Parental Responsibility
By J. W. Lowe
The Sacred Duty Can Not Be Delegated
IT is the first and most important work of all parents, especially Christian parents, to make every proper effort to train their children aright. Many parents are very anxious to do missionary work outside their own family, when at the same time their own children are sadly neglected. Heredity undoubtedly influences the life of an individual; but proper training of the young has more to do in shaping their future than anything else that can be done in their behalf. And who is to supply this training, if not their parents? Teachers can do much in molding the character of the young, but this work must fall largely upon the parents. And they are under obligation to provide for all the needs of the family. Some parents seem to think that when they have supplied their children with necessary food and clothing, their responsibility has reached its limit; but the moral and spiritual education that children ought to receive is infinitely more important than their food and raiment. The mere rearing of one's family is likely to look so insignificant compared with what can be done in the world at large! So while the parents seek for some large work outside, the children are neglected, and left to come up according to their own inclination and wayward tendencies, and too often, to perish. The ambition to become a missionary, even to going to foreign fields, is a worthy one; but the parents' first missionary field should be their own household. If they perform their duty there faithfully and successfully, they will be better qualified to labor for others; but if they fail as parents, they will never succeed as missionaries, unless they have first experienced a reformation. But the training of our own children is not a small undertaking. It is the work God has appointed fathers and mothers to do, and it is the greatest and most acceptable that they can do. If all the parents in the world would do their entire duty in the training of their children, what a great work would be accomplished!
J. W. LOWE.