be to them if they abuse that grace! Children should remember that
their parents have received this special grace from God to advise,
direct, and warn them of sin; and if they refuse to obey their parents
or despise their direction, they are despising God's grace. Remember
that nothing teaches us so well as experience. Now your parents, even if
God gave them no special grace, have experience. They have been children
as you are; they have been young persons as you are; they have received
advice from their parents and teachers as you do. If your parents are
bad, it is because they have not heeded the advice given them. If they
are good, it is because they have heeded and followed it. The years of
your youth quickly pass, and you will soon be thrown out into the world,
among strangers to provide for yourselves, and will perhaps have no one
to advise you. If you neglect to learn while you have the opportunity
you will be sorry for it in after life. If you waste your time in
school, you will leave it knowing very little, and an ignorant man can
never take any good position in the world; he can seldom be his own
master and independent; he must always toil for others as a servant. God
gives us our talents and opportunities that we may use them to the best
of our ability, and He will hold us accountable for these. It is good
and praiseworthy to raise ourselves and others in the world if we do so
by lawful and proper means. You may have the opportunity of getting a
good position, and will not be able to take it because you are not
sufficiently educated. Many young men live to be sorry for wasting time
in school, and try to make up for it by studying at night. You cannot
really make up for lost time. Every moment God gives you He gives for
some particular work, and He will require an account from you, at the
last day, for the use you made of your time. Besides, you can learn with
greater ease while you are young. But what shall I say of neglecting to
learn your holy religion? If you neglect your school lessons you will
not be successful in the world as businessmen or professional men; but
if you neglect your religious lessons, you will be miserable, not merely
in this world, but in the next, and that for all eternity. Again, will
you not feel ashamed to say you are a Catholic when persons who are not
Catholics ask you the meaning of something you believe or do, and you
will not be able to answer? When they tell falsehoods against yo