Year: 1879

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EdRLY TRAINING.


Train up child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not depart from it.
PROVERBS XXu:6.


There is nothing in this world from which
good cannot be extracted. Even the deadly |
the most noxious and poisonous |
member of the vegetable kingdom, has been
converted into valuable remedial agent. |
The most fatal of mineral poisons have been
found to possess wonderful curative powers,
and when properly applied have resulted in
the saving of many valuable lives. In ethics
and in morals the same theory holds good.
From the utterances of the most depraved
of mankind some great moral lesson can be
learned-some truth evolved that, if properly
applied, will result in great benefit to man
kind.


While the SUNDAY GLOBE does not desire
to endorse all the theories promulgated by
Col. Bob Ingersoll on the ethics and practice
of religion, it is decidedly of opinion that
much good can be derived from perusal of
his utterances of last Sunday at Chicago on the
treatment of parents towards their children.


The colonel spoke with his usual license,
it is true and made remarks that were tinged
somewhat with uncharity, yet he spoke
many truths that it would be we'll for people
in the church and out of it to heed. Espec-
tally was this the case when he inveighad
against parents for breaking their promises
to children. He insisted that the same rules
of honor should govern father in his treat
ment of his child that govern his conduct
toward his banker or his business associate
that he should keep his promises, no matter
under what circumstances made, with relig-
ious and business-ike fidelity, for he assured
his audience, as all know, that child will
discover deception as quickly as person of
| more mature years, and as consequence,
the faith of the child in his parents will be
| rapidly impaired. In illustration of his
| theory he related an incident which he
| claimed had occurred in Grand Rapids,
Mich. A gentleman and his wife had prom
ised for several weeks to take their little son
out riding, but week after week passed with
out the fulfllment of their promise. Final
| ly the father and mother were discovered by
the child sneaking out to buggy and driv-
| ing off without him, whereupon he turned
to his nurse and exclaimed with much indig-
nation: "There go thu two damndest
liars in Michigan" 1t is easy to
perceive that that child would never
after have faith in the promises of
his parents.


If parents do not keep faith with their
children, how can they expect that their
children will keep faith with them? If
parents make promises to their children
that they habitualy break, how can they
blame the little ones for telling lies?
Children are initiative creatures, aud if they


find that their parents are in the habit of
telling untruths, they will do likewise, and
if they grow up to be notorious liars or even
worse, who will be to blame, they, or their
parents? On the contrary, if a man keeps
all the promises he makes to his son or his
daughter, they will learn not only to respect
him but to respect the truth, and to observe
the same rectitude towards others that their
parents have observed towards them.
Did it ever occur to the people of this
country, more especially to the members of
the church, that the prevailing and almost
| all-prevailing dishonesty is attributable in
degree to the manner in which parents treat
their children? Every person must have OBJ
served in his own experience in what light
octi 70 NJ;
held. We have noticed clergymen and pillars
IN the church, in order to get rid of
troublesome child and quiet his importuni-
ties, making promises that they had no in
tention whatever of performing, and never
did perform. There could be only one effect
of such course: The child's confidence in
his father was shaken, and be grew up with
no regard whatever for the sacredness of a
promise, and in after years became an upre-
| liable business man, who never paid debt
when it became due, and only met his obi
cations when compelled to do so by due pro-
cess of law. If child is trained to believe
that whatever his father promises him will
be fulfilled to the letter, if within the range
of possibilities, he will grow up to be an hpn-
orable and upright business man, swhose
word is as good as his bond,' esteemed by all
who know him.


This matter of the early training of the
youth is too often lost sight of by people of
all classes, and especially by those who ought
to pay especial heed to 1.-THE members of
our churches. Seed sown in youth fructu-
ates in after years, and if thorns are sown
you need not expect harvest of figs. Near
ly all the defaulters of these days can no
doubt trace their derelictions to their early
training-the laxity with which their parents
hood. In this respect reform is necessary.