parentage, are more influential upon the future character and destiny of
the child than all the other agencies put together.

The true divine origin of the domestic economy is to train children, by
habits of virtue, obedience, and piety in the family, to become useful
members of society at large and good subjects of the State, and above
all to be fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of faith.
In order to this the strict maintenance of family religion is absolutely
essential. It is therefore laid down as an axiom that no State can be
prosperous where family order and religion are generally neglected. The
present condition of France, and the so far successful villainy of her
perjured usurper, are in proof of this position, which was understood by
one of her statesmen a few years ago, when he said with emphasis on his
dying bed, "What France wants is family religion; what France wants is
family religion."

On the contrary, every State _will be prosperous_, whatever its
political institutions, where family religion and healthy domestic
discipline are strictly maintained. Disorderly and irreligious families
are the hot-beds of disorderly and irreligious citizens; on the other
hand, families in which God is honored, and the children educated under
the hallowed influences of family religion, are heaven's own nurseries
for the State and the Church. The considerations which should urge every
Christian householder to be strict in the maintenance of family religion
are therefore both patriotic and religious. The good results of such
fidelity and strictness on the part of parents are by no means limited
to their own children, as the experience of a pious tradesman, related
to his minister in a conversation on family worship, most instructively
proves.