are guilty of "blood." We see the curse of such neglect in that
deterioration of character which so rapidly succeeds parental delinquency.
They must answer before God for the loss which the soul, the state, and the
church sustain thereby. "It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah
in the day of judgment than for them."

The Christian home should be qualified for this mission. There can be no
such qualification, however, where the marriage alliance involves
inequality--one of the parents a Christian, the other not; for they cannot
"dwell together as heirs of the grace of life," neither can they
effectually dispense that grace to their offspring. When thus "the house is
divided against itself, it must fall." "Be ye not, therefore, unequally
yoked together." If one draws heavenward and the other hellward, there will
be a halting between Baal and God, and the influence of the one will be
counteracted by that of the other. What communion hath light with darkness?
"What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? What part hath he
that believeth with an infidel?" Thus divided, their home will be unfit for
its high vocation. Hence parents, in their marriage alliance as well as in
their individual character, should qualify themselves for the responsible
mission of home. Can the ungodly wife or husband fulfill this mission? Can
the irreligious parent bring up his offspring "in the nurture and
admonition of the Lord?"

Many parents disqualify themselves for their home-mission by devoting too
much attention to society,--by spending more time abroad, at parties,
theaters and masquerade balls, in gossiping and recreation, than at home
with each other and with their children. They commit their children, with
all the family interests, to nurses and servants. They regard their
offspring as mere playthings to be dandled upon the knee, brought up like
calves in the stall, and then turned out to shape their own destiny.