ious belief in the education of children. Where the
parents differ, the one being an unbeliever, the other a believer, it is
almost impossible for anybody to lay down a general rule. The present
writer certainly has no ambition to attempt the thorny task of compiling
a manual for mixed marriages. It is perhaps enough to say that all would
depend upon the nature of the beliefs which the religious person wished
to inculcate. Considering that the woman has an absolutely equal moral
right with the man to decide in what faith the child shall be brought
up, and considering how important it is that the mother should take an
active part in the development of the child's affections and impulses,
the most resolute of deniers may perhaps think that the advantages of
leaving the matter to her, outweigh the disadvantages of having a
superstitious bias given to the young mind. In these complex cases an
honest and fair-minded man's own instincts are more likely to lead him
right than any hard and fast rule. Two reserves in assenting to the
wife's control of early teaching will probably suggest themselves to
everybody who is in earnest about religion. First, if the theology which
the woman desires to instill contains any of those wicked and depraving
doctrines which neither Catholicism nor Calvinism is without, in the
hands of some professors, the husband is as much justified in pressing
his legal rights over the child to the uttermost, as he would be if the
proposed religion demanded physical mutilation. Secondly, he will not
himself take part in baptismal or other ceremonies which are to him no
better than mere mummeries, nor will he ever do anything to lead his
children at any age to suppose that he believes what he does not
believe. Such limitations as these are commanded by all considerations
alike of morality and good sense.

To turn to the more normal case where either the man has had the wise
forethought not to yoke himself unequally with a person of ardent belief
which he does not share, or where both parents dissent from the popular
creed. Here, whatever difficulties may attend its application, the
principle is surely as clear as the sun at noonday. There can be no good
plea for the deliberate and formal inculcation upon the young of a
number of propositions which you believe to be false. To do this is to
sow tares not in your enemy's field, but in the very ground which is
most precious of all others to you and most full of ho