come up for consideration in a subsequent chapter, and
after the first branch has been thoroughly exhausted.
The object of this teaching is, then, moral or relig-
ious culture — the developing in the child those moral
or spiritual or religious powers^ capacities, or suscep-
tibilities, upon the exercise of which the spiritual life
depends. The moral consciousness must be brought
into exercise, the conscience be roused to action.
The first fact in the history of the spiritual life is to
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develop those feelings of misery or happiness follow-
ing certain actions. The person that does right feels
happy ; the person that does wrong feels miserable,
unhappy. These feelings lie at the foundation of all
spiritual life, and are our strongest protection against
wrong-doing. God has made us to be happy in the
performance of duly, and unhappy when we fail to do
it or do the reverse. The development of these ele-
mental and fundamental feelings in the spiritual life
depend upon the fact that the mind recognizes a dif-
ference in actions ; that there are some actions which
ought to be done, and others which ought not to be
done. As soon as this distinction is admitted by the
intellect these feelings are developed, and are neces-
sarily developed ; for they arise in the soul independ-
ent of the will, as much as does the feeling of pain
on the application of fire to the body.
Such being the psychological fact, it is apparent
that this distinction of acts into right and wrong, into
acts to be done and acts not to be done, is the first
impression which can and ought to be made on the
infant mind ; and this impression can be made before
the child is capable of apprehending the ground of
the distinction. To the infant the parent is God and
lawgiver. What he orders to be done is right, and
what he forbids to be done is wrong ; while the par-
ent's approval or disapproval is the test of the fact
whether actions are right or wrong. This impression
is deepened by the use of punisKment in some of its
many forms ; all having one object in view, the con-
viction in the mind of the child that it has done what
it ought not to doj because its parent, who loves it so
much, is angry, is pained, and inflicts pain on the child
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72 CRIME AND THE FAMILY.
for Ihe doing of the act it ought not to have done,
while the smile of joy and the outgushings of love fol-
low the doing of the act which the child ought to do.
It is not enough to command and enforce parental
laws and orders ; this savors of despotism, and in no
wise contributes to moral culture. The animal may-
be so governed ; but the spiritual being can only be
trained to go in the way it should go- There must be
moral culture, the education and development of the
moral powers. And this can only be done by impress-
ing on the infant mind that there is a wide distinction
in its acts; that it is bad for doing some things and
good for doing others ; that it merits its parent's blame
for some acts and praise for others. To create this
impression is not the work of a day; but must be
carried on through the whole period of childhood and
youth. The distinction should be kept up in reference
to all actions ; the child should become permanently
impressed with the idea that all its acts possess a
moral character; that there are no indifferent acts
which can escape this principle. While the child is
made to do right, it must understand that the requisi-
tion is made because it ought to be made, not because
the parent simply wills it so. Even recreation should
come within the grasp of this distinction ; dancing
may be proper, as a means of exercise to one con-
demned to a sedentary life, since physical exercise is
necessary to bodily health, and bodily health is neces-
sary to a successful culture of the spiritual powers and
life. In this way the conscience of the child will
be brought into exercise, its power to restrain be felt,
before the child is capable of understanding the true
ground of this distinction in actions. To it the parent
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is the standard of right and wrong, and it learns to
reverence him as the lawgiver and revealer.
In connection with this impression through which
the conscience is developed, the emotional nature
should be brought into exercise. The child should
learn to love. This emotion is produced by the
exhibition of the proper object. In the affectionate
kindness of the parent is . found a fit cause to waken
love, to develop that emotion which is the final result
of right living. Education which is not accompanied
with a development of the emotional nature will al-
ways fail to attain the highest end of all education —
the moral perfection of a human spirit. In this way
the parent is presented to the child as the ground of
right and the source of goodness — two characters cal-
culated to wake up in it the feelings of reverence and
the emotion of love. The child thus seejs that the
law, however unpleasant, originates in goodness, in
love ; and hence it can n^ver become a despotism to its
mind, never become hateful, but always appear as
embodied in the deepest love and the profoundest
sympathy. Great care should be taken to avoid de-
veloping the emotion of hate in reference to the parent
or to his commands. The firmness of the parent
should be warmed with the feelings of affection.. His
laws should appear to the child to originate in love —
in a single regard for the right, and the happiness of
the child. Acting on this principle, the parent will be
loved, and his teachings command the conscience and
stimulate the affections.
