Thus does the Christian home often become adulterated with the world by its indiscriminate association with unfit social elements.  That portion of society whose master-spirits are love-stricken poets, languishing girls, amorous grandmothers, and sap-headed fiction writers, is certainly unfit for a place in the parlor of the Christian family.  We should not permit the principles of common-sense decorum to give place to the lawless vagaries of fancy and the hollow-hearted forms of artificial life.  Under the gaudy drapery of smiles and flounces, of rustling silks and blandishments, there are hearts as brutish and stultified, and heads as brainless and incapable of gentle and moral emotion, and characters as selfish and ungenerous, as were ever concealed beneath the rags of poverty, or the uncouth manners and rough garb of the incarcerated villain!

It is, therefore, beneath the dignity of the Christian to permit his home to become in any way a prey to immoral and irreligious associations and influences.  Like the personal character of the Christian, it should be kept unspotted from the world; and no spirit, no customs, no companions, opposed to religion, should be permitted to enter its sacred limits.  Heedless of this important requisition, parents may soon see their children depart from the ways in which they were trained in the nursery, and at last become a curse to them, and bring down their gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.

Here is indeed the great fault of many Christian parents in the present day.  They do not exert that guardian care they should over the social relations and interests of their children.  They are too unscrupulous in their introduction to the world, and leave them in ignorance of its snares and deceptions.  What results can they look for if they permit their parlor tables to become burdened with French novels, and their children to mingle in company whose influence is the most detrimental to the interests of pure and undefiled religion?  Can they reflect upon their daughters for forming improper attachments and alliances?  Can they wonder if their sons become desperadoes, and ridicule the religion of their parents?  No!  They permitted them to dally with the fangs of a viper which found a ready admittance into their parlor; and upon them, therefore, will rest the responsibility,—­yea, the deep and eternal curse!  Woe unto thee, thou unfaithful parent; the voice of thy children’s blood shall send up from the hallowed ground of home, one loud and penetrating cry to God for vengeance; and thou shalt be “beaten with many stripes.”  It will not only cry out against you, but cling to you!