There is indeed nothing more honorable, nothing more meritorious, nothing which conducts to higher perfection, than to instruct children in their religious duties. This instruction of children is a royal, apostolic, angelic, and divine function. _Royal_, because the office of a king is to protect his people from danger. _Apostolic_, because our Lord commissioned apostles to instruct the nations, and, as St. Jerome says, thus made them the saviours of men. _Angelic_, because the angelical spirits in heaven enlighten, purify, and perfect each other according to their spheres, and their earthly mission is to labor without ceasing for the salvation of man. St. Peter Chrysologus calls those who instruct others in the way of salvation, "the substitutes of angels." Indeed this mission of mothers is divine; they are called to carry on the very work of God Himself. Everything that Almighty God has done from the creation of the world, and which He will continue to do to the end, has been, and will be, for the salvation of mankind. For this He sent His Son from heaven, who enlightened the world by His doctrine, and who still continues to instruct His people by His chosen disciples. Those mothers, then, who direct their children in the paths to heaven, who allure them from vice, who form them to virtue, may fitly be termed apostles, angels, and saviours. Oh! what glory awaits those mothers who perform the office of angels, and even of God Himself, in laboring for the salvation of the souls of their children. If this employment is honorable for mothers, it is also not less meritorious for them. What is the religious instruction of children, but conferring on a class of our race, the weakest and most helpless, with inconceivable labor and fatigue, the greatest of all blessings? For while the physical development of the child advances with age, it is not so with the mental; for religious instruction only can develop the noble faculties of the soul. The soul of a child, so to speak, would continue to live enshrouded in Pagan darkness, if the mother did not impart and infuse the light of truth. All the gold in the world is but dross in comparison with true religious knowledge. Our Saviour says: "Whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones, even a cup of cold water, shall not lose his reward."--(Matt. x. 42.) May we not infer that those mothers who bestow upon children the treasures of divine knowledge will receive an exceedingly great reward? If God denounces so severely those who scandalize little children: "But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones, it were better for him that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matt. xviii. 6), what recompense will mothers not receive who instruct and sanctify them?