It will, however, be said by some, “Where are the natural guardians of the child?  Where are its parents?  Are we to encourage their neglect of duty, by becoming their substitutes?  It is their business to look after their children, and not ours.”  Frequently have I heard such sentiments put forth, and sometimes by persons in whom I knew they were rather owing to a want of reflection than of philanthropy.  But a want of thought, or of feeling, it must certainly be; because, on no principle of reason or humanity can we make the unnatural conduct of fathers and mothers, a plea for withholding our protection and assistance from the helpless objects of their cruelty and neglect.  If we do so, we not only neglect our duty towards such children, but permit the growth and extension of the evil.  We must recollect that they will not merely play their own wicked parts during their lives, but will also become models to the next generation.

It should be remembered here, that I am treating of an evil which extends itself to all classes of society; I am appealing to the prudence of men, that they may, for their own sakes, investigate its cause; I shall hereafter appeal to them as philanthropists, and, still more urgently, as Christians, that they may examine the merits of the remedy I shall propose.

The culpability of many parents is beyond dispute.  They not only omit to set their children good examples, and give them good advice, but, on the contrary, instil into their minds the first rudiments of wickedness, and lead them into the paths of vice.  Their homes present scenes which human nature shudders at, and which it is impossible truly to describe.  There are parents who, working at home, have every opportunity of training up their children “in the way they should go,” if they were inclined so to do.  Instead of this, we often find, in the case of the fathers, that they are so lost to every principle of humanity, that as soon as they receive their wages, they leave their homes, and hasten with eager steps to the public house; nor do they re-pass its accursed threshold, till the vice-fattening landlord has received the greater part of the money which should support their half-fed, half-clothed wives and children; and till they have qualified themselves, by intoxication, to act worse than brutes on their return home.  To men of this description it matters not whether or not their children are proving themselves skilful imitators of their evil example,—­they may curse and swear, lie and steal,—­so long as they can enjoy the society of their pot companions, it is to them a matter of total indifference.