Parents abuse this mission in two ways, either when they by their own indolence and dissipation compel their children to support them; or, on the other hand, when they become the willing slaves of their children, labor to amass a fortune for them, and, in the anticipation of that, permit them to grow up in ignorance, idleness, and prodigality, fit only to abuse and spend the fruit of parental servitude.  In this way the misapplied provision made by parents often becomes a curse, not only to the members of the family, but to the state and church.

Another part of the home-mission is, the spiritual and eternal well-being of its members.  This is seen in the typical character of the Christian family.  It is an emblem of the church and of heaven.  According to this, parents are called to administer the means of grace to their household, to provide for soul as well as for body, to prepare the child for a true membership in the church, as well as for a citizenship in the state, to train for heaven as well as for earth.

Parents are “priests unto their families,” and have the commission to act for them as faithful stewards of God in all things pertaining to their everlasting welfare.  Their souls, as well as their bodies, are committed to their trust, and God says to them,—­

  “Go nurse them for the King of Heaven,
  And He will pay thee hire.”

This is their great mission, and corresponds with the conception of the Christian home as a spiritual nursery.  The family is “God’s husbandry;” and this implies a spiritual culture.  As its members dwell as “being heirs together of the grace of life,” it is the function of each to labor to make all the rest “fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.”  Parents should provide for the religious wants of their children.  Mere physical maintenance and mental culture cannot supersede the necessity of spiritual training.  Children have a right to such training.

This religious provision is twofold; their moral and spiritual faculties should be developed; and their moral nature supplied with appropriate nutriment.  All the wants of their moral nature are to be faithfully provided for.  The home-mission involves the business of education of body, of mind, and of spirit;—­of preparation for the state, for the church, for eternity.  It is this which makes it so sacred and responsible.  Strip the Christian family of its mission as a nursery for the soul; wrest from the parents their high prerogative as stewards of God; and you heathenize home, yea, you brutalize it!  Tell me, what Christian home can accomplish its holy mission, when the soul is neglected, when religion is left out of view, when training up for God is abandoned, when the church is repudiated, and eternity cast off?  You may provide for the body and mind of your children; you may amass for them a fortune; you may give them an accomplished education; you may introduce them into the best society;