Great are the responsibilities of the husband. Great are the responsibilities of the wife, but greater are the responsibilities of parents. Father and mother, God lays a responsibility upon you as you receive your new-born child. A precious little immortal soul, whose eternal destiny depends largely upon you. The proper training of children is attended with many difficulties, and every parent certainly needs instruction from God. Your child is given you from God, and you in return should give him trustingly to God, like a mother of olden time: “For this child I prayed: and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him: therefore also I have lent [see margin] him to the Lord: as long as he liveth he shall be lent to the Lord.” 1 Sam. 1:27, 28. This is the consecration of children to God, which is the first duty of parents. The successful training of a child, especially in the first years of its life, is due more to example than to commandment. The influence of example upon youthful minds is rarely comprehended. We are commanded to be an example in faith, purity, conversation, charity, spirit, and to be a pattern of good works. It is the parents’ duty to love their children. Titus 2:4. Perhaps every parent thinks and is ready to say, “I love my child.” True love as required by the Bible comprehends more than you may have been aware. They who indulge their children in a worldly life do not love them as the Bible commands. Because the priest Eli did not restrain his children from the ways of sin, God sent an awful judgment upon him. 1 Sam. 3. If parents love their children as they should they will do the very best thing for them. Now the instructions given in the Bible are the safest and best to follow. As you looked into the face of this thine own child did you remember the little treasure was a heritage from the Lord? “Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.” Psa. 127:3. It may be that you were unmindful of this “fruit of the womb” being a gracious heritage from God: but such it was. In the creation of man and woman they were formed to bear offspring. When Esau and Jacob met after their long separation and enmity, Esau inquired, “Who are those with thee?” Jacob replied, “The children which God hath graciously given thy servant.” Gen. 33:5. Blessed and happy is the man that can look into the face of the newly-born and feel in his heart that this is a child graciously given me of God.