To encourage Christian parents to give their children a good religious education, God has given them numerous examples, from both sacred and profane history, of conversion and eminent piety in the age of childhood, as the direct fruit of early parental instruction.  Look, for instance, at the child Samuel worshiping the Lord.  Look, too, at the case of Moses and of David, of Joseph and of John the Baptist.  Dr. Doddridge, we are told, “was brought up in the early knowledge of religion by his pious parents.”  His mother “taught him the history of the Old and New Testaments before he could read, by the assistance of some Dutch tiles in the chimney of the room where they commonly sat; and her wise and pious reflections on the stories there represented were the means of making some good impressions on his heart, which never wore out.”  An eminently pious minister thus writes to his parents, confirming by his own blessed experience the early fruits of religious training:  “I verily believe that had my religious training been confined to the gleanings of the Sabbath school, instead of the steady enforcement of the Mosaic arrangement at home by my parents, I might now be pursuing a far different course, and living for a far different end.  Many, very many times, as early in childhood as I can recollect, has the Spirit of God convicted me of sin, as my father at home has taught me out of the scriptures, and I cannot easily forget that the same high-priest of the home-church once tore from me the hypocrite’s hope.  And that dear place had another to carry on the work; gentler but not weaker; and memory recalls a mother pressing her face close to mine as she often knelt with me before the mercy-seat.  I will not cast reproach on any institution which has been productive of good to myself and to others, but with profound gratitude will say, home was the place of my spiritual nativity, and my parents were God’s instruments in leading me to Christ!”

The eminent piety of Dr. Dwight stands on record as the fruit of a mother’s faithful religious training; for “she taught him from the very dawn of reason to fear God and keep His commandments, and the impressions then made upon his mind in infancy, were never effaced.”  The mother of young Edwards is another example of early piety as the fruit of religious home-culture.  The aged Polycarp, when under arrest during the persecution under Marcus Aurelius, in reply to the injunction of the pro-consul, “Swear, curse Christ, and I release thee!” exclaimed, “Six and eighty years have I served Him, and He has done me nothing but good; and how could I curse Him, my Lord and Saviour?” Thus showing himself to have been a Christian at the early age of four years!  It was through the instructions of his grandmother Lois, and his mother Eunice, that young Timothy “knew from a child the holy scriptures, which made him wise unto salvation.”