Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/281

 prayer, and to communicate every day, they should be damned if they neglected the care of their children. "Would to God that certain parents paid as much attention to their children as they do to their horses! How careful are they to see that their horses are fed and well trained! And they take no pains to make their children attend at catechism, hear mass, or go to confession. "We take more care ” says St. Chrysostom, "of our asses and horses, than of the children.  ” (Hom, x., in Matt.) 4. If all fathers fulfilled their duty of watching over the education of their children, we should have but few crimes and few executions. By the bad education which parents give to their offspring, they cause their children, says St. Chrysostom, to rush into many grievous vices; and thus they deliver them up to the hands of the executioner.  ” Majoribus illos malis involvimus, et carnificum manibus damus." (Serin, xx., de divers.) Hence, in Lacedemon, a parent, as being the cause of all the irregularities of his children, was justly punished for their crimes with greater severity than the children themselves. Great indeed is the misfortune of the child that has vicious parents, who are incapable of bringing up their children in the fear of God, and who, when they see their children engaged in dangerous friendships and in quarrels, instead of correcting and chastising them, rather take compassion on them, and say: ” What can be done? They are young; they must take their course." Oh! what wicked maxims! what a cruel education! Do you hope that when your children grow up they shall become saints? Listen to what Solomon says: ” A young man, according to his way, even when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov. xxii. 6.) A young man who has contracted a habit of sin will not abandon it even in his old age. ” His bones," says Job, ” shall be filled with the vices of his youth, and they shall sleep with him in the dust." (Job xx. 11.) When a young person has lived in evil habits, his bones shall be filled with the vices of his youth, so that he will carry them with him to death; and the impurities, blasphemies, and hatred to which he was accustomed in his youth, shall accompany him to