"Go ask that musing father, why yon grave So narrow, and so noteless,
might not close Without a tear?"

Because of the bitter and heart-stricken memories of a neglected, ruined
child that slumbers there!

Or suppose that you die before your neglected children, think you not that
the recollection of your past parental unfaithfulness will plant thorns in
your pillow, and invest with deeper shades of horror your descent to the
dark valley of death? And oh, when you meet them before the bar of the
avenging judge, most fearful will be your interview with them. Tell me, how
will you dare to meet them there, when the voice of their blood will cry
out from the hallowed ground of home against you! And then, eternity, oh,
eternity! who shall bring out from the secrets of the eternal world, those
awful maledictions which God has attached to parental unfaithfulness?

Provide, therefore, for your family as the Lord commands. Remember that if
you do not, you "deny the faith and are worse than an infidel;" and in the
day of Judgment "it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for
you."




CHAPTER III.

FAMILY RELIGION.

"Lo! where yon cottage whitens through the green,