Page:Great importance of parental instruction.pdf/4

 dispute. Hence that impatient, peevish,, temper, so common to very young children, especially after indulgence and hence their readier and easier imitation of a bad, than of a good example. Now, if no wholesome restraint is imposed, if this evil bias is not counteracted, what are we to expect? What, but all that folly, all that deceit, all that disobedience, and all those other vicious propensities, which, alas, we have too frequent reason to lament in the disposition and behaviour of our youth The mind cannot remain wholly inactive It has received a productive energy from Creator, and unless the seeds of virtue are early sown in its soil, that energy will be spent on the weeds and poisonous fruits of vice. Left without moral cultivation resembles the field of the sluggard, and the vineyard of the man void of understanding. The passenger remarks that "it is all grown over with thorns, and nettles have covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof is broken down." And what parent so insensible as not to feel those thorns and nettles in the untoward disposition of his neglected child? It may be, he is indifferent about the culture of the tender mind but he will often be chagrined with the sad consequences of that indifference. He may not sufficiently feel the importance of