for good or for ill. Religious education--that is, the development of
their lives as religious persons--goes on all the time in the home, and
it is either for good or for ill.

Next to the idea of the continuous and all-pervasive character of this
process of religious development the most important thought for us is
that religious education in the home may be determined by ourselves.
This continuous, fateful process is not a blind, resistless one. It is
our duty to direct it. It is possible for wise parents to determine the
characters of their children. We must not forget this. It cannot be too
strongly insisted on. The development of life is under law. This is an
orderly world. Things do not just happen in it. We believe in a law that
determines the type of a cabbage, the character of a weed. Do we believe
that this universe is so ordered that there is a law for weeds and none
for the higher life of man? Do we hold that cabbages grow by law but
character comes by chance? If there is a law we may find it and must
obey it. If we may know how to develop character, with as great
certainty as we know how to do our daily work, will not this be our
highest task, our greatest joy, the supreme thing to do in life?


§ 4. THE CONSEQUENT OBLIGATION

This is the first great obligation of parents and of those who are
willing to accept the joys and responsibilities of parenthood. We have
no right to bring into this world lives with all the possibilities that
a religious nature involves unless we know how to develop those lives
for the best and from the worst. When we picture what a little child may
become, from the vile, depraved, despoiling beast or the despicable,
sneaking hypocrite on one extreme, to the upright, God-loving,