Welcome to habits of industry and thrift—to duties of religion and piety—to obligations of law, order, government—of government divine, of government human: these two, though not one, are inseparable. The man who refuses to obey divine law, will never obey human laws. The divine first, the human next. The latter is the consequence of the former, and follows it as light does the rising sun.
We invite you to our Churches, because we desire you to be religious; to be more than religious; we urge you to be godly. We entreat you to never be content until you are emancipated from sin, from sin without, and from sin within you. But this kind of freedom is attained only through the faith of Jesus, love for Jesus, obedience to Jesus. As certain as the American Congress has ransomed you, so certain, yea, more certainly has Jesus redeemed you from the guilt and power of sin by his own precious blood.
As you are now free in body, so now seek to be free in soul and spirit, from sin and Satan. The noblest freeman is he whom Christ makes free.
We invite you to our homesteads, in order that we may aid you as well by the power of good examples as by the beauty of holy precept, in raising up intelligent, virtuous, pious, happy families. We invite you to our social circles, in order that you may have none of those inducements which grow out of a mere love of society, to frequent the gambling hells, and groggeries, which gradually lead their votaries to infamy and the pit that is bottomless.
Permit us, also, to advise you to seek every opportunity for the cultivation of your minds. To the adults we say, enter the Sunday Schools and the Night Schools, so opportunely opened by Dr. Pierson, in behalf of the American Tract Society. In these latter you can very soon learn to read the precious word of God, even before you shall have a familiar knowledge of the letters which constitute the alphabet.
Rest not till you have learned to read the Bible. ’Tis the greatest, the best of books. In it is contained the Divine law. O! meditate therein by day and by night, for “the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;—more to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.” “In keeping of them there is great reward.” Yield uniform, implicit obedience to their teachings. They will purify your hearts and make them the abodes of the Ever-Blessed Trinity.
When you shall have reached this point, you will be morally prepared to recognize and respond to all the relations of civilized and christianized life.
But of the children take special care. Heaven has entrusted them to you for a special purpose. What is that purpose? Not merely to eat and to drink, still less to gormandize. Not merely to dress finely in broadcloths, silks, satins, jewelry, nor to dance to the sound of the tambourine and fiddle; but to learn them how to live and how to die—to train them for great usefulness on earth—to prepare them for greater glory in heaven.
Keep your children in the schools, even if you have to eat less, drink less and wear coarser raiments; though you eat but two meals a day, purchase but one change of garment during the year, and relinquish all the luxuries of which we are so fond, but which are as injurious to health and long life as they are pleasing to the taste.
Let the education of your children penetrate the heart.—That education which forgets, or purposely omits, the culture of the heart, is better adapted to devilism than manhood. But the education which reaches the heart, moulds it, humbles it before the Cross, is rather the work of the homestead than the common school or the college. It is given by the parents rather than the schoolmaster—by the mother rather than the father.