The next impression to be made, the next truth to
be taught, is the great fact of the existence of a God —
a fact which lies at the foundation of all morality, of
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74 CRIME AND THE FAMILY.
all religion, of all moral culture. This is the ultimate
fact — a fact behind and beyond which it is impossible
for the human mind to go. The atheist stops in the
material world as his ultimate fact, beyond which he
can not go ; but he who believes in human conscious-
ness and a spiritual life in humanity must go behind
the material world to that other fact, by the word of
which it is that this material world exists. But God
is not a mere fact ; He is an intelligent being, who not
only created, but governs His universe. .The idea of
an apathetic God is not the Christian idea of Him — is
not the character given to Him in the Christian scrip-
tures. He is there represented as not only having
created all things, but as constantly interested in all
the affairs thereof — in all the actions of the child as
well as of the man ; as concerning Himself in the
smallest as well as in the largest interests of humanity ;
as aiding man to discover the true and do the right ;
as listening to the cry of human anguish, and aiding
the wounded spirit in its feeble efforts to recover itself
from the effects of sin. He is represented as co-
working with all honest and earnest minds in that life-
work — the recovery of a spirit, gone astray in sin and
error, back again to that clear perception of the true,
and the regaining of that ability of doing right which
belongs to the human soul in its normal state. God
is said to be touched with the feelings of our infirmi-
ties ; nor could we go unto Him, when borne down
with disappointments and adversities, unless we be-
lieved not only that He is, but that He is also the re-
warder of those who diligently seek Him. It is this
fact that God will hear and aid, which alone can
justify and encourage the spirit, crushed under the
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consciousness of its own sins and weaknesses, to go lo
Him for help and succor in the day of its temptation,
in the hour of its humiliation, with the assurance that,
God helping, it may put off these habits of sin, get
rid of these impure thoughts and wandering desires,
and grow up into that spiritual life of love and purity
which Christianity holds up as a possibility for the
earnest and true worker according to the divine law.
There are great errors, even among religious people,
on this subject. I have heard it said, even in the pul-
pit, that God could not be affected with our prayers ;
that His purposes could not be changed by our inter-
cessions. This is not a true representation of the
character of God. His purpose is to save those who
do seek Him — to aid those who in their distress cry
unto Him. This is His plan for the recovery of fallen
humanity — a plan devised to meet our wants and oui;
true condition as fallen beings. We know God but
in Christ. ** He that has known me,'' says Christ,
** has known the Father.'' God is in Christ reconcil-
ing humanity unto Himself; and where can we find a
more earnest and loving manifestation toward man-
kind — toward man as an outcast from God, a wanderer
from His laws and His ways, a despiser of His com-
mands — than is seen in the life and character of Christ?
He came into this world in search of the lost — to bring
back the wanderer to God, and restore to purity and
Ivappiness a debased and suffering humanity. *' God
so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
Son to come into this world, that whosoever might
believe on Him should not perish,, but have everlast*
ing life." Surely, God is not indifferent to the wants
of humanity, but, on the contrary, is working with it
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76 * CRIME AND THE FAMILY.
to recover it back from the ruin in which it is in-
volved.
It is this idea of God which even a child is able to
apprehend, while to his mind a being symbolizing
only power would be incomprehensible. The great
fact should be impressed upon the infant mind in such
a way that it may in some faint degree apprehend its
truth. To accomplish this revelation, various modes
of teaching must be resorted to ; it is not an outward
form, but a thought, an idea, which is to be revealed
and taught. The material world can not reveal to us His
nature and His character ; it may symbolize His power.
