bring infamy upon the Christian home.

Some parents do not proceed quite so far. They indulge in the feeling of
sympathy for their children; but alas! that feeling is never expressed in
efforts to save them. It is all expended in vain and fruitless
lamentations, and is, therefore, at best but a morbid sentimentalism,--but
a cloak behind which are lurking parental hard-heartedness and religious
apathy; proving plainly the great truth advanced by Adams, in his Elements
of Christian Science, "that an indulgence in the feelings of sympathy
without carrying them out to the relief of actual distress, produces
hardness of heart to such a degree that the most pitiless and cruel, the
most licentious and unnatural, and ungrateful conduct shall be joined with
the most overflowing and deeply thrilling sentiment."

Let those parents who are ever lamenting the wickedness of their children,
but do nothing to make them better, ponder well this sentiment, and see it
in the grin, of their own hypocrisy, and the desolation of their injured
home and children. Let the other members, as well as the parents, take the
timely warning. Let the pious wife here see the character of her sympathy
for her impenitent husband. And let each see that their pious sympathy
"always issue forth in actions." Let that sympathy give not only eloquence
to the tongue, tears to your eye, and sighs to your heart, but also
faithfulness to your life and holy calling. As the cry of hunger from your
children, and their shivering cold in winter, prompt you to provide for
their natural wants, so let their moral wants impel you to fidelity to
their souls. All will be vain without this. The stern demands of a father's
authority, and the formal teachings of a mother's lip, will fall like the
frost of a winter's morning, upon their tender hearts,--only to sear and to
harden and to freeze up the heart against God. For

"He will not let love's work impart
Full solace, lest it steal the heart."

But when pure and holy sympathy goes out, in its softening influence after
the young;--

"Then, feeling is diffused in every part,
Thrills in each nerve, and lives in all the heart."

Such sympathy has a saving influence upon both the parent and the child.
It softens and refines the former, while it forms and allures the latter.
The child fondly leans upon the parents, looks up to them for support and
enjoyment, and is led by them in whatever path they choose. By its
influ