RESPONSIBILITY OF PARENTS.
[Bro. Smith: The following item, on the responsibility of parents, I clipped some time since from an old paper. Should you think it would serve as a moderate intimation of Christian parents to more faithfully discharge their duty to their children, you can give it a place in the Review, if you would be pleased to do so. A. S. Hutchins.] "In Iceland, if a minor commits a crime, the parents are immediately arrested, and unless they can prove, to the satisfaction of the magistrate, that they have afforded to the child all needed opportunities of instruction, the penalty of the crime is visited upon them, and the child is placed under instruction." The Icelanders, it must be admitted, have just ideas of the relation of parents to children, and of the resulting responsibilities. The logic of their practice is by no means obscure or doubtful. This is your child, is it? Yes. He is guilty of the crime alledged, you admit? Yes. How came he to do such a thing? Was he not placed in your hands in his tenderest infancy? Did not God give him into your care on purpose that you should train him up in virtue and piety? When placed under your care, was not that mind plastic to the molding power of parental teaching and training? Could you not have then impressed indelibly the lessons of piety and virtue? Did you do it? If not, then does not the responsibility of failure in this case rest on you? Over and above this, to each Christian parent, God says—Devote your child to me under my revealed covenant, and I will accept the dedication. Train that child for me in humble faith, and I will aid your efforts. If you consent, I will be a God to you and your children after you. Now with such a superadded pledge of divine co-operation, why should Christian parents fail in their training of their children for God and for usefulness? Must they not stand indictable before not human laws only, but before the law and bar of God, if the early defection of their children prove that as parents, they have been recreant to their high, tender, and sacred obligations?