t was wise
in Jesus to desire to have them brought early to him that they might
learn to use that influence in the best possible way.

And then it was wise in Jesus to desire this, again, _because
bringing children to him prevents great trouble, and secures great
blessing_.

We are all familiar with Dr. Watts' sweet hymn, which says:

"'Twill save us from a thousand snares
To mind religion young."

Here is a striking illustration of this truth in the history of:

"One Neglected Child." A good many years ago, in one of the upper
counties of New York, there was a little girl named Margaret. She
was not brought to Christ, but was turned out on the world to do as
she pleased. She grew up to be perhaps the wickedest woman in that
part of the country. She had a large family of children, who became
about as wicked as herself; her descendants have been a plague and a
curse to that county ever since. The records of that county show that
two hundred of her descendants have been criminals. In a single
generation of her descendants there were twenty children. Three of
these died in infancy. Of the remaining seventeen, who lived to grow
up, nine were sent to the state prison for great crimes; while all
the others were found, from time to time, in the jails, the
penitentiaries, or the almshouses. Nearly all the descendants of this
woman were idiots, or drunkards, or paupers, or bad people, of the
very worst character. That one neglected child thus cost the county
in which she lived hundreds of thousands of dollars, besides the
untold evil that followed from the bad examples of her descendants.
How different the result would have been if this poor child had been
brought to Jesus and made a Christian when she was young!

"The Result of Early Choice." Here is a short story of two boys, of
the choice they made when young, and the different results that
followed from that choice.

A minister of the gospel was preaching on one occasion to the
convicts in the state prison of Connecticut. As he rose in the desk
and looked around on the congregation, he saw a man there whose face
seemed familiar to him. When the service was over he went to this
man's cell, to have some conversation with him.

"I remember you very well, sir," said the prisoner. "We were boys in
the same neighborhood; we went to the same school; sat beside each
other on the same bench, and then my prospects were as bright as
yours. But, at the age of fourteen, you