The child is first to become_ acquainted with its
earthly parents ; in them it sees lawgivers, governors,
the givers of every good gift, and the authors of all
its little happiness. They represent to it all that is
great, wise, and good ; in them it sees beings who
command its reverence and its love. But these are
only its father and mother upon earth. It has another
and greater father — a Father in heaven ; and it should
be taught to lift its thoughts and affections up from this
father on earth to its greater Father in heaven, from
whom come, indeed, not only its earthly parents, but
all earthly good. It is .thus through a knowledge of
its earthly parents that the child is to belled to the idea
of its Father in heaven, of God, a spirit. It is this
Father in heaven who causes the earth to put on her
beautiful livery of green, who clothes it with robes of
living flowers, and covers its fields with the golden
harvests of autumn. Its earthly father has told it of a
right and a wrong, of things which it should do and
which it should not do, and now it learns that its
earthly parent was only telling it of the laws and com-
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mands of this heavenly Father, who is the maker of
all things and the governor of all men. It has been
clothed and fed and nurtured by its earthly father ; it
now learns that all these blessings come from its greater
Father in heaven, and that while, its earthly parents
were watching over it with so much care, and pouring
out upon it such rich treasures of affection , it was all done
because this greater Father in heaven told them to do
it. In this way the child may be led to form the idea
of an unseen Father — a being whom its eye hath not
seen nor its ear heard, but yet not less a f^ct than the
existence of the parents it does see and hear and know.
Next to the fact that He is, comes the character that
He possesses, the attributes with which He is endowed.
His power may be symbolized in the creation of the
material world. The child's attention need but be
called to such an effect as an evidence that the Being
who could speak all this into existence, must be pos-
sessed of unlimited power. His goodness may be sym-
bolized in the wonderful adaptation of the earth, and
the air, and the light, fo^ the happiness of His intelli-
gent creatures. He must love those on whom He thus
pours forth His blessings with such an unwithdrawing
hand. His holiness may be exhibited in the fact that
He declares what is right and wrong ; what His intel-
ligent creature must and must not do, and that in doing'
what He commands, God is pleased, but that He is
ever angry with him who does evil. The child should
be made to feel the truth that God is pleased when it
does right, and displeased when it does wrong. In
the fact that its earthly father punishes it when it does
wrong, it may learn that God also is angry with the
bad, with the wicked, with those who obey not His
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78 CRIME AND THE FAMILY.
commands. Its father on earth smiled upon it in love
when it did right and was obedient to his commands,
until its little heart is all aglow with love and joy ; and
it now learns that a Father in heaven will smile upon
it and fill its little life with blessedness, and make it
everlastingJy happy in His home in the heavens, if it
obeys His commands, and shapes its life by His law,
and walks in all the ways of truth and right.
The idea of God is thus to be revealed to the mind
of the child, through a knowledge of his father on
earth ; its mjnd is to be led upward to the thought, the
idea of a Father in heaven. It is only under this idea
of a father that even the matured mind can apprehend
God in some faint degree ; but to the child, to whose
mind the thought of God is presented, God becomes
indeed a Father in a higher sense than an earthly
father — a Father who watches over its little life, ini-»*
parts all its joy, assuages all its sorrows, and will in the
end bring it home to Himself in heaven, where dwells
perpetual light and an unalloyed happiness.
As the mind and reason of the child are developed
and gain strength to grasp higher truths, it may be
taught through the history and life of Christ a yet
higher idea of the character of its Father in heaven.
