Two things in particular have tended to break down the religious prestige of parents and to make our homes irreligious homes. The first is this: the lack of family worship and prayer. In many, aye, most cases the family altar has, to quote the language of another, "been carried to the woodshed, and there demolished for kindling." What multitude of homes are veritable boarding houses! Each member of the household comes, goes, eats, and sleeps at will. When you add to that the rush and push of modern business life, the spirit of the age, which regards religion lightly, the multiplied evening enjoyments, we have no time for family worship. But right there we are making an irreparable mistake--as foolish and worse than taking the roof off our house. Dear Christian parent, put that Bible back where it belongs; let never a day pass but a chapter is heard in your dwelling. Consider what I say, and the Lord grant you courage and blessing! Parents who do not fear and love God and live according to His commandments, what reason have they to complain when their children, misled by them, fail to fear and love God and live according to His commandments? So the second means of training up a child in the way he should go is by example. The third is discipline. Foolishness is in the heart of a child. "The imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth," says the Bible, and this foolish and evil heart shows itself very early and ugly betimes, and then needs restraint. Children must be trained in the way they should go, also in this particular; namely, to control their passions, to master their self-will; to render obedience, respect, deference to parents and all elders. A child is in a very precarious condition if it has gained the impression that it is too much for papa and mamma, and that it cannot be made to mind, and that papa and mamma cannot do a thing with it. And if the parents unfailingly take the side of their children when something comes up between them and some other party, as the teachers and neighbors, they may be certain that they are making all around good-for-nothing children of them. Children should be compelled to curb themselves, and not allow ugly words to come over their lips, or to frown, and scowl, and get into a fit of anger whenever they receive an order, or are reprimanded.--And how are parents to overcome disrespect and insubordination of children? First of all, they must cease to coddle their children, and connive at their faults, or laugh at their rudeness and misbehavior.