dren may go forth laden with rich
blessing for the world.
Someone has timely said, families
are societies that must be sanctified
to God as well as churches, and the
governors of them have as truly
charge of souls that are therein as
pastors have of churches" But
alas, how little is this considered or
regarded. But while negligent pas
tors are (deservedly) cast out OF
their places. the negligent masters
of families take themselves to be al.
most blameless. They offer their
children to God in baptism and there
they promise to teach them the doc.
trines of the Gospel and bring them
up in the nature and admonition of
the Lord, but they easily promise and
easily break it and educate their chill
dren for the world and the flesh, al
though they have renounced these
and dedicated them to God.
This covenant breaking with God
and betraying the souls of their chill
dren to the Devil must lie heavily on
them here and hereafter. They beget
children and keep families merely for
the world and the flesh, but little
consider what a charTe is committed
to them and what it is to bring up a
child for God and govern a family
as a sanctified society.
f1UUlG Is lH6 Culel SCnOOl VI Wit
tue" Its responsibilities, Joys, sor.
rows, smiles, tears, hopes and solici.
tudes from the chief interest of hui
man life.
Children have claim upon the
parents because they belong to God.
If proprietor of land hands over to
the cultivator piece of virgin soil,
he does not relinquish his own claim
thereby, he demands that his proper
ty shall be restored to him increased
in value by being brought under cul-
tivation. The child Is given to its
parents by God in its undeveloped
moral condition, but God retains his
own inheritance in the gift. He
looks for nurture. for cultivation; he
demands from the parent such full
fillment of parental duties as will
insure to Him that His gift shall
grow of more and more worth in the
moral universe. A day of reckoning
will assuredly come.
Having considered the claims of the
child upon the parent let us see in
which way these claims can be full.
filed
The parent should begin early in
the training of his child. AS soon