In that life it may see the model life of humanity — that
form of life to which all should aim, though none may
attain to the reality. In this manifestation of the union
of the divine with the human, it may be taught not
only what its own life ought to be, but also the deep
interest which its Father in heaven takes in its welfare
and happiness. Christ becomes its elder brother, sent
by his unseen Father to educate its mind and spirit
into all truth, and guide its steps in the way that leads
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to its final home with Christ and God in heaven. With
a settled and firm belief in such an idea of God and
humanity, it will have power to mold and shape its life
into conformity with that divine image of a perfected
humanity exhibited in the life of Jesus Christ.
This idea of God is not addressed to the understand-
ing, through sensation, but to the spirit, through the
reason. The reason is the faculty by which we appre-
hend spiritual truths— ideas which have no material ob-
jective existence, like matter. It is therefore not without
repeated efforts that the mind of the child can be made
to apprehend facts which lie beyond the cognizance of
the senses. We are compelled, through symbols and
comparisons and earthly relations, to suggest to the
mind, to the reason that unseen fact, those ideal truths —
facts and truths which become realities to the mind
only when they have become the object of faith, for
the spiritual life can only be developed by faith in the
unseen. The life we live is a life lived by faith in
God. These efforts, therefore, to impress the idea of
God upon the infant mind, must be repeated upon all
occasions ; line upon line and precept upon precept
must be the law of this education. The child must be
led to see God in everything, to recognize His presence
and the power of His love in all acts and thoughts.
It should be tauglit to see in its daily life, in the food
it eats, the clothes it wears, the happiness it experiences,
the agency of its heavenly Father. It should feel that
it is through His protecting power that it lies down
nightly to sweet repose, and wakes refreshed each
morning to the glories of the sunshine and to new joys.
The child should be impressed, too, with the thought
iliat the eye of God is ever upon him ; that He sees
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when no other eye can see, all its bad and wicked acts
and thoughts, and writes them down against it in that
mighty volume, the book of His remembrance; and
that hereafter a time shall come when it shall read out
of that volume the record of its most secret thoughts
and hidden acts — thoughts and acts which give it pain
now to recall to memory. This instruction, these im-
pressions can be given by hints, by suggestions, by a
single word, and often even by a look. It is not nec-
essary that it should be formal : it is better that it;
should be given as comments upon the daily acts of its
little life ; that it should come to this knowledge and
to these ideas as the boy in a store learns arithmetic
and the power of numbers by calculating the amount
of his daily purchases and sales. Such moral teaching
results in moral culture ; it brings into "exercise the
moral powers and susceptibilities of the spirit, and
daily widens and deepens the flow of that spiritual
life which knows no end. In this way the idea of
God will become a living reality in the life of the child,
as real to it as the sunshine and the rain, as seed-time
and harvest.
Great caution should be employed, in imparting this
idea of God, to avoid a wrong impression upon the in-
fant mind. The object of this teaching is twofold :
First, to reveal the fact of God's existence to the infant
mind ; second, by faith in this fact, to excite in the
spirit the emotions of reverence and love toward this
great Being. The child should never feel rising in
his spirit the emotion of fear at the mention of the
name of its heavenly Father ; fear and love are in-
compatible emotions ; hate keeps company with fear,
and love with reverence. We may hate whom we
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fear and love whom we reverence, but fiever the re-
verse. Perfect love casteth out fear. The object, then ,
to be aimed at, is to call up in the child love toward
God, whenever the thought of Him comes across the
mind. When, however, God is represented to the
child under the idea of Almighty Power, put forth
for the destruction of the wicked, fear, not love — ter-
ror, not reverence — is excited in the mind ; and the .
thought of God becomes painful to the child, because
the feelings of fear and terror are always painful ;
and, to avoid this pain, the child will labor to shut out*
from its mind all thought of God. The truth that God
is almighty, and that He will visit upon the wicked
punishment for their wickedness, has its application.
