indeed, provide for your household. You must be diligent in business.
You may--you ought in some good measure, to keep up with the spirit, the
progress of the age. But has it occurred to you that there is danger in
doing as you do; that you will neglect some other interests of your
children as important, to say the least, as those you have named? Are
not your children immortal? Have they not souls of priceless value? Have
they not tendencies to evil from the early dawn of their being? And must
not these souls be instructed--watched over? Do they not need
counsel--warning--restraint? "O yes!" I hear you say, "they must be
instructed--restrained--guided--all that, but this is the appropriate
business and duty of their _mother_. I leave all these to her. I have no
leisure for such cares myself; my business compels me to leave in charge
all these matters to her."

And where, my friend--if I may speak plainly--do you find any warrant in
the Word of God for such assumptions as these? Leave all the care of
your children's moral and religious instruction, guidance, restraint,
to their mother! It is indeed her duty, and in most cases she finds it
her pleasure, to watch over her beloved ones. And in the morning of
their being, and in the first years of their childhood, it is _hers_ to
watch over them, to cherish them, and to bring out and direct the first
dawnings of their moral and intellectual being.

But beyond this the duties of father and mother are coincident. At a
certain point your responsibilities touching the training of your
children blend. I find nothing in the Word of God which separates
fathers and mothers in relation to bringing up their children in the
ways of virtue and obedience to God.

I know what fathers plead. I see the difficulties which often lie in