e
families that have not called upon thy name." Oh then, make your home a
house of prayer; lead your little flock in sweet communion with God.
Establish in them the habit of devotion: Shape their consciences by prayer.
In this way you shall secure for yourself and them the blessing of God: His
smile shall ever rest upon your household: Salvation shall be the heritage
of your children; they will grow up in the divine life; and will live amid
the blessing's of prayer, and be faithful to its requisitions:

"Hold the little hands in prayer, teach the weak knees their kneeling;
Let him see thee speaking to thy God; he will not forget it afterwards;
When old and gray will he feelingly remember a mother's tender piety,
And the touching recollection of her prayers shall arrest the strong man
in his sin!"

CHAPTER XVI.

HOME-EDUCATION.

SECTION I.

THE CHARACTER OF HOME EDUCATION.

"Scratch the green rind of a sapling, or wantonly twist it in the soil,
The scarred and crooked oak will tell of thee for centuries to come;
Wherefore, though the voice of instruction waiteth for the ear of reason,
Yet with his mother's milk the young child drinketh education."

We come now to consider one of the most important features of the Christian
home, viz., as a school for the education of character. This is important
because of its vital bearing upon the interests of home. The parent is not
only king and priest, but prophet in the family. It is the first school. We
there receive a training for good or for evil. There is not a word, nor an
emotion, nor an act, nor even a look there, which does not teach the child
something. Character is ever being framed and moulded there. Every habit
there formed, and every action there performed, imply a principle which
shall enter as an element into the future character of the child.

What is home-education? It is the physical, mental, moral, and religious
development of the child. To educate means to draw out as well as to instil
in. It means the evolution of our nature as well as the communication of
facts and principles to us. The home training does not, therefore, consist
of simple information, but is a nurture of body, mind and spirit. From this
we may infer the frequent mistakes of parents, in substituting mere
book-learning for a training up and nurture, dealing with their children as
if they had no faculties, and making the entire education of their children
me