The terrors of the Almighty may be pressed upon thq
thoughtless, to bring them to reflect upon their course
of life ; but it is only the love of God which can
bring them to repentance. A knowledge of God will
produce one of two results upon every spirit: it will
call up in the mind the emotions of fear and of hate,
or of love and reverence ; and, as the one result or the
other is produced, that spirit will be happy or misera-
ble, since love is happiness and hate is misery. Nor
can any human soul escape the one or the other of
these results ; it must love God and be happy, or it will
hate Him and be miserable. Such was Milton's con-
ception of spiritual existences — the angels, which kept
their first estate, are represented as all aglow with the
emotion of love ; those who fell, as being all on fire
with the burning emotion of hate ; love leading the
one to worship and happiness, hate the other to re-
venge and misery :
6
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82 CRIME AND THE FAMILY.
"This must be our task
In Heaven, this our delight ; how wearisome
Eternity so spent, in worship paid
To whom we hate !
And bj proof we feel
Our power sufficient to disturb his Heaven,
And with perpetual inroads to alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne;
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.**
Those thoughts which work out m the life love to
God and man, are the true thoughts, and that life is
the perfected life of humanity.
The whole truth need not be presented to the infant
mind at first. It must be nurtured on the milk of the
Word ; it must be taught only those simple and practi-
cal truths which take direct hold upon the development
of its little life. These truths present God as the
Father of humanity, laboring for its recovery to a
spiritual life and its natural happiness, as happiness is
the normal condition of a spirit ; while misery is the
result of its having departed from the law of its crea-
tion, and thus introduced discord and misery into the
workings of the spiritual life. The fearful truth, that
to the workers of iniquity God is a consuming fire, is
well calculated for matured minds immersed in the
gross, material interests of life, and laboring solely
to lay up treasures on earth, forgetful of that richer
treasure to be laid up in heaven. Terror may startle
such minds, and rouse them up to thoughts of heaven
and hell, of God and eternity. It may startle, like
the cry of fire in the ear of one sleeping quietly, while
the flames of his dwelling are rapidly gathering around
his bed ; but other and different thoughts must be
cast into the minds of these startled sleepers, if they
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are to be brought to repentance and a new life. The
infant mind does not need to be startled ; it is awake,
it is alive. It is only the matured mind, which, im-
mersed in material cares, becomes dead in trespasses
and isins. To awake such to a consciousness of their
perilous condition, it may be necessary to turn upon
them the whole force of the lightning and thunders of
Sinai. But this is not that truth which in the mind
shall become the germ of a new and spiritual life ; not
that leaven which, when once taken into the soul, shall
leaven the whole man ; not that water, of which, if one
drink, it shall be in him a fountain of water gushing
up into everlasting life ; not that bread, of which, if
one eat, it shall become in him the germ of a per-
petual nourishment, so that one shall hunger no more
forever. It is by faith in God as our Father, caring
for His children, and aiding them in shaping their
lives according to His laws, that we daily become
more and ipore conformed in our minds to that per-
fect image which He has revealed in the person of
His Son. Many fatal mistakes are made, and many
a soul is driven away from a holy and spiritual life,
by a disregard of this distinction in those into whose
hands has fallen the culture of infant minds. Never
make your child afraid of God, lest it come to hate
Him ; but ever labor to present to the infant mind
such an idea of God as will call out the emotions of
love, and lead to reverence. Then will its little life,
culminate in that state described by Wadsworth :
" Rapt into still communion that transcends
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise,
His mind was a thanksgiving to the power
That made him ; it was blessedness and love."
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84 CRIME AND THE FAMILY.
As the mind acquires strength, and the circle of
thought begins to enlarge, another impression should
be made upon it in such a way as to become an un-
eradicable conviction, an ever-present reality. This
fact is, that the child, as it does things which it kilows
it ought not to do, and leaves undone things which it
knows it ought to do, is therefore a sinner. This
truth can not be taught dogmatically. It will do little
or no good to tell the child that it is a sinner ;. it must
be made conscious of that terrible fact. This can only
be done by calling its attention to those wrong acts of
which it is every day guilty, pointing out wherein the