The warden of a certain State prison, who is a student of human nature, said to some visitors one day, "If a child is properly educated to the age of ten, no matter what its inheritance, it never becomes a criminal." His sentence includes all the needed preventatives of crime.
Oliver Wendell Holmes when asked, "When should a child's education begin?" promptly replied, "Two hundred years before it is born."
There would be little or no need of the rescue missionaries had parents and guardians but heeded these words in Deut. 6:5-7: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thy heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thine houses, and on thy gates." "O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children forever!" Deut. 5:29.
It is very, very blessed to undertake the part of a good Samaritan. It is far more blessed so to know and serve the Lord, that our present and future progeny, instead of sharing a destiny similar to many of these depicted between these pages, may, under any and all circumstances, enjoy the everlasting smile of His countenance, that peace and joy in their souls which this world can never give, neither take away.
Lord, we pray thee, "so teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." Psa. 90:12.