Hence every babe will be the parent’s glory or the parent’s shame, their weal or their woe. If entrusted to them, God will hold them responsible for its moral training. He will require it from them with interest. Their trust involves the eternal happiness or misery of their child. The productions of art will perish; the sun will be blotted out, and all the glory and magnificence of the world will vanish away, but your babe will live forever. It will survive the wreck of nature, and either shine as a diadem in the Redeemer’s crown of glory, or dwell in the blackness and darkness of perdition forever.
To you, Christian parents, as the stewards of God, this precious being is entrusted. The care of its body, mind and spirit is committed to you; and its character and destiny in after life will be the fruit of your dealings with it. It looks to you for all things. It confides in you, draws its confidence from your protection, relies on your known love, takes you as the pattern of its life, imitates you as its example, learns from you as its teacher, is ruled by you as its governor, is measured by you as its model, feels satisfied with you as its sufficiency, and rests its all upon you as its all and in all.
Thus you are the very life and soul of its being, and hence in its maturity, it will be a fair exponent of your character. You are the center around which its life revolves, the circumference beyond which it never seeks to go. What, therefore, if you are unfit to move and act in its presence! What, if in its imitation of you, its life be a progressive departure from God! Oh, what, if in the day of judgment, it be an outcast from heaven, and, as such, bear the impress of a parent’s hand! God will then hold you accountable for every injury you may have done your child.
Begin, therefore, the work of training that infant, now, while its nature is pliable, susceptible, yet tenacious of first impressions. "With his mother’s milk the young child drinketh education." What you now do for your child will be seen in all future ages. "Scratch the green rind of a sapling, or wantonly twist it in the soil, the scarred and crooked oak will tell of thee for centuries to come." "It will not depart from the ways in which you train it." If, therefore, you would be a blessing to your child, and avert those terrible judgments of God which rest upon parental delinquency, begin now, while your infant is in the cradle, to sow the seeds of life. Prune well the tender olive plants, and direct its evolving life in the way God would have it go.
"Soon as the playful innocent can prove
A tear of pity or a smile of love,"
teach it to lisp the name of Jesus and to walk in His commandments. But alas! how many Christian parents are recreant to this duty! How many destroy their children by the over-indulgence of a misdirected love and sympathy, and by procrastinating the period of home-education. Forgetful of the power of first impressions, they wait until their children are established in sin, and the seeds of evil are sown in their hearts.
This is the reason why so many reckless and wicked children come out of Christian homes. Their parents permit their misdirected fondness to absorb all their thoughts and apprehensions of danger and responsibility. Their love for the body and mind of their children seems to repel all love for, or interest in, their soul. The former they tenderly nurse, fondly caress, and zealously direct. But the soul of the infant is unhonored, unloved and uncared for. It is blighted in its first bursting of beauty. Oh, cruel and unthinking parents! why will you thus abuse the loveliest and noblest part of your child? Why make that babe of yours a mere plaything? If "out of the mouths of babes and sucklings God has perfected praise," then why not train them up to praise Him? "Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven." Oh, you who are the nurse of infant innocence, have you ever thought of the deep curse that will attend your neglect of the babe which God has given you! Have you, pious mother, as you pressed your child to your bosom, ever thought that it would one day be a witness for or against you? Far better for thee and it that it were not born and you never revered as mother, than that you should nourish it for spiritual beggary here, and for the eternal burnings hereafter! Oh, look upon that babe! It is the gift of God—given to thee, mother, to nurse for Him. Look upon that cherished one! See its smile of confidence turned to you! It is a frail and helpless bark on the tumultuous sea of life; it looks to you for direction,—for compass and for chart; your prayers for it will be heard; your hand can save it; the touch of your impressions will be a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death.
"Then take the heart thy charms have won,
And nurse it for the skies!"