It gives the first tone to our
desires, and furnishes ingredients that will either sweeten or embitter the
whole cup of life. These impressions are indelible, and durable as life.
Compared with them, other impressions are like those made upon sand or wax.
These are like "the deep borings into the flinty rock." To erase them we
must remove every strata of our being. Even the infidel lives under the
holy influence of a pious mother's impressions. John Randolph could never
shake off the restraining influence of a little prayer his mother taught
him when a child. It preserved him from the clutches of avowed infidelity.

The promises of God bear testimony to the influence of the Christian home.
"When he grows old he will not depart from it!" History confirms and
illustrates this. Look at those scenes of intemperance and riot, of crime
and of blood, which throw the mantle of infamy over human life! Look at
your prisons, your hospitals, and your gibbets; go to the gaming-table and
the rum-shop. Tell me, who are those that are there? What is their history?
Where did they come from? From the faithful Christian home? Had they pious
fathers and mothers? Did they go to these places under the holy influence
of devout and faithful parents? No! And who are they that are dying without
hope and without God? Who are they that now throng the regions of the
damned? Those who were "trained up in the way they should go?" No! if they
are, then the promises of God must fail. You may perhaps find a few such.
But these are exceptions to a general law. The damning influence of their
unfaithful home brought them there. Could they but speak to us from their
chambers of wo, we should hear them pouring out curses upon their parents,
and ascribing the cause of their ruin to their neglect. On the other hand,
could we but listen to the anthems of the redeemed in heaven, we should
doubtless hear sentiments of gratitude for a mother's prayer and a father's
counsel.

Let us now briefly advert to the objects of home-influence. It is exerted
upon the members of home, especially upon the formation of their character
and destiny. It moulds their character. The parents assimilate their
children to themselves to such an extent that we can judge the former by
the latter. Lamartine says that, when he wants to know a woman's character,
he ascertains it by an inspection of her home,--that he judges the daughter
by the mother. His judgment rests upon the known influe