Children renew the youth of their parents and enable them to mount up with wings as eagles, instead of becoming chained to the rock of selfishness. We do not believe that "all children are born good," for it is the experience of every one that the evil tendencies of fathers are visited upon their children unto the third and fourth generation. Nevertheless all men are exhorted by the highest authority to follow their innocency, which is great indeed as compared to _our_ condition who-- "Through life's drear road, so dim and dirty, Have dragged on to three-and-thirty." "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein." Evil tendencies are checked and good ones are educated or drawn out by children, for they call to remembrance-- "Those early days, when I Shined in my angel-infancy, Before I taught my tongue to wound My conscience with a sinful sound, Or had the black art to dispense A several sin to every sense, But felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots of everlastingness." When daily farther from the east--from God who is our home--we have travelled, children are sent to recall us or at least to make us long "to travel back, and tread again that ancient track." Whatever we attempt to teach children we must first practise ourselves. Whatever a parent wishes his child to avoid he must make up his mind to renounce, and, on the other hand, if we leave off any good habit, we need not expect our children to continue it. Only the other day I heard a boy of five say to his father, "You must not be cross, for if you are, I shall be that when I grow up." "Mother," said a small urchin, who had just been saying his prayers at her knees; "Mother, when may I leave off my prayers?" "Oh, Tommy, what a notion! What do you mean?" "Well, mother, father never says his prayers, and I thought I was old enough to leave them off." In young children the capacity for mimicry is very strong. They imitate whatever they see done by their elders. How wrong, then, is it for people to say or do before even a very young child what they would not say or do before an adult, supposed to be more observant! We must not say, "Oh, there's no one present but the child," for "the child" is reading, marking, and inwardly digesting character as it is exhibited in words, looks, and deeds. For the sake, then, of their children, if not for their own sakes, parents should seek to be very self-restrained, truthful, and, above all things, just. Right habits are imparted to children almost as easily as wrong ones.