Page:Great importance of parental instruction.pdf/14

 before the Judge of all, it is past time to correct the error. As the tree falls, so must it lie.” And if the surviving parent is now made conscious of having withheld from that soul means of spiritual life, how shocking must the reflection be! It is now only, but too late, that he feels the weighty importance of that solemn charge given by the Lord to the prophet, as if it had been actually addressed to himself; "Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, thou shalt surely die, and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked of his way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand." What an awful accountableness is here expressed! A parent who appropriates such a charge as this, and whose conscience accuses him of having neglected, till it is too late, to fulfil it; is no enviable case. I believe that it is often the regret of the best of men, when their children are taken from them, that their religious instruction has been so deficient. Upon these occasions, a new solicitude about the fate of their offspring is excited. However great their concern, however strong their exertions when